Controlled by the Logans

Last night, Rowan decided he will bequeath this shirt to his younger cousin, Cam.

"Too small for you?"

"No."

"You just think Cam will like it?" When Rowan gave Cam his old backpack, Cam wore it for approximately 172 consecutive hours. Cam is like Rowan's Dobby the House Elf.

"I don't know." He looked down and kicked at the floor with his big toe.

"What are you thinking about, buddy?"

"I just don't want it anymore. It's...embarrassing."

"It's embarrassing? Like, you're embarrassed to tell me?"

"No. The shirt is embarrassing. Because it says 'Daddy' on it."

A single trombone played a dirge in a far desolate corner of my brain, but I played it cool.

"'Daddy,' huh? Not what the kids are saying in kindergarten these days?"

"Everybody says 'Dad,' and when I said 'Daddy,' Logan laughed at me."

"Ah."

Now didn't seem the time for a pep talk on being one's own person. Nor did it seem the time to address inconsistencies in his feelings of embarrassment, such as his literally wide open attitude toward bathroom doors. And it definitely wasn't the time to remind him that sometimes he still calls me Da-da.

"Rowan, Cam's going to love that shirt."

"Never mind, Daddy." Okay, he did NOT actually say, "Never mind, Daddy." But in a more cinematic version of this story, that's what he said. And in that version, I held out my hand, but instead he came in for the hug, and the credits rolled. In the real version, the perfectly imperfect version, he just nodded and ran off, and I started (and continue) to think about how to teach him not to be controlled by the Logans of the world.