I love my daughters

After dinner last night, my 11-year-old asked my husband to debate same-sex marriage with her (because she likes to debate). She asked him to take the anti-equality stance. He obliged, and she proceeded to give a really excellent refutation of every argument the anti-equality people have come up with. Did I mention that she’s 11?

And then there’s the other one, who turns 15 this week. For her English class yesterday, she had to write a short story using specific words. Here’s what she came up with:

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Charles. He was a very taciturn boy, rarely speaking to anybody. Then one day he met a girl named Mabel. Charles was very melancholy when he first met Mabel, but her amiable manner soon cheered him up. His parents’ fears of him never having any friends were assuaged, and Charles and Mabel got along swimmingly.

Charles and Mabel had a tacit agreement that they would take each other everywhere whenever they went out with friends- well, whenever Mabel went out with friends. They went on forays a lot, venturing out late at night to mess with their rival school.

Then came an auspicious day, when Charles met Mabel’s brother, George. George was the opposite of diminutive; he was taller than Charles, who was already pretty tall, and he was very outspoken. He would always make snide remarks to Charles in the most placid way, making Charles furious. Mabel told Charles that George isn’t normally like that, but Charles didn’t listen.

Both Charles and George tested their prowess against each other, always competing to be better than the other, especially verbally. They would make asinine remarks about each other, Charles targeting the fact that George was single and George targeting the fact that he knows Charles likes Mabel.

George was wrong. Charles liked George. They end up together, by magic. The end.

I love my daughters.