Oh, My God(daughter)!

My goddaughters and their mother were staying at a local bed and breakfast near me to visit and, as such, I was getting some quality time with the kids. My friend and her family keep REALLY late hours, so it was late enough that some kids would be preparing for bed already by the time dinner had ended. The still wide-awake kids asked if I’d take them to the park. I agreed, and we stayed there until it was dark out before it was time to walk them home.

I should mention here that I’m male, and I volunteer with kids enough that I’m quite familiar with having to prove to strangers that I’m not secretly a pedophile kidnapping kids. I’ve discussed the problems I have with this with the girls as part of explaining why gender roles — and other stereotypes — are harmful and generally trying to get them to be more supportive of non-traditional folks.

As we walked, I noticed a police officer drive pass the small road we were on and then stop, back up, and turn onto our road. There was nothing else down this road except us, so I could only assume he’d seen the man walking with two young girls — of an entirely different race — down a dark alley and wanted to make sure everything was okay.

Me: “I think the police officer is coming to talk to us. He probably wants to know why I have you kids out here so late. I’ll take care of him, so don’t worry. Just answer his questions nicely if he asks you anything.”

As expected, the officer pulled up next to us and wound the window down.

Officer: “Have you seen a fourteen-year-old girl with red hair?”

[Goddaughter] interrupted the officer in a very determined voice.

Goddaughter: “Godfather [My Name] is not stealing us, and he’s not a bad guy! We love him!”

Officer: “Umm… what?”

It turned out that, in this case, I had been unfair in my presumptions. The officer did drive down the alley to talk to us but only to see if we had seen a missing girl. However, my goddaughter’s preemptive defending of my honor was one of those suspiciously specific denials that just makes you look more guilty, so I had to hasten to explain the context of her comments.

Officer: “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve dealt with that with my own girls enough times to know what it’s like. But thank you, young lady, for letting me know that your godfather isn’t a bad guy.”

Sadly, we weren’t able to help the officer with his missing child, but [Goddaughter]’s mother had a good laugh at her daughter’s adamant defense of me. And, of course, I made sure to let the girl know I loved her, too.