The Tower Years

When you raise a bunch of daughters, you earn a few stories.

At the time, they don’t feel like stories. They feel like headaches, standoffs, slammed doors, and long stretches where you’re not quite sure what just happened or how you got there. You question yourself more than you ever have. You wonder if you’re saying too much, too little, or exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time.

Years later, you laugh.

I was reminded of that recently when a friend—right in the thick of raising teenage daughters—brought up Rapunzel. She joked that her daughter might as well be in a tower, unreachable, speaking a language she no longer understands. I smiled, because I’ve been there. Most parents have.

There is a phase—call it the “tower years”—when your kids pull away just enough to test the boundaries of who they are becoming. It’s not rebellion in the dramatic sense. It’s quieter than that. More confusing. One day you’re their hero, the next day you’re background noise.

And sometimes, they make decisions you specifically told them not to make.

One night, my two youngest daughters decided to have a party. My wife Cindy and I had been clear: no parties. That instruction didn’t survive the evening. Word got out, more kids showed up than expected, and before long, the situation unraveled. Some uninvited guests came through the door, tensions escalated, and a fight broke out.

In that moment, the party wasn’t the problem anymore. The aftermath was.

They knew they were in trouble. Not the casual kind—the kind where you lie in bed staring at the ceiling, knowing morning is coming and there’s no way around it. But instead of panicking, they did something smart. They called their older brother, Jojo.

Jojo knew exactly what to do. He listened, calmed them down, and helped them think through how to handle the conversation they were about to have with us. He didn’t erase the mistake—he helped them face it.

The next morning wasn’t easy. There were hard conversations, consequences, and a few weeks where the dust needed to settle. But we got through it. All of us did.

And now? It’s one of those stories we laugh about.

That’s the part younger parents don’t always see when they’re in the middle of it. The mistakes feel permanent. The tension feels like it will last forever. It doesn’t. What lasts is how you handle it—whether you stay present, whether you keep the lines of communication open, whether your kids know that even when they mess up, they can still come to you… or at least to someone in the family who will guide them back.

Books like Odd Girl Out helped me understand that much of what teenage girls go through is subtle, emotional, and often hidden from plain view. As a father, you don’t always get a front-row seat. But you can still be part of the foundation.

Looking back, I’m less interested in whether we handled every situation perfectly—we didn’t—and more grateful that we stayed connected through it all.

The tower years aren’t about shutting you out. They’re about your kids figuring themselves out.

If you’re in the middle of it now, take a breath. Stay steady. And if you’re lucky, you’ll have someone like Jojo in the mix—someone who knows how to translate in both directions.

One day, sooner than it feels, you’ll be telling the story—and laughing.