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To be clear, it's not a bad thing to relate to children in roles which are from the past. For example, I'm inclined to relate to my children as their decider, their provider, their guide, their protector, and even (on occasion) their dictator. There's nothing wrong with any of those roles, even if all of them are from the past. There's something else actually: it's because of them, my children have turned out great. Really they have. That said, those roles just aren't apropos anymore. They're dated, obsolete, they're ancient history.
I'm visiting my daughter Alexandra in her home city of Washington DC for a week of birthday celebrations (mine). The opportunity for me is the enjoyment of hanging out with someone I really admire, someone I respect, someone I enjoy being around. If she wasn't my daughter and I met her in any other situation, we would have become friends anyway. Having left our past in the past where it belongs, what's become available for us, is being with each other now and not having the past determine what's possible for us. When I realize this, I get what my starring role is in this play: it's simply to be around her in love and in friendship unconditionally. It's a role which sets a high bar for being, for what's possible with my sons too, with my extended family, with my close friends, as well as with all of you and with all people everywhere.
We see and do a lot together in this all too short week. We tramp Washington DC's sidewalks flat over miles and miles and miles day after day after day in over ninety degree heat and humidity. But the weather is simply the background for us. It's not the main event. The main event is secondarily all the great things there are to see and do in our nation's capital. Yet none of what's here for us is about the doing. It's primarily about the being. Being has been a centerpiece of my life for at least the last forty years. It's not central to everyone's. Not everyone wants it to be. She's one for whom it is, a trait I recognize ongoingly - therein lies our affinity. The historic roles of father and daughter have disappeared into the past, leaving room for the being of two human beings to emerge - and with it, the being of all human beings.