Nya Cook-Tillett

Professor Long
Intro to Creative Writing
17 October 2023

Readers Write:
Daddy to the Rescue

I don’t exactly remember when the first time I shaved was, but what I do remember is that my
father had to help me. Being adopted by two men and only having two brothers never bothered
me. That was my family and when people asked if I wish I had a mom, my response was always
“No”. Of course, I’d receive jokes about the fact that my dads being gay made up for the
“missing” woman in my life. However, there’s never been any missing woman in my life. Plenty
of girls don’t have a mom and plenty of boys don’t have a dad in their life. I’m no different.

Around middle school, when it was warm out, I loved wearing basketball shorts during gym and
any kind of shorts to school. I had never shaved my legs before. My dads taught me how to use
nair but I never liked the smell of it. One day, after school, my dad brought up to me that I might
need to start shaving my legs. He said that most girls do it because it’s ladylike and didn’t want
other kids bullying or bothering me because I let my hair grow. I told him I understood and on
the next shopping trip, he bought me a razor. Later that night, he sat with me in our bathroom
with the razor, his shaving cream and the bath water running. He walked me through the process
of using warm water to get my legs wet, applying a little bit of shaving cream and shaving the
right way. Don’t press too hard, don’t rush, remove hair every few strokes etc. That lesson took
about twenty minutes and when I was done, I loved how smooth my legs felt and continued to
keep up on it. That is, until winter because I wore pants the whole time.