Rissa May Stay With Me, Daddy May 2026

Wait. Rewind.

The Shifting Tides of Parenthood

And right now? She belongs with herself. We spend so much time trying to be chosen . The chosen parent for bedtime. The chosen lap for story time. We wear “daddy’s girl” like a medal. rissa may stay with me, daddy

She had just spent the morning at a noisy playdate, the afternoon in a tantrum over the wrong color cup, and now—finally—the apartment was quiet. The castle needed a roof. The dragons needed arranging. And Rissa needed Rissa. That third-person speech (“Rissa may stay”) isn't just cute. It’s developmental armor. Toddlers and young preschoolers use their own name because they are still merging the “me” they feel inside with the “Rissa” the world sees. When she says “Rissa may stay,” she is practicing autonomy. She is rehearsing the sentence: I am a person who gets to decide where I belong. She belongs with herself

But then I watched her for a minute. She wasn’t being rude. She wasn’t rejecting me. She was doing something far more important: The chosen lap for story time

My four-year-old had just referred to herself in the third person as her own preferred company. For two years, this child has been velcro. Bathroom trips? Supervised. Sleeping? Co-dependent. Grocery shopping? A contact sport of holding hands.

It happened on a Tuesday. No rain. No dramatic music. Just the hum of the dishwasher and the click of the front door latch as I got home from work. My daughter, Rissa (age 4, going on 17), was sitting on the living room rug, building a castle out of magnatiles.