Quote of note:

I'm not alone in this. A spiky-haired friend of mine with a daughter about to graduate from high school commiserated with me the other day about how hard it is to be a responsible parent these days.

Then he said the words all struggling boomer parents never thought they'd say: "I wish my daughter would turn 18 and move out so I could be a liberal again."

Ah, at least it's a temporary state.

The Good Kind Of Conservative
- Emil Guillermo, Special to SF Gate
Tuesday, December 14, 2004

During the three years I've written this column, I've been called all sorts of things.

"Liberal scum" is one of the nicer phrases to come my way.

But, really -- me, liberal?

I'm innocent. And, to prove it, I present Exhibit A: my teenage daughter.

Even though I may have felt a tad blue about the red state of America after the November election, this month I've moved on.

Now I'm preoccupied with a realization I've never quite articulated in public.

December is a family time. It's even more so for me, as my oldest daughter, Jillian, turns 16 three days before Christmas.

In reaching that milestone, Jilly's done more than Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or the Fox News Channel has ever been able to do.

She's convinced me of my conservatism.

…In the meantime, my road to the dark side has been parenthood, where, at every turn, there's my darling daughter, who shows me just how un-liberal I am.

Oh, sure, I'm a loving father of three beautiful half-Filipino, half-Caucasian children for whom there's nothing I wouldn't do -- in time.

But of my three children (whom I call Caucapinos), Jilly, the teenager, would say with absolute certainty that my favorite word in recent years is no.

I admit it. I love that word. I'm a hard-ass parent, and proud of it.

It's been said that parents don't say the word enough, creating these spoiled, impatient children of middle-class privilege.

Not me.

No. No. No.

And I use it liberally.

Do I ever say yes?

No.

Not yet. But I'm sure I will in time.

I'm even in the easy part of parenting a teenager. My daughter hasn't started couples dating yet. So I know the rough years are ahead -- when I may have to say yes to things I may not want to. Inevitably, I know I will be forced to deal with all the tough subjects. Not just birds and the bees -- how do I explain her Catholic school's contradictory teachings of virgin birth and physics?

For now, my domestic policy generally leads to one answer: "Hmmm. No." (The "hmmm" indicates I don't give just a knee-jerk response. I think about it. For a second).