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I wish my daughter would stop pretending to be human

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This is incredibly difficult for me to talk about. I feel, I don’t know, ashamed, I guess. Like I’ve somehow failed as a parent. When I was growing up, I thought my parents hated me.

I never wanted that for my daughter. I wanted her to know how much I loved her. That my love was unconditional.

I’ve never felt as proud as I did the day she came into this world. It was almost like looking into a mirror. She had my eyes. My ears. Our noses were practically identical. And her smile, God, it was like nothing else mattered in the entire world.

I wanted her to have that same pride in herself. I never wanted her to ever feel any self-hatred. That’s another thing my parents made me feel. I didn’t get their pride. I didn’t get their love. I got cold stares. I got nights where I couldn’t sleep because Mom’s cries were so loud.

I didn’t ask for my family. I didn’t ask to be assigned to them. They were supposed to accept me, and they failed, miserably.

I guess the universe has a strange sense of humor because now, it’s like my daughter can’t accept herself.

She doesn’t hunt with me anymore. She tries to suppress her urge. She doesn’t do the cute little growl she used to do as a baby. I bet it’s 10 times as impactful now, but I wouldn’t know because she just refuses to practice.

She won’t even climb trees anymore. She’d rather hide out at home. Curled up in the dark, pouting to herself.

Of course, I try and comfort her, try and make her realize she should be proud of who she is, but she just rejects me. It seems like that’s all life is for me. Rejection from the people who are supposed to love me.

She tells me I “wouldn’t get it,” whatever the hell that means.

She hates her skin, so she tries to cover it up. She hates her teeth, so she refuses to smile. She even wears beanies that she stole from humans to cover her pointy ears.

That’s something I guess I can respect. At least she’s causing harm to them, even if it’s just with something as simple as stealing. I just wish she’d steal something useful like meat rather than clothes and makeup.

That’s something I never quite understood. Makeup clearly makes shedding more difficult. Why would you want life to be harder than it already is? I mean, we already have to hide out in the woods.

I guess that’s not my place, though.

It’s starting to get more concerning, however. It was already hard to watch her cry because she felt different. Now I have to watch her quite literally alter herself to fit into “social norms,” as she calls it.

She’s already filed down her fangs. When she does hunt, all she has now are her claws, and those are much easier to get rid of than teeth.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not with the times. All I know is that I want her to be happy in the body she was given.

There are no female specimens left for her to look up to, and I’m just an old, out-of-touch Dad, apparently.

I hope this matter resolves itself. I’ll keep doing my best to get her to see that they’re the monsters, not us.

Until then, I’ll just keep reminiscing on the simpler times. I kept her shell, and these days, that seems to be the only thing that brings me peace.

Well, that and hunting humans.

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