While cleaning lunch dishes, my six-year-old daughter asked me a simple question, “How did you and Mommy meet?”

I’m sure we have talked about this before, but I like sharing the story with the kids.

“We met at a work event we both attended.” I started telling her.

“Was she ever your girlfriend?” asked my daughter.

“She was,” I explained. “She was my girlfriend before we got married.”

This seemed to surprise her. “Really? When will I meet the boy I’ll marry?”

The Dad in me immediately thought I don’t want her to meet a boy until she is forty or fifty-years-old. I can’t even imagine my little girl having a boyfriend, let alone get married.

Being realistic, I begrudgingly told her she’ll meet boys she likes in high school, or college, or maybe at work when she is older. I then told her she will eventually meet the guy she wants to marry.

“So sometime in the next ten years?” she replied. She’s way too smart.

I gritted my teeth and responded, “Well, any boy you like I’ll have to meet first and see if he is right for you.”

“What? It’s my choice who I marry, right?”

This is when I should have pivoted to another topic. Instead, I went against my own better judgement and answered her question.

“Well, like I said, I’ll want to meet him first and see if he’s right for you.”

“That won’t work for me,” she quickly answered. “If you don’t like him, I’ll just marry him someplace only Mommy knows about.”

This is going south fast. Yet, for some reason, I kept the conversation going.

“What if Mom doesn’t like him either?”

“Then I guess I’ll get married someplace you and Mom don’t know about.”

Oh, brother. Good thing she doesn’t know what eloping is or she might know this is a real option for her. Knowing when to pivot away from a bad conversation with my daughter is quite the lesson for this winging it Dad to learn.