Children have naturally different levels of daring, but little girls are told to be careful far more frequently than little boys. Watching a five-year-old girl encouraged by her dad to climb on top of a shed, then jump from that shed to another shed, is wonderfully refreshing.
Gavin MacCall built this American Ninja Warrior obstacle course for his daughter Lylah in their backyard, and he gleefully narrates her blithely running up a ramp and zip-lining one handed. She’s got a lot of friends (stuffed animals) in the audience, a big smile on her face, and she is not afraid to walk down a tipping wooden plank, which I can’t say for myself.
The course also takes her by a collection of all the dead Christmas trees Lylah has decorated in her short life. This is obviously an indulgent dad having a blast with his kid. He even started a GoFundMe page after his story got picked up by USA Today. I’d normally be skeptical about that, but it’s only for $500, and he just wants supplies to build Lylah an even more perilous climbing apparatus. Lylah and her dad are inspiring me to be less careful and maybe swing from a tree branch today. And if I ever have a girl child of my own, she’ll definitely be jumping from log to log before she’s even potty trained.
