By CLAY MERCER

I have long been told that the Chinese pictogram for the word “crisis” is a combination of the two pictograms for the words “danger” and “opportunity.”

The Chinese have long recognized that in a crisis situation, while there is always an element of danger, there is also a certain amount of opportunity.

If so, then I suspect that the Chinese pictogram for the phrase “teen-aged daughter” is probably a combination of the pictograms for the words “blessing” and “curse.”

I can hear the uproar starting already. Face it, a newspaper column is just the grown up version of stirring in a fire ant bed. I love my daughters, I cherish my daughters, my daughters make me proud and fulfill me in ways that people without girl children can never, ever understand.

However, for every outraged citizen reading this, there is another, a parent who has raised a girl child through her teen-aged years, who is nodding in agreement.

I could write encyclopedias full of all the good things that go along with raising girls. From the time you bring that little pink bundle home from the hospital until the time the Attitude Fairy shows up, everything is peachy-keen.

After the Attitude Fairy arrives, for the next eight or ten years, it’s easy to understand why some cultures revere male children more highly than female children and why, in some cultures, the parents trade their daughters for three camels and a breeding pair of goats.

I think the Attitude Fairy and the Tooth Fairy are in cahoots with one another. About the time those twelve year molars start pushing through, that phone call gets made. “She’s just about ready!”

Fathers wake up one day to find that, overnight, they have gone from the smartest man on the planet to a complete fool. Mothers wake up to find their best friend has become a miniature hurricane, complete with high winds, torrential rain, and a storm surge the likes of which has never been seen on the Gulf Coast. And those are the easy days.

With teen-aged daughters, yesterday’s best friends are tomorrow’s mortal enemies. Debating becomes second nature and their mouth goes in high gear while their ears have the emergency brake on.

Teen-aged daughters are the reason parents say, “Because I said ‘no’, that’s why.” Those years that flew by while you were teaching your daughter to fly kites and ride bicycles have suddenly started to drag. When you think things can’t get any worse, the boys start sniffing around. Oh, please.

Back in 1998, I had a conversation with Laura Royals, and we were discussing the mood and personality swings that contaminate teen-aged daughters.

Laura asked me point blank, “Do you believe in God?”

“Of course I do.”