I gave birth to a 7-year-old pirate

My mouth has gotten me into so much trouble over the last few years. And I do not care. This is an old story from a few years ago, but it has come up out of my PTSD brain recently.

My daughter is brilliant, amazing, stressed and handling it better than I can some days. It is a horrible position for multiple adults, myself included, to put a child in. She is seven and a half as I am writing this.

I worked in live TV news for way too long. Most of us try to not have kids, because of the demands that puts on us, our kids and the companies we work for. I was pregnant managing too many TV news things. Some middle managers at my company used to joke about when my unborn child would come of an age where they could hire her. I miss the fact that those used to be jokes.

At four years old, she ran solo robotic camera in multiple studios. She also switched a show or two in my lap. I trained her to also be an audio engineer, but I can’t remember if she did any audio by herself before I stopped.

I got into trouble this week, which I owned and own, for saying some things disrespectful. Welcome to "TV news Rebecca."

One of the most disrespectful things I have ever said to someone — who was screwing around and failing us over multiple hours and shows — was this:

1. I am already doing 3 jobs.
2. We are crashing. I need you to focus. I’ve already asked several times.
3. I will just do your job, too, because at this point what I want to happen is for you to leave, go pick up my 4-year-old daughter and bring her back, because she already can do your job better than you can. 
4. I am over this.

This is a memory I am sharing, because I am so proud and thankful of my daughter. She should have never been required to navigate this. She is doing so well with what is left of her childhood.