It was a sweet question, but it made me laugh. I think you have to be a very particular age to ask it: old enough to have forgotten what parents are like when you are a child, and young enough not to have children of your own.
Because children do not usually think their parents are cool. Parents are the people who know where the snacks are and whether there is time for one more thing. They are the people who make you wear shoes, pack your jumper, interrupt your screen time, and ask if you have brushed your teeth. Whatever else we may be in the world, at home we are mostly furniture with rules.
So when I was invited to say a few words at the stakeholder launch of Questacon’s Quantum Tomorrow: Imagined Future, I did not expect it to make much of an impression on my nine-year-old daughter.
I had been lucky enough to contribute to the design and content of the exhibition, and the launch mattered to me. It was one of those rare occasions where a lot of careful, invisible work briefly becomes visible. People gather, speeches are made, and everyone gets to look at the thing not as a deadline or a draft or a problem to solve, but as something real.
My daughter came with me because that is how family logistics sometimes work. The bargain was simple: she would sit through the formal part, and afterwards we would go and see the exhibits. I was grateful she came, but I was also a bit worried. Asking a nine-year-old to sit still for two hours while adults talk about quantum technology is not a small ask. Even if the adults are interesting. Even if the technology is extraordinary. Even if there are excellent things waiting just beyond the speeches.
She did her best. She sat for a while. Then she coloured. Then she slouched in the way children do when their bones have quietly decided to become rope. Around her, people spoke about quantum science, future industries, national capability, imagination, education, and the exciting work Australia is doing in this space. All of it was worthwhile. Almost none of it was designed for a child waiting patiently for the fun part to begin.
Then someone said my name.
That got a flicker of attention.
Then Dr Cathy Foley, who is a proper Aussie legend, referred to me as legendary.
My daughter looked up.
I could almost see the phrase land. Legend. It is not the sort of thing she would ever call me. At home, I am Dad. I am the person who says no to ridiculous snacks and yes to books at bedtime. I am useful, familiar, and frequently in the way. But here was someone important, in a serious room, saying something about me that made me sound briefly like a person from outside our house.
Then I stood up to speak.
I said a few words about the exhibition, about imagination, and about the challenge of making quantum feel available to people who do not already speak the language of it. I have always liked that part of science communication: the work of building a small bridge between a strange idea and an ordinary human being. Quantum can feel like a locked cabinet full of impossible things, but an exhibition can give people a handle. It can let them lean in.
I finished, handed the microphone to someone else, and turned to walk back.
My daughter was already running towards me.
She had this huge open smile on her face, the kind children have before they learn to tidy their feelings away. She jumped into my arms, delighted. Not politely impressed. Not mildly interested. Delighted.
It lasted only a moment, but it was a good one.
For once, I was not just the person managing the day. I was not the one calculating lunch, parking, behaviour, bedtime, and whether we had pushed our luck. I was not simply the gatekeeper between her and the exhibits.
For a moment, I was someone she was proud of.
That is a small thing, I suppose, but parenting is full of small things that turn out not to be small at all. Most of the time, your children see you from very close up. Too close, maybe. They see the ordinary version: tired, practical, distracted, making toast, looking for socks. Then, every now and then, they catch sight of you from across a room. They see you through other people’s eyes, and something shifts.
By the time we reached the exhibits, I was probably Dad again. That is as it should be. The lights and buttons and hands-on things were always going to beat the speeches. But for that brief walk back from the microphone, with my daughter running at me like I had just returned from some grand adventure, I got to be something else.
Not for long.
Long enough.