My 8-year-old daughter and I have developed a ritual as I drive her to school.

“What do you want to talk about, Daddy?” she asked me last week as she now does every school day.

In my reach for a daily topic, I had remembered something that had been announced the day before, something that was in the news.

“Did you know that girls are now going to be able to ride in submarines in the Navy?” I asked her, remembering the announcement by the Department of Defense — a policy that becomes effective unless Congress overrules it.

“Cool,” was her immediate reaction.

And somehow, in her reaction, for a split second, I felt troubled.

Why didn’t she ask why girls had not been allowed on submarines before, I wondered?

Why wasn’t she showing a hint of anger that men have been allowed to do something that has been off-limits to women?

Has she, as an 8-year-old girl, already begun accepting a different status in life because of her gender?

Suddenly the mindless banter that my daughter and I engage in on a daily basis took a serious tone with me.

“Doesn’t it bother you that girls haven’t been allowed on submarines?” I asked her, hoping to provoke an outrage that had somehow escaped her.

“Little girls?” she asked back.

“No, big girls. Actually, women,” I said.

No, it didn’t bother her, she said. In fact, the news was welcome because she could just think about all the fun that it would be on board a submarine.

Hold on, I thought. I’m trying to raise young revolutionaries, children who are unafraid to challenge the status quo and perhaps change things for the better.

How could my own daughter not be outraged at something that — frankly, before we started our conversation — hadn’t particularly bothered me, either?

“Why should boys be able to ride a submarine and not girls?” I insisted.

“Because girls sometimes get scared,” she said.

This conversation wasn’t going at all in the direction I had envisioned.

“Don’t you think boys get scared sometimes?” I asked her.

“No,” was her simple response before changing subjects.

I let it lie that morning, but I have been thinking a lot about that interaction with my daughter all week.

What was my daughter learning about her status in life?

Did she feel entitled to pursue any dream that she had? Or did she automatically assume that certain dreams were off-limits because of her gender?

And if she felt that certain dreams were off-limits, was that because my wife and I hadn’t properly taught her to pursue all of her dreams?

Had we somehow taught her different from my two sons because of gender?

Just when I thought I was on top of this parenting thing, the conversation I had that day with my daughter reminded me that I’ll probably never be on top of this parenting thing.

We all grow up with certain sets of assumptions about life that we pass on to our children, whether consciously or not, even though life itself is constantly changing.

There are certainly bedrock assumptions based on principle that aren’t to be trifled with. “Do unto others . . .” comes to mind.

There are political assumptions based on experience that may constantly shift.

Then there’s that gray area that we thought were bedrock that may actually be more permeable than we thought.

Understanding the difference between the two sometimes requires a paradigm shift. Perhaps that is what happened to me, courtesy of my daughter.

Should I have been bothered because she expressed no outrage? Or should I have relished the fact, as she apparently did, that another barrier to her gender is broken?

Should my outrage become her burden? Particularly because I hadn’t been particularly outraged to begin with?

It just goes to show you: Your kids can often teach you as much as you teach them.

Editor Carlos Sanchez can be contacted at 757-5703 or csanchez@wacotrib.com.