A: The Texanist comes from a long line of hardy Texas women. He also married a hardy Texas woman and, in time, begot a small Texas woman just as hardy as the one you have described. Football?  Check. Fishing? Check. Dirty fingernails, perpetually scabby knees, good horsemanship?  Check. Handy with a bow and arrow, unflappable in the face of weird bugs, vehemently opposed to skirts?  Checks all around.  Needless to say, this sweet little hellion is the apple (sometimes the crab apple) of the Texanist’s eye and a shining example of the trademark sturdiness for which Texas women are known all over the world. Where does it come from? As determined by a pseudoscientific study commissioned long ago by the Texanist, there is simply something in the water (subsequent attempts, however, to bottle and sell this clear elixir across state lines were unsuccessful). Not only is your daughter’s tomboyishness nothing for you or her mother to fret over, it is her birthright. That joie de vivre, effervescence, bumptiousness, and even, please pardon the Texanist, ballsiness that you’ve come to love in her are merely the traits of a full-grown Texas woman in the making. Besides, the peer pressure, social mores, and discovery of boys that come with adolescence will soon serve to smooth out the rougher edges. This is when the Texanist would advise you to commence the real worrying.

Q: Recently, my sister’s family visited for a weekend. My seven-year-old niece, who is constantly out of control and never disciplined, was flying around like a banshee, and she crashed into a bureau and knocked over four bottles of Dublin Dr Pepper that my husband bought on eBay. They all smashed on the tile floor. My sister didn’t do anything, so I disciplined my niece myself. She started crying, and they left in a huff. My sister says I overreacted. I say she underreacted. What do you say
Name Withheld
March 2012

A: The Texanist is sorry for your loss and would begin with a simple observation. He finds it telling that after many long years of your niece’s unregulated misbehavior, the act that finally caused you to ferociously erupt in righteous anger like a roaring volcano of justice was not the tracking of mud across a Persian carpet or the thwacking of buds off an heirloom rosebush but the wanton destruction of four eternally nonreturnable eight-ounce bottles of Imperial Sugar–sweetened Texas history. You are, very clearly, a person after the Texanist’s own heart. And so was your response to this unfortunate incident in keeping with what the Texanist’s would have been, more or less. Parents should be able to control their children, plain and simple. Your niece should not have been tearing through the house like a wrecking ball, and her mother should not have let it all go down without applying a dose of parental correction. Were this the first time such a scene had been witnessed, the Texanist might advise restraint, but when a problem is chronic, as this seems to be, there is no better remedy than the smart snap of a good tongue-lashing. Some of what you rained down has probably soaked in by now, with the rest running off and flowing beneath the proverbial bridge, so the Texanist suggests that you follow up with your sis. Give her a call, and don’t let her off the hook until the disagreement is sorted out. Like it or not, blood is thicker than even discontinued Dublin Dr Pepper, delicious though it may be.

Q: My wife and I recently found out that our firstborn is to be a boy, and we’ve been discussing names. I’m dead set on Tex. He’s going to be a son of proud Texan parents and ought to have a name that reflects this. My wife’s not so sure. Any suggestion on how I can sell it to her?
Name Withheld
April 2011

A: The practice of handing out nicknames or pre-truncated proper names in lieu of traditional full names to the newly born is a growing trend to which the Texanist stands in firm opposition. Nicknames, like badges of honor and honest wages, ought to be earned and not simply bestowed willy-nilly at the drop of a hat, or infant. The consequences of premature nicknaming by impatient parents are more serious than you might think—right-handed Leftys, blond-headed Reds, off-target Aces, slender Pudges, pudgy Slims, and two-eyed One-eyes. We’re doomed! Or at least in for some confusion. However, “Tex” allows for an exception to the rule. For one thing, you won’t have to sweat his formative years. Unlike that Lefty who turns out to be a righty, Tex, even if he ends up in, God help him, Oklahoma, will still be undeniably Texan. Wherever he goes, all over the world, he’ll carry his birthplace with him. In fact, it’s when traveling in the strange country beyond the Red, Sabine, or Rio Grande rivers that most Texans are first called by this appellation. Your boy will also be in good company with these notable precedents: country artist Tex Ritter, animator Tex Avery, bandleader and saxophonist Tex Beneke, gambler Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, inventor of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Tex Schramm (a California native, oddly), and State Fair icon Big Tex. Explain this to the boy’s mother and tell her that the name also comes with the Texanist seal of approval and all the rights and benefits included therein. She’ll likely see the light.