Marcus Williams and Joanna Schroeder offer 25 rules to help build close bonds between daddies and their little girls.
All daddies with little girls want to raise them “right”, but how the heck are they supposed to know what that means?
If you spend any time on the Internet these days, you’ll quickly learn that pithy numbered lists are the path to enlightenment. It is in that spirit that we have collaborated to develop this list of rules that are guaranteed to guide fathers in the correct way to raise their daughters. This wisdom is universal, proven, and failsafe. *
*Not really.
Marcus is raising two toddler daughters, and Joanna is a daughter (in addition to being a mother) so we feel we have at least as good a chance as anyone at enlightening others. We are colleagues and friends, and while we find we disagree on many things, one area in which we often find common ground is in raising kids.
We agreed on many of these rules, though some only made it in when the other one wasn’t looking. For the tl;dr demographic, here’s the list in a nutshell:
- Joanna says dads should be girly with their daughters.
- Marcus says dads should be manly with their daughters.
- It’s okay to be both.
♦◊♦
1. Tell her she’s pretty, but tell her other good things about herself more.
It’s not that telling a girl she’s pretty is bad. It’s not. The point is that it shouldn’t be the only kind of compliment she gets, so she doesn’t feel that only her appearance matters. Compliment her intelligence, her resourcefulness, her imagination, her hard work, and her strength. Don’t pretend that her looks will never matter, but teach her not to judge herself or let herself be judged only on looks.
2. Teach her that handymen don’t have to be men.
Checklist of things to teach her: routine car maintenance, how to stop a toilet from overflowing, how to set a mousetrap, how to use the fuse box, how to turn off the water main. (Marcus’s note to self—learn to maintain car, fix a toilet, use the fuse box, and find the water main.) There’s nothing wrong with needing help to get things done, but self-reliance and confidence are handy if you need to change a tire, fix a toilet, or even squish a bug without needing a rescuer to do it for you.
photo: tuppus / flickr
3. Let her play in the mud.
No need to fill their sandbox with only sugar and spice. Mix in some snips and snails and puppy dog tails, too. Be cautious, however, about giving her any nicknames like “Sugar” or “Spice” while she plays in the mud, as it could lead to some uncomfortable career choices down the road.
4. Remember that the way you talk about and treat women will have a lasting impact.
Your daughter will pick up on generalizations you make about women, whether positive or negative. Intentionally or not, you shape her identity about what it is to be a woman, and how to expect to be treated for being one. Say positive things about women without pedastalizing. If you can’t be nice, at least be respectful and steer clear of the B-word, C-word, and other words for putting down her entire gender. All this goes double for talking about her mother.
5. Teach her the correct names for her genitals, and use them matter-of-factly.
If she wants to say wee-wee, that’s fine, but make sure that as she grows up, she knows her vulva from her vagina. And whatever you do … don’t call it a front-butt.
6. Indulge her imagination.
photo: jk+too / flickr
You be the kitty, she’ll be the mommy, then she’ll be the kitty and you’ll be the baby kitty. It’s going to get boring for you, but it’s good for her. Keep doing it. Meow some more. Don’t forget to hiss.
7. Cry when the family pet dies.
You don’t have to weep if you hated the critter, but the point is to show that it’s okay for men to feel and express emotions when they come up, even hard ones like sadness and grief. Sometimes the most comforting thing you can do with a difficult emotion is to share it.
Pro tip: If she wants to schedule a memorial service for the pet you hated, try to schedule it right after you’ve watched “Brian’s Song”.
8. Teach her honesty and integrity in relationships by demonstrating them in yours.
“Honesty and integrity in relationships” doesn’t mean blind devotion. It means living a life consistent with the values you hold dear, and helping the people you love to live consistent with theirs.
Live the integrity you hope she’ll choose for herself.
photo: wactout81 / flickr
9. Read her books with great heroes – both boy and girl heroes.
Books with girl heroes are harder to find, but they’re out there. You can find a lot of recommendations at A Mighty Girl. Also, make up stories on the spot—they don’t have to be perfect—starring her as the conquering hero battling the dragon or saving all the kittens in a big thunderstorm.
10. Teach her that she has power over her own body and sexuality.
From when she’s small, tell her that her body belongs to her, and she is the boss of it. As she gets older, teach her that her body isn’t to be used in the effort to win love or approval, or to manipulate others. Teach her that sex is beautiful, and that choices to have and not have sex both carry power and integrity, as long as she is true to herself.
Allow her to talk to you about sex without getting squicked, but also leave room for her to have private conversations about sex and sexuality with other people.
11. Teach her about male sexuality without fear-mongering.
It’s tempting to tell her that boys are bad, that sex is evil and that guys only want one thing…
But we know from the last 50 years of Sex Education that this tactic simply doesn’t work, and it damages both boys and girls in the process. Girls learn to fear boys and see them as one-dimensional, or they learn that their parents have been lying all along.
Teach her that respect is key, and both boys and girls deserve it and are able to give it.
photo: flattop 341 / flickr
12. Share music with each other.
Play your favorite music and tell her why it’s great. Let her do the same for you. Teach her why the bridge in the middle of Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic is so crucial and really try to understand what’s so great about One Direction (and then enlighten us when you figure it out).
Teach her the courtesy of headphones and the wisdom of volume control.
13. Dress like a princess if she asks you to… And let her dress like a Power Ranger if she wants.
Yeah, it sucks a little playing dress-up for those of us not theatrically-inclined, but it makes a child feel important when you play the way she wants to play.
Also, playing ‘like a girl’ won’t make you one and playing ‘like a boy’ won’t make her one. So have fun with both.
14. Go with her to the nail salon and each of you get a pedicure.
No, you don’t have to get polish! Just enjoy the time with your daughter and the accompanying foot massage. (Unless you have an aversion to emery boards like Marcus does.)
photo: Andy M Taylor / flickr
15. Include her in your favorite hobbies.
Share with her the things you love, like watching Motocross, cooking dinner or playing the guitar.
Take her with you sometimes when you go to the bowling alley, or for a hike on your favorite trail. Go watch surfers in the ocean. Explain exactly what’s happening. Let her get bored after ten or fifteen minutes and then go do what she wants to do for a while.
16. Let her put on shows for you. Then put on a silly show for her.
It doesn’t take much—a goofy tap dance, armpit farts, standing on one foot—to make a little girl laugh.
17. Let her choose any color she wants for one wall in her room.
Yes, any. Then let her help you paint it. We recommend a very sturdy drop-cloth.
photo: Pink Sherbet Photo / flickr
18. Roughhouse with her.
You won’t break her, and rough play is good for teaching confidence and resilience.
19. Inspire her with women role models who excel in traditionally male-dominated fields or activities.
She’s not going to grow up to be an NFL linebacker, but don’t crush aspirations before they begin by telling her what she can’t be because she’s a girl. The few things she can’t do will become obvious on their own, and the rest become possible if she’s allowed to dream and has role models who achieved great things without a penis.
20. Don’t shame her for what she wants to wear – but exercise the power to modify.
This one gets trickier with age, but most wardrobe choices by a toddler or little girl can be made to work. If a skirt is too short, leggings are great. If she picks a Spiderman tee for a wedding, try letting her wear it under a dressy top. If you have to overrule her choice, be pragmatic, not judgmental.
(We couldn’t agree on the right approach to this once your daughter hits puberty, so you’re on your own.)
photo: DVIDSHUB / flickr
21. Look her in the eyes and have a real conversation at least once every single day that you’re together.
Even if it’s just about My Little Pony or Justin Bieber.
22. As she gets older, tell her the truth about drugs. Don’t use scare tactics, be honest.
Drugs are scary enough without exaggerating. But saying, “If you try drugs, you’ll die (or end up homeless, or become a prostitute, etc)” and having that as your “Drug Talk” will fail. Why? Because she will quickly learn that smoking pot doesn’t kill you—either from watching her friends or doing it herself.
Instead, try something along the lines of, “Using most drugs is like Russian Roulette… Five out of six times a person may be fine. But you never know if you’re going to end up as that one person who won’t be okay.”
23. Teach her that “No” means “No”, for both herself and others.
Teach her physical boundaries. Teach her how to say no directly, and that her no is to be respected, and that she shouldn’t be afraid or embarrassed to protect her body.
Make it clear that when someone—a little brother, a friend, or a parent—says no, that she is to respect that … including with boys.
photo: The Finite Monkey
24. Allow her to be girly if that’s her thing, but don’t force her to be if she’s not.
Let her wear dresses whenever she wants, but don’t force her to. Don’t buy everything in pink—unless she’s crazy for the color pink. If she loves Spiderman, go with that until she’s tired of it.
25. If she’s still little enough, hold her until she falls asleep sometimes.
You’ll miss it when you can’t.
Also read Tom Matlack’s “Raising Boys (A Dad’s Advice for Moms)
Lead photo courtesy of Amie Lee Photography. Reprinted with permission.
About Marcus Williams and Joanna Schroeder
Brilliant.
“Teach her the courtesy of headphones and the wisdom of volume control.”
Yes. A heartfelt thanks to all parents who impart this value to their children. Bless you!
Impressive!
Thanks for including number five.
#10 is so important!
Really like #2 and #10.
Though the closest I’ll ever come to being a parent is being an uncle, this is sound advice for anyone with a child of any gender in their lives. Sage, well-written tips!
One could argue that this is a pretty fail safe list of rules for parents of any gender raising a child of any gender. Great list!
Totally dig it.
Just a note about number 13, where you talk about letting play with “boy things” and it being ok because it won’t turn her into a boy. Try to get rid of the idea that there are such things as boy things or girl things. There aren’t, and as long as we maintain the idea that their are separate things for boys and girls then children will be limited into roles that don’t fit them.
Furthermore, if the child you’ve always seen/raised as a girl ends up being a boy, accept it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being trans*.
@Michelle:
I disagree. The whole idea is that girls can be as they want. Usually, boys will play with trucks and girls will play with dolls, but the boys can play with dolls and the girls can play with trucks. Boys with girl things and girls with boy things. We shouldn’t try to act as if boys and girls are the same, but rather we should celebrate their differences.
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100% agreement here, MadiChan.
MadiChan, interestingly enough, all the studies about child play that support the ideas of boys and girls playing differently are about children who have already attended school (and so are socialized to believe in boy toys and girl toys) and the differences are disappearing, and are much less minor in other (sub)cultures. And it’s happening at a similar rate to teachers, parents, and child workers socializing the children to the idea that the toys are for all of them.
I’ve worked with over 1000 children in my 10 years of experience. The ones who divide the toys/games/play styles based on gender are the children who have been socialized to believe in boy toys and girl toys are separate. They’re also the children who engage in bullying behaviors that try to shame/control other children based on gender. Kid’s that haven’t been socialized to have a belief in boy toys and girl toys being separate have much more similar playing styles and interests. And they’re a lot less likely to bully (and not just about the gender conforming either).
I agree with Michelle. When MadChen mentions “celebrating their differences,” I think that’s true, but not quite the way MadChen says. It’s important to remember that differences aren’t necessarily gender-based or sex-based. We’re individuals…let kids be individuals. I think the way we create and use social identities (such as man, woman, etc) is kind of backwards. We create them, and then try to pigeon-hole everyone into the “acceptable” identities and then pretend that’s “natural.”
We’re such individualistic culture(s) here in the west; it makes a lot more sense to provide a variety of social identities to people and then let them figure out which ones they fit, and just how much they fit into them, on their own terms. Social identities can be used to help people better understand themselves, and of course to give people a sense of community beyond geographic location. But when some are normalized and others are viewed as some threatening “other,” and when those identities are forced onto people, then they stop being beneficial and actually become quite harmful.
“The ones who divide the toys/games/play styles based on gender are the children who have been socialized to believe in boy toys and girl toys are separate…..”
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Absolutely UNTRUE! That is a very old and THOROUGHLY debunked theory. All major studies on the matter have consistently proven that regarding innocent children, boys will consistently chose masculine toys, and girls will chose feminine toys.
Moderator note: Edited out personal insult. Please keep our Commenting Policy in mind.
Jimmy, if you’ll notice I mentioned those studies and the issues with their methodology. Furthermore, the part you quoted was me speaking about particular children I have worked with.
But seriously playing with cars and blocks vs. dolls and food are not inherent traits. Some children prefer one, some the other, some like both, and some neither. The gender breakdown we see has a lot more to do with socialization then brain chemistry, otherwise we wouldn’t observe differences based on socialization.
If your hypothesis is that gendered play is only due to socialization, and children who engage in gendered play are counted as evidence that they’ve been socialized to do so, what would evidence to the contrary look like? That is, how would you (or any observer) distinguish between gendered play that is due to “brain chemistry” or some other innate biological difference, and the kind of gendered play that is only a consequence of socialization?
Well now there’s the rub, because the only way I know of to do that is to test kids who haven’t been socialized, which would mean testing kids who’ve been isolated. That’s like totally unethical and absolutely horrible, for one thing. For another, isolating a kid during their first few years is wicked detrimental, and then you don’t know if your results would be due to the fact that the kids are all messed up, or just because they’re not socialized. Even in families that are trying to raise kids in a genderless household for the first few years; you can’t get rid of it entirely unless you never let your kids be around anyone else.
I’m coming at this from a social scientist perspective, though, so I dunno if Michelle will have a different answer.
Everyone’s been socialized in some way, the difference is children who have been socialized into the ideas of gendered play and toys. Now all kids do pick some up from media, peers, society at large, but there is a difference between children that have been actively taught gendered play and those who have been taught to question/challenge the idea of gendered play/roles.
Now my area of work isn’t research/academia but working with kids, so I can’t say how to develop a proper study. I can speak on the actions/behavior of the children I’ve worked with. And there is a marked difference between the children who have actively been taught gendered play/roles, and the kids who have been taught to challenge these (and then all the kids who haven’t been actively taught, but parents weren’t working against such socialization either). The biggest difference is the time the children spend monitoring/shaming their peers. Recently there were lots of hurt feelings when a little girl wore a Spiderman shirt and another girl said it was a boy shirt and girl #1 shouldn’t wear it.
But outside of a couple outliers (often kids who have been specifically taught gendered play/roles, but also kids with just very niche interests) the play styles and interests of the kids are very similar. They pretty much all like the blocks, legos, animals, and superheros. Some of the boys are more into the play food than anyone else, an equal number of boys and girls like the logic/mathematical games. More girls like the dolls, but the younger children play with them evenly, often the boys only stop after they’re shamed by their peers (something I do my best to stop of course). Activity level wise there isn’t a difference.
The only major gender difference is how quick the majority of boys turn to hitting when they’re angry (not that some boys don’t hit, or some girls hit often). But this is learned. When I worked with other kids in different demographics the hitting was even among genders.
One possibility is the one you’re suggesting, that non-gendered play is innate, and gendered play only develops when children have been socialized to engage in it. Another possibility is that gendered play is innate, and the children who engage in it less are those who have been socialized to believe that there’s no such thing as gendered play, and actively encouraged to challenge those types of play or gender roles. Yet another is that gendered/ungendered play has a genetic basis which varies from individual to individual, and socialization is just one factor among many that shape the eventual expression of that tendency in behavior. The evidence seems to support all those hypotheses, depending on which one you prefer, and since it’s hard to settle scientifically, it probably comes down to confirmation bias – the tendency (of all people) to count evidence that supports their theories and discount or ignore evidence that doesn’t.
As Heather pointed out – and what I was getting at with my questions – it seems to be ethically impossible to design a study/experiment with a no-socialization control group, and then compare how those kids play to other subjects who have been socialized to engage in gendered play, and subjects who have been socialized to engage in non-gendered play. If you could show that socialization to engage in gendered play was responsible for gender play, the alternative would just be another kind of socialization, not some socialization-free zone where kids just do whatever “comes naturally”.
Thanks for your comments.
What you wrote this AND the piece about jet-gate? Wow…
Yes, and I’m very tired!
This list contained so much good stuff that I am disinclined to do any nit-picking. Well done both of you.
Tamen isn’t nit-picking??? What?!?! I’ve won you over, Tamen?
Just teasing, friend.
*sigh* and then you had to write a comment with an obvious nit in the form of an excessive amount of exclamation points and question marks.
I always do that!!
I’m very excitable.
I LOVE this SOOO much! So much wisdom there for all parents, not just dads!
Thank you Mummy Em!
Nice list – good job. 1 & 3 & 13 are especially important when done together; by all means let her go dress up like a princess if she likes, and then go play in the mud. Never allow the “pretty girl clothes” to get in the way of her being physically active. And let her know you think she’s beautiful when she all dirty and exhausted and her hair in a mess from play rough games.
I missed touch; remember to hug and cuddle and hold and comfort and whatever else it takes. A lot. Show her you’re comfortable with your body, and with hers.
But most of all I feel like saying the exact same list go for boys. There really isn’t much here that’s gender specific.
Maybe it’s because I’m a guy who has only brothers, but I’ve never heard the term “front butt” before. Do people actually say that?!
Nah, I think my kids made it up, actually.
Marcus and I just thought it was a funny example of something incredibly inaccurate!
I hadn’t heard that one before Joanna shared it, but it was so funny it had to be included.
Stellar list. A+
Thanks for this post (and just in time for Father’s Day). I hadn’t thought of many of these (like getting a pedicure with my daughter). But I’ll have to try it. Thanks again:)
Rather than add several replies, I want to give a general “Thank you!” to all who have enjoyed the list. It was a fun collaboration with Joanna – who suggested it – and now I’m having fun trying to live up to it with my own daughters. Just yesterday, I found myself playing mouse-kitty with one of my girls, using scarves as tails, and it wasn’t even my idea. All I had to do was say yes, to “Want to have fun, Daddy?”