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Every daughter has a father. Whether it is biological, step, or even a stand-in father figure, every daughter has a father.
The significance of this role cannot be understated, as it is one she will base every relationship, professional, intimate, friendship, she has with another male upon.
A significance not comparable to, or one able to be obtained from the separate relationship she has with her mother.
If you are a father, stepfather or stand in father figure, this is what your daughter needs:
She needs you to show up … always.
Not when it is convenient for you, not because you have to, not distracted by the phone in your hand.
This does not just mean attending her music concerts or sports events, this means pay attention when she is talking. Put your phone down when she asks a question. Ask her about her day, learn her friend’s names, engage with her. Listen without offering advice, be present, look her in the eye.
Show up for her. Make a commitment to her so she grows up knowing she is important, a priority, worthy of support and attention. Teach her trust by showing her that those who follow through on their commitments are trustworthy.
When you show up for her, in this way, she will learn to show up for herself. She will learn she can trust herself and the commitments she makes to herself and others. She will grow up with the confidence to effectively judge situations with clarity, set healthy boundaries, and will know, trust and believe she can defend herself against untrustworthy people.
She needs you to teach, model and demonstrate respect.
This means respect between men and women, as demonstrated by being respectful to women. Her mother, her grandmothers, her aunts, her friends, even those women not to your liking. Show her how a man can respect a woman.
When she sees you respecting the women in her life, she will learn to respect herself and others. She will grow up expecting to be respected by men, instead of tolerating disrespect or settling for less. She will naturally find healthy relationships based on respect and equality versus ones based on control and abuse.
She needs to see you humble.
She needs to know you do not have all the answers, that you mess up at times and that is okay. To understand life is about learning from one’s mistakes, not hiding them or pretending they never happened. She needs to hear you apologize when necessary. To be strong enough to admit you were wrong.
When she sees you stumble and get back up, when she hears you admit you were wrong through an apology, she will not only learn she can as well, but also that when the men in her life mess up, she will instinctively know to help and support them rather than shame or bring them down. She will not try to change or erase parts of her identity or the identity of the men in her life based on the feeling that something is wrong with her or them. She will understand one’s value is not based on their mistakes, but find strength, compassion, and love through lessons learned.
She needs to know her secrets are safe with you.
She needs to know that her voice has been heard and acknowledged, trusting her stories will not be shared by you with your buddies from work, on the golf course, or at the bar. She needs to know what she shares, is held with respect, value and in confidence. She needs to know you won’t share others’ secrets with her as well.
When she sees you respect her boundaries, and the boundaries of others, she will learn to respect those same boundaries in herself and others. She will learn her thoughts and voice are valuable and to never play small with them. Through her understanding of boundaries, she will learn trust for herself and others with confidence.
She needs you to demonstrate a man loving a woman.
Show her you love her mother, whether you are married or divorced. Whether you do actually love her mother or despise her. Demonstrate love for another, especially, her mother.
Nothing, NOTHING will teach your daughter more about relationships and unconditional love than witnessing her father loving her mother. The relationship you have with her mother is the relationship she will seek out and search for with a man all her life. Make it count.
When she sees you show love to her mother, unconditionally, despite your actual feelings for her, your daughter will search for the same unconditional love in the man she chooses to spend the rest of her life with. She will learn her value is inherent, ever-present and abundant. She will learn to give and receive love without condition. She will understand worthiness is not based on the actions of another, but simply is and will always be.
Your daughter will spend her life measuring every man she meets against you… her father, stepfather, or stand-in father figure. No other relationship she has can or will empower her in the way a father does. The impact made by her father will last not only her lifetime, but throughout the lives of all the generations to follow after her.
Please give her what she needs.
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As a widower raising a (now) 7 year old daughter and having a 22 year old daughter as well, this was a wonderful read and a good reminder of some of the important things that sometimes get lost in managing the day to day…very good read.
I completely understand and agree with the article. I have been estranged from my twin daughters for over 12 years and realize through many efforts on my part that the loss that we all endured can never be accounted. To all of those men fighting for the children I would say to never give up no matter how hard the fight.
“A Fathers love is a fathers love”
I just got home so this list is going to be short but I imagine others can add more examples. Hardcore: Men and boys are the primary target of physical violence. Remember the video of the woman who ran after her teen age son and hit him whenever she could reach him. For several days the video went viral and was shown on national news. If his father attacked him in the same way he would have been arrested and prosecuted for child abuse. Men have a much higher exposure rate to adverse work conditions (hot mopping roofs in temps… Read more »
I am getting the impression that most of the men in GMP have not had to face some of the more difficult circumstances in life. Many of the articles have the consistency of Cream of Wheat. The lack of grit concerns me. I am not sure that writing in this forum would have much of an impact on the thinking of the larger community. I am new here and have read several critical pieces about GMP. The criticism seems to be about how the GMP does not really represent men’s issues as well as it should. Is there a section… Read more »
Perhaps you could expound on what you mean by hard core?
Over the past 10 years I have mapped out the things that were done to my children which resulted in my oldest daughter contracting HIV, my two other daughters having unplanned pregnancies and my youngest was almost successful in committing suicide. Their mother ignored the precautions about giving SSRIs to children especially those who have attempted suicide and put all three of my daughters on antidepressants without consulting me.. . My son’s expectations have been shaped by his mother’s radical permissive parenting. We had a good relationship until he began having financial problems. He has borrowed money from me in… Read more »
I hadn’t read this response before asking my question … Sorry. PAS would be a great topic.
It might work in some circumstances but when the mother is committed to destroying the father/child relationship the father has no chance to have a positive influence in his child’s life.
Therein lies the rub, Michael. Daughters do need their dads. Absolutely. Problem is that dads have been trying to “be there” for over 5 decades now, and we are still, in 85% of cases, exiled from our children’s lives, still seen as the second parent, subjected to the will and anger of the divorced mother. She may need us to demonstrate a man loving a woman, but what they so often see is a women decimating a man. The father’s rights movement is not a figment, it is men doing exactly what women did, removing themselves from under the heel… Read more »
I think that’s the other side to respecting women. Demanding respect from them as well. You don’t want to teach her that men should be run over either. I think people just assume that girls will grow up to be decent human beings unless we mess them up, but boys will grow up to be beasts unless corrected.