Growing up in a divorced household, I would see my dad every other weekend and on Wednesday nights.
Even though it didn’t occur all the time, on the weekends when my younger brother and I saw him, all three of us would engage in some type of physical activity. We would play “horse” at the basketball court, practice hitting and shagging baseballs, and periodically wrestle.
With our mom, none of those physical activities occurred. I guess it was because we’re boys.
On our own, my brother and I would play with our G.I. Joe, Transformers, He-Man, and Star Wars action figures. We got dirty. We dug holes to China (we only got 3 feet deep). We played soldiers, tussled, did “karate”, and essentially physically tortured each other.
When I got married, without a doubt, I knew that when I had a son, we would do the same things. There would be practice hitting baseballs, learning how to shoot hoops, mountain biking, playing street hockey, but most of all, there would be that physical contact that my brother and I had with our dad.
I couldn’t wait to roughhouse with that little guy.
I’m sure you can guess what happened.
Ten years and two daughters later, I’m living in a house with three females. Two children and one adult.
Instead of sports equipment cluttering my house, I have Barbie dolls, Baby Alive dolls, American Girl dolls, Disney princess dolls, and enough stuffed animals to fill a small warehouse. Also, everything is pink. There are pink pillows, pink dresses, pink shoes, pink underwear, heck, even pink toothbrushes! Moreover, I’m overwhelmingly outnumbered at the dinner table, where I can barely get a word in edgewise.
My girls aren’t necessarily ‘girly girls’, but that’s because of me. I decided that I would be the type of dad that roughhouses with his daughters, much to the chagrin of my wife.
We have a game that we play called “panther.” Basically, I’m a hunter and the girls are vicious panthers who keep me from capturing them by either kicking, punching or straight wrestling me.
It’s a lot of fun for all three of us. My wife, on the other hand, hates it.
She doesn’t understand the need for a dad and his daughters to have physical contact through roughhousing. Here are the five things that I’ve learned that I wish my wife knew about how important it is for a dad to have safe, physical contact with his daughters.
1) Men bond through meaningful physical contact.
I’m bad a expressing myself through verbal communication. I tend to nod and grunt my way through conversations. But, when I get a chance to roughhouse with my girls, no verbal communication is needed, except when I’m actually hurt and I need to beg for them to stop torturing me. Whether we realize it or not, my daughters and I are having a bonding experience that words can’t describe.
2) Daughters need to learn how to defend themselves.
Despite the awareness and advancements made by the “Me Too” movement, women still struggle with being in situations where men can overpower them physically and cause them harm. I want my daughters to know how to defend themselves and roughhousing gives them a chance to learn this while in a safe environment. I let them “practice” on me as their punching bag.
At times, I instruct them to kick, bite, claw, and, yes, even kick me in the “tenders”, as my youngest likes to say, so they know how to take care of themselves if necessary.
3) Daughters need physical touch from their dads.
Since my daughters were born, I loved to hold, kiss, and cuddle them. I put them to bed every night with a hug, kiss, and a prayer. They are my world. But, for some reason, roughhousing provides that extra physical touch daughters need. If done appropriately and safely, it creates trust and a sense of closeness that those other physical gestures just can’t compare to. Oddly enough, there’s a sacred intimacy roughhousing establishes that bonds a father to a daughter and vice versa.
4) Daughters Find Roughhousing Fun.
My daughters and I go to the park often and play “monster” on the jungle gym a few times a month. Each time, I chase them up and down and all over the park while they’re laughing all the way. They enjoy the running around and being “captured” and then tickled till they can’t laugh anymore. When I swing them on the swings, inevitably, they say “Higher daddy, I want to go higher.” To which, I push the swing harder, to their delight.
All the while, we’re having a fun time, building memories. For us, roughhousing is a way of growing closer while having fun.
5) Roughhousing allows dads to relate with their daughters in a way moms can’t.
Let’s be honest. Families need dads. Moms are great, I have three of my own (birth, step and in-law), but there’s something special about a dad who’s invested in their children, especially their daughter(s).
We’re built differently than ‘Mom’. We act, think, and relate very, very differently; we were designed this way on purpose. We have the ability to interact in ways that Mom doesn’t know how or understand. My daughters know that I’m their protector and their first line of defense. They know that I’m dedicated to making them the best versions of themselves.
Just the other day, when I was busy and my daughters asked to play “panther”, I told them to play with their mom. They looked at each and incredulously responded, “Mom doesn’t do that!”
Well, they’re right. My wife, their mother, has never roughhoused with them, and that’s okay. I don’t expect her too and neither should she. That’s my role. That’s my area of expertise. Quite frankly, that’s my ‘daddy and daughter time’, and that’s the way we like it.
At the end of the day, I want my daughters to know that they can trust and feel comfortable with me as their father. We bond in a different way, that still imbues love and displays my care for them, and that’s okay.
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Photo credit: By ideabug @ iStock by Getty Images