—
It’s always regrettable when a dad and mom can’t do what it takes to preserve the traditional family unit, but with regard to my 2- and 5-year-old girls, an unmistakable silver lining peeked its head through the clouds not long after we split up.
As the primary breadwinner and, more importantly, as a truck driver, I spent more than four years as a parent almost in name only. My little girls became cute decorations I’d pass in the hallway on my way out to work. On weekends, I’d be driving in the morning and doing my side hustle at night and I actually saw them even less. After I moved out and got my apartment, this all had to change.
Luckily, their mom and I were amicable and mature enough to hash out our split without the nightmare of government intervention. We agreed on money, health insurance, and visitation, and before I knew what was happening, I was now charged with picking them up on Saturday and Sunday every week.
I feel kind of embarrassed admitting this, but initially, this arrangement scared me to death. I had never been a solo parent for any amount of time and I really didn’t know how to do it. Like everything else in the world, though, the more you do something, the better you get.
As winter reluctantly gave way to spring here in New York, social events with other parents were becoming more available. At one of these gatherings, one of my friends, who is both a mom and a Ph.D. in psychology, remarked about the fierce confidence and independence of my 2-year-old, River. In her attempts at trying to keep up with her older sister, she engages just about anyone in conversation, she climbs on swing sets and gets into situations that, I’ve been told, would scare the bejesus out of other girls her age.
At first, being inexperienced, I would run behind her with a loving (and often worried) “Be careful, River” for most of the weekend, but lately that is starting to change. Somehow, I was in the right place at the right time to hear a TED Talk given by Caroline Paul, author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Gutsy Girl”, and when listening to her explain the woefully unfair way we, as Americans, bring up and socialize our girls, it gave me pause.
Paul spoke of one study from The Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology that involved a playground fire pole. Parents were not only much more apt to warn their daughters about the danger of playing on this, but they were also seen assisting them in almost every case. That may have the benign ring of innocent careful parenting, but when you consider that the same study showed that the boys were not only cautioned less, they were almost never assisted—a clearer picture develops.
Another eye-opener was a study done by The Journal of Pediatric Psychology where they found that boys and girls are treated very differently in emergency room situations also. Essentially, boys were patched up and pushed back gleefully into the world of being a child—girls were warned against engaging in whatever activity they were involved in that caused the injury. Now, of course, some doctors warned the boys also, but the study clearly found that girls were warned “four times as much”.
Obviously, doctors and parents have the best of intentions but unfortunately, when we condition our girls in this traditional manner, we encourage timidity and deference, when we really need to be raising them to be brave and resilient. I am not an expert, but my gut tells me that if we want our daughters to stand up for themselves as young adults when the stakes are quite a bit higher, this is where we have the opportunity to instill this in them.
One excellent place to start is with our language. I found a very helpful booklet from “Best Start”, Ontario’s Maternal Newborn and Early Child Development Resource Center, called “Building Resilience in Young Children”. They suggest that we try to replace the common exclamation of “Be careful!” with the more empowering “Focus on what you’re doing. You got this!” It’s easy to see how just a small change in our words, like this example, could make such a beneficial difference in how our girls will grow up.
In addition to how I relate to my girls with words, I think my being aware of the forces that will be against their growing up to be brave and courageous—and then fathering accordingly—will be enough to make a difference. At the very least, they have a better chance than the typical knee-jerk parenting that most well-meaning people subject their little girls to.
It’s not enough these days to parent incorrectly under the flag of good intentions. One need only to open a newspaper to realize what these little girls need to be prepared for when they get older.
—
What’s your take on what you just read? Comment below or write a response and submit to us your own point of view or reaction here at the red box, below, which links to our submissions portal.
◊♦◊
Sign up for our Writing Prompts email to receive writing inspiration in your inbox twice per week.
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all-access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class, and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group, and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.