Fathering A Girl Boss

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Being a dad to a son is familiar. You remember being a boy. You remember what you needed and what you wanted. You have a reference. What about being a father to a daughter? What is your reference for that? I know it seems hard and that’s why the cliché is that daughters are raised by mothers and sons are raised by fathers.

Allow my experience as a young girl to be of service and reference. Growing up in the ’70s and 80s, although college was very much expected of me, what I could ‘be’ after college still felt limited. If I had to describe how the limitation felt to me, what comes to mind is my thoughts of “I would have to wear a dress every day for everything that seemed to be an option to me.” Maybe it was extra stifling because I didn’t like dresses would just as soon play with my brother’s Voltron figure as I would my Barbie dolls? I’m not sure what it was, but what I am sure of is that none of it felt like something that resonated with me; even then —even as a young girl.

In this day and age, more daughters than ever before are star athletes and even money-making entrepreneurs. In being so, they face more unique opposition, obstacles, and inward battles due to societal infrastructures that may still have hints of the old constraints that kept women on the outside of male-dominated arenas. Some rules are in place from when women were still expected to wear dresses every day. To think outside the box of those rules, there are unique, external oppositions and obstacles that can have a negative impact.

Boys are historically and generationally readied for such things. For example, they are able to shadow their fathers who traditionally have roles of power, as well as being placed in situations of leadership and collaboration early on in life. We simply have to do the same for our girls.

Now, not only are fathers active in their daughters’ upbringing, but they are interactive as well. Fathers can equip their daughters to go against the grain of traditional roles and rules that still linger as invisible barriers. Just as tea sets and kitchens were given to little girls’ to begin preparing them for keeping a home over the years, you can get your little girl boss ready to conquer today’s world. As a female entrepreneur, being equipped with a stronger sense of self, experience being a decision-maker, cultivated leadership skills, and support through mentorship, I was able to break through the hurdles of the limiting expectations others to forge my own way. I am a fulltime entrepreneur that lives and works my business from all over the world; currently living solo in Mexico.

The internal equipment that helped me to be a rebel for my own success and happiness, can be cultivated in your daughter too. Here are four recommendations to do just that:

1) Equip her with a sense of self. Don’t just make sure she is educated. Make sure you tell her she is smart. Don’t just buy her pretty dresses and hair bows, tell her she’s beautiful. Don’t just celebrate the colored picture, find out why she selected the colors on the page so that you can celebrate her. When she makes a mistake, be sure to highlight the mistake is in the behavior and not that she is the mistake.

2) Equip her with the gift of choice. By the use of the word “gift”, you may assume I mean two great choices. No. The gift is in giving her two realistic options and explaining the possible results or consequences of each. As early as possible, make her a decision-maker. By the time she is older, by the sheer number of decisions she has to make, she will be comfortable doing so —even when challenged.

3) Equip her to lead. Give her “projects” to create, plan, and manage. Give her the budget for the party to then plan where it will be, how many people will be invited, how it will be decorated, what kind of cake, and how much in the budget will be left over for her actual gift.

4) Equip her to seek wise counsel. Pay attention to her interests and create an experience for her to be led within her interest. Do not just sign her up for a ballet class. Instead, find a ballerina willing to let her follow along for a day at the studio, have lunch with her to tell her stories of experiences and to answer your daughter’s questions. Give her experiences with mentorship, not just instruction.

Fortifying your daughter for the road ahead will make her a true warrior in busting through the obstacles that present themselves on her way to success as she defines it. Make her a girl boss!!

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Have you read the original anthology that was the catalyst for The Good Men Project? Buy here: The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood