This is a serious question, mostly addressed to the adult women among us but also to anyone else who has a stake in the matter.
What did your father do for you/not do for you, that you needed?
Context: I have recently become a father to a daughter, with a mother whose father was not around when she was growing up. I won’t bore you all with the details but our daughter is here now and I am realising that I’m the only one in our little family who has really had a father before. But I have never been a girl. And I know that as a boy, my relationships with my mother and father were massively influential and powerful but at the same time radically different to each other. People say that daughters and fathers have a unique relationship too.
Question: What was your father to you? What matters the most when it comes to a father making his daughter loved, safe, confident and free? To live a good life as an adult?
I’d like this to be a mature, personal and real discussion about daughters and fathers, rather than a political thing, so I humbly ask to please speak from the heart and not the head on this one :)
Thank you
P.S Apologies if this question is badly written or conceived; I haven’t been getting enough sleep! It is what it is!
Hey, I have some simple advice, dad to dad. She’s going to start by copying everything you do, and you need to involve her, and make her feel involved, in those things so she learns them. Especially encourage that in doing the chores together and eating vegetables together.
As she gets older, the temptation to continue to guide her in directions you know will be fierce. But you need to help her explore things you don’t know, and tell her “I don’t know this, but what do you need to learn about it so I can help.”
Also, coping strategies… When you get stressed, let her see you deal with it in a healthy way, so she’ll learn how to deal with her own stress in a healthy way. If you don’t have healthy coping strategies, get a therapist and learn some.