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!
My perspective is slightly different since I’m a trans woman (have been for 10yr), but I was also raised by just my dad.
The main things I learned from him that have actually been useful are things like how to use a variety of tools and do basic handyman type jobs around my living space. I learned a lot of hard skills from him, but not so much soft skills. I can comfortably fix a toilet, patch a wall, or mount a TV. I also picked up the basics of firearms and engines from him, though I haven’t had to use that knowledge yet. The things that have been useful that I had to learn on my own were how to cook, how to sew, and how to clean.
I wish he had let me explore my emotions a bit more. I learned to repress my feelings and now struggle with that a bit in adulthood.
The best advice I can give is to be open and give her space to talk about what’s troubling her. Be an active listener, and don’t shrug her off when she’s sad or angry. Encourage her to learn hard skills that may be useful in the future, but also don’t be hesitant to learn soft skills alongside her. Let her practice styling your hair or painting your nails if she wants to. Gender norms are outdated anyways. More than anything, love, respect, and trust her.
Yes! On the other side of this, as a cis woman, don’t be afraid to teach her practical, hands-on skills that don’t conform to whatever ideas you have about gender roles. My dad wasn’t in my life much, though my grandfather was a fair bit. I was always jealous of the boys that were raised to have “shop” skills. I wanted to help with that kind of stuff but the adults just kind of shrugged me off, where I feel like if I was a boy I might have been invited or even volunteered to help. All the older men that have worked alongside me in shops act surprised when they see that I can hold my own around power tools. The only exception might be some of my robotics mentors.
I learned what I know mainly from a couple projects with my grandfather and some classes/clubs I took part in in high school, and while it’s something that does just click for me, I got to engineering school and felt pretty alienated when the boys had way more practical knowledge about things like cars and computer networks. Their father figures didn’t shy away from those topics with them and gave them solid foundations to build their skills upon.
Of course, you might not have those particular specialties yourself and she might grow up to be into different, traditionally “girly” things, but you won’t be able to say it was for a lack of support or because you were reluctant to share that side of yourself/your interests with her. It’s a whole level of connection that I think is too easily missed between people raised as girls and their father figures, while those raised as boys, yes, probably are more likely to miss out more on the emotional end of things. Both are important for a well-rounded human being.
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