Tip Lists: On Being a Father (and a daughter)
By Kevin Renner, author of In Search of Fatherhood: A Mother Lode of Wisdom from the World of Daughterhood
10 Recommendations for Fathers
- Everything communicates. What you say matters, and what you do matters more. Everything you do communicates something, usually subtly. If you’re disinterested in your daughter, she learns reluctance about her desirability. If you’re distant, she learns that relationships with men are distant. If you’re by her side as she grows up, she learns she’s worthy. Everything you do communicate, and lays down the belief system that is like the software code in your daughter’s mind.
- Retire now. OK, you probably can’t quit your job right now. And I know all about this “peak earning years” pressure. But your daughter needs you right now, while she’s young, more than anything else in the world. Your life will be more prosperous if you stop worrying about making money now; you have the rest of your life to do that.
- Play catch. Hang out. Take her to your garage workshop. Your daughter craves one-on-one time with you. You’re her dad. She wants your undivided attention, and small things make the big difference. Take her on your garbage route, to your office, to the baseball game. Have small rituals together like movie night where you rent a movie and watch it together.
- Stand firm. Your daughter needs a strong father. She actually doesn’t want you to cave in when she whines. Even as you’re spending time together having fun, don’t get confused about your role and responsibility. The world around her is chaotic and sometimes frightening. Be a source of stability and strength for her. Successful women have both masculine and feminine sides, and your daughter will get most of her masculine energy from you.
- Get spirit. Teach your daughter reverence in whatever way you can, and that she has a life as a spiritual being. There is an existence beyond the noise of our minds. Help her find that, whether through a church, meditation practice, nature walks together, or whatever else works for you and your family.
- Design your son-in-law. What kind of man do you want your daughter to fall in love with and marry? You are the first man your daughter ever loves. You set the patterns for what she becomes familiar and comfortable with, as well as what she abhors when your behavior goes to extremes that she finds repulsive. If you want a respectful, responsible, compassionate son-in-law, that’s the kind of father you need to be, and the kind of husband you need to model.
- Tune in. Daughters are scarred emotionally in ways by fathers. Lasting damage is done by fathers who leave their children, especially in their early years. Abandonment, and even ambivalence, can create a gaping hole in your daughter’s heart, leading her to seek acceptance in unhealthy ways throughout her life to fill the void.
- Get help. If you are abusing your daughter in any fashion, you are laying a psychological foundation that will ripple for generations and scar her deeply. If it’s not clear in your mind what abuse is, answer these two questions: Are you using her in any way for your own sexual gratification? And would you feel uncomfortable telling her pediatrician what you have done to her? If your answer is yes, get help. You can break the cycle that you are a part of.
- Search your soul. If there are transgressions you are responsible for, step up and acknowledge them. Apologize. As hard as this may be, it can open the door for a resurrection with your daughter. You will go a long way toward healing yourself and your daughter.
- Start an adult relationship. When your daughter enters adulthood, treat her like an adult—which is easier said than done. If you’ve done a good job so far, you’ve been protecting her. But as much as you love and cherish that little girl inside your daughter, who you fortunately still can see, that little girl is a woman and she needs an open, authentic relationship with her father. That even means your opening up your own vulnerabilities to her. Open a door that swings both ways to a relationship of empathy and compassion. She is your equal now—a woman, an adult.
10 Recommendations for Daughters
- As a woman, get to know your father as a man. You probably think you know him and you probably don’t. Before it is too late, get to know him as someone other than your father. Encourage him to open up with you. Try to learn what shaped him, what his life’s disappointments were. He’s probably never told you about these, but he’s probably endured degradations at work, bullying, abuse, abandonment, betrayal, rejection, and heartbreak. Behind his public persona, he may be a painfully lonely man, or full of fear. Get him to unfold as much of his life story as he’s capable of. Try to see him in his entirety. You may well come to love him for it.
- Tell him you love him. He wants to hear that, over and over. All of his life, he wanted you to admire him. He may not have the tools to communicate with you, but he wants your affection. He craves it. Let him have it, if you can.
- Play catch. Do you remember how you wanted to be with him when you were young? Just him? He wants that with you now. Just the two of you. It doesn’t matter so much what you do. Take him to a movie. Have dinner with him. Let him feel you treasuring him in the time that he has left.
- Come to terms with forgiveness. That’s not the same as forgiving your father. But search your soul for whether you want to continue hanging on to your anger toward him. Has he come clean with his transgressions, and expressed remorse for them? If not, forgiving isn’t always the psychologically healthy thing to do. To forgive under the wrong circumstances is to collude with the perpetrator in the undoing of your sense of self-worth. But if he has sought your forgiveness, and you feel his sincerity, you face an opportunity for enormous healing.
- Stand firm. Your father may want still want you to be Daddy’s little girl. You’re an adult. You’re his peer. Be clear with him that the relationship isn’t daddy-daughter, but adult to adult.
- Get help. There may be a very lucky few who come into adulthood and move through it without tripping over the entanglements they have with their fathers. For most of us, our parents live on within us in ways we’re not even aware of, often to our detriment. So we struggle with authority issues that play out in the workplace, abandonment issues that repeat themselves in intimate relationships, and a host of other maladies.
- Express yourself. Did your father cause you great pain—or does he still? Let him know. Let him have it. Let him hear it from you directly and clearly. Just because you’re trying to create a loving relationship with him doesn’t mean you can or should live a life of appeasement. You’re an adult; he’s an adult. If you’re angry at him, let him know. It will help you both.
- Take him back home. Go for a walk with him in the neighborhood where you grew up. Take him down Memory Lane, to the park where he used to swing you or the lake where he taught you to swim or the church you used to go to. Tell him about the most joyous memories of the life you had with him, and how much those memories mean to you.
- Throw him a party. For one of his big birthdays—65, 75, or whenever you want—track down as many of his friends as you can, and throw a party in his honor. Make up a list of “65 things I appreciate about my dad” and post them around the house. You don’t actually need 65 of them—skip every five or pick random numbers. Just the gesture will touch his heart.
- Hug your dad. Let him feel your love. His eyelids and his body are sagging. He’s losing his hearing. He’s lost his parents and some of his closest friends. He has always wanted your affection, and he wants it more now than ever.
Inspired by the book In Search of Fatherhood: A Mother Lode of Wisdom from the World of Daughterhood, by Kevin Renner
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