Lynchburg Living

"Just a Thought..."

By Jon Dupin

My one and only daughter is 9 years old and she has filled my soul with an incomprehensible joy. Of course, I absolutely love my sons, but the father-daughter connection is and should be distinctive. Here’s some stuff I’ve gathered so far about raising a little girl to someday become a wise and confident woman.

1) A father cannot and should not be like a mother. Let me explain. I think a father sometimes gets intimidated by the natural closeness his daughter longs for with her mother and therefore he resists pursuing her deeply. He simply defaults by letting the daughter-thing be for the “women-folk.” This is a catastrophic mistake for a father. Absolutely, he should encourage the mother-daughter relationship in all its special wonder, because mom is the natural template for what a woman, wife and mother looks like. But, he should not back away from his daughter just because he is not wired the same. Instead, he must own what unique bond he will have with her; one that is different, but not superior, to her mother.

And what is that bond? Simply put: character and confidence. A father should be his daughter’s most pivotal sage, showing his little girl how to live, think and feel in the path of wisdom and dignity. He will also instill a humble confidence in her that she is beloved and beautiful to him and the world. His words and actions, especially in her childhood and teenage years, will deepen the waters in her emotional and spiritual well.

2) A father shows his daughter how a man should treat her. If a father wants his daughter to respect herself and expect the same from other men, especially a potential husband, then he has to set the bar by his own example. She will first study the way he loves and respects her mother. How does he care for and romance her mom? Does dad talk to mom like she’s cherished in the family, or is she demeaned and/or ignored?

A daughter will also take her cues from how her father acts towards her personally. When a father chases after his daughter’s heart, mind and attention honorably, then she tests future boyfriends and potential husbands through her father’s character grid and not infatuation or insecurity. Essentially, Dad will be her first knight in shining armor.

3) A daughter will seek two critical things from her father throughout her lifetime: His wisdom and his love. Yes, a girl will become a woman, meet and marry a man and leave her father’s household. She will take another man’s name and will eventually hear her husband’s voice over her father’s voice, and she must do so in order for a new family to successfully emerge. And yet, she will forever seek the same two elements from her father, even when the man is dead and gone.

Even when she is a grandmother, she will tell stories about the truth and proverbs imparted by her father–”My father used to say to me…” What’s even stranger is that even absentee and unworthy dads sometimes get memorialized by their adult daughters, because she longs to remember him with grace and redemption. She will also replay the few or thousand times her father expressed his fondness and affection for her.

With this in mind, I leave all fathers of daughters with this challenge: Strive to somehow show your daughter everyday that you love her and that you think she’s beautiful both to you and in the eyes of God. I promise you–you will not regret the effort.