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Daughters and Fathers (lemm.ee)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/asklemmy

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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!

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[–] RBWells 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I was closer to my dad than my mom. I think probably because he just seemed to accept and appreciate who I was when I was little. He would take me out for spicy food because he said without that I got irritable; called me a wee anarchist. When I was a teen he'd shave my head for me when I wanted a mohawk. Both my parents were teachers and so both were around and both cooked, etc. He died when I was 16, but I wouldn't trade that for someone else who lasted longer. I wasn't as close to my mom, we were just very different sorts of people.

I'm not sure it's something you can force, the baby when she grows will likely be more like either you or her mother - if she is closer to her mom, being a good partner is the most important, and being there for if she needs to talk. Based on my individual experience I'd say buy her books and take her to eat at restaurants, lol, but all kids are different so I think the point is more to know her, so that you can do the things together that help her feel more confident being herself.

Oh - I just realized I also may have advice as a mom of daughters, since I married after having them, a man who was a single dad to his kids before and I see what he does for the girls, though I'm not sure they see it yet. They do see he would do about anything for me and they like that. He will always come pick them up in the car from wherever they are, goes to the school stuff and when the older ones were in college went with me to pick them up, drop them off, etc. Do not badmouth her dad, my husband actually pointed out to ME I was grumbling about their dad in front of them and he was right, don't do that. Just be yourself, love her mom, you will grow to love the kid too.