Rick Johnson - Becoming the Dad Your Daughter Needs

F athers have incredible influence (positive or negative) on nearly every aspect of their daughters life. A father sets a huge role model for his daughter regarding the qualities she looks for in a man and the standards she maintains in her relationships. He is the first man in her life and models how a man should treat a woman, how a man should act, and how a man shows healthy love and affection to a woman. He also sets the standard for how a daughter feels she deserves to be treated by men. He even determines how a girl feels about herself. If a father shows his daughter love, respect, and appreciation for who she is, she will believe that about herself as a woman, no matter what anyone else thinks. Girls deprived of this father love and affection make poor choices in an effort to fill that void.

One of the challenges about writing parenting books, at least for me, is I never really feel adequate to the task. Not having sterling role models while growing up, I never felt all that competent as a father or a parent. But both our children are young adults now, for the most part living on their own. While they have not chosen to necessarily be the people I envisioned them to be, I have to confess that they turned out to be pretty good people. They both have good morals, a good work ethic, and a strong value system (albeit slightly different from their parents).

Consequently, I did not enter into writing this book lightly. I admit, despite numerous requests from readers of my other books, I have been a bit reluctant and even apprehensive about writing a book for dads and daughters. My publisher suggested I write one several years ago, but I declined because frankly I didnt know if I was up to the taskespecially while I was in the midst of raising a slightly rebellious teenage daughter. I guess I wanted to see how she turned out before I passed myself off as some sort of expert on the subject. Now, after guiding a very strong-willed daughter through the dangerous wilderness of adolescence into young adulthood, I feel a bit more competent to proceed. Understand, however, that raising daughters is as complicated as they are. Probably like most of you fathers out there, having been a boy and a son, I felt much more comfortable raising sons than I did daughters.

Frankly, boys have a much easier lot in life than girls. Girls are biologically much more complicated than boys. Indeed, females are more psychologically and physiologically complicated than their male counterparts as well. Females are much more holistic in the way they see and process the world around them. And females tend to be more emotionally driven than males, causing a plethora of challenges that males generally do not face.

In many ways I think raising daughters is much more complicated and difficult than raising sons. Certainly there are exceptions, but generally most people I speak to believe that girls present greater challenges than boys, possibly because the stakes are higher (or at least seem to be). Females appear to suffer most from poor decisions that are made by either sex. Women and girls suffer the consequences of poor decision making in nearly every circumstance. For instance, the vast majority of single parents are females, often raising their children without any support from the male sperm donor. Clearly a male was involved in the actions that contributed to producing a child, yet he does not suffer the consequences of his choices to nearly the degree that the female does.

What is it about a father-daughter relationship that is so powerful yet so frightening to a man? The entire time my daughter was growing up, I loved her like crazystill do. I would have gladly thrown myself in front of a raging grizzly bear for her. But she scared the living daylights out of me, especially after she became a teenager. Her potential for self-destruction was in direct proportion to her inability to control herself. During adolescence she seemed unable or at least unwilling to view life from any kind of logical perspective. Her actions and decisions rarely made sense to me and often frustrated me beyond endurance. (Note: Throughout this book I share candidly about the ups and downs of our relationship. I do so with her full permission and knowledge.)

After numerous challenges over the years, my daughter appears to have settled down into adulthood as a competent, confident, and responsible young woman. We have what I think is a very good relationship. We see each other frequently, talk about issues in her life, and have genuine affection and love toward one another. We even speak together at a variety of father-daughter events around the country.

I am going to admit right up front that I believe in the old-fashioned notion that a dad should protect his daughter. Our ministry works on a daily basis with too many women, both young and old, who carry the deep wounds from a father who either abandoned them, did not protect them from other males, or did not protect them from lifes other cruel intentions. A father should be involved in his daughters life and the decisions she makes as she approaches adulthood.