Joe Kelly - Dads and Daughters: How to Inspire, Understand and Support Your Daughter When Shes Growing Up So Fast

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Every father can make a huge difference in his daughters life. A father is the first man his daughter knows. With that potent position of first man comes the ability to set the norm of manliness for hera norm that ultimately can be stronger than what anyone else tells her. When we truly listen to our daughters, we help reduce the odds that our girls will be caught in a cultural straitjacket that limits their options and behavior because of their gender. We can fight the effects of the gender straitjacket by never requiring or expecting our daughters to wear it when they are with usthus helping them feel a freedom they may not have elsewhere.

By reading these words, youve already begun to do more than pay lip service to becoming the best possible father you can be. Many wonderful doors open when we explore why a father-daughter relationship matters so much, as youll discover in the coming pages.

My own journey with daughters began in 1980, when my wife Nancy Gruver and I had twin girls.

In 1992, that journey accelerated when Nancy and our daughters, Nia and Mavis, decided to launch an alternative magazine to counter the lousy content of mainstream girls magazines like Seventeen, YM, Teen, and the like. The result was New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and Their Dreams, an international, ad-free bimonthly that is edited by girls between the ages of eight and fourteen. As things turned out, I became New Moons first employee; answering phones, entering subscriptions, copyediting, occasionally vacuuming, and working closely with the fifteen or so girls who edit New Moon. Every other Sunday afternoon, these girls (including our daughters) met in our living room to decide everything about each issue of the magazine: its theme, cover art, feature stories, choice of authors and letters to the editor, and more. In between meetings, while the girl editors were in school, I worked to carry out their instructions. Our editorial meetings bubbled with vigorous discussion in which girls shared their insights, opinions, concerns, and dreams. They didnt tolerate overbearing adult behavior, and I worked to be a partner, not a boss. I learned a ton about what its like to be a girl in todays world.

For seven years, I also edited New Moon Network: For Adults Who Care About Girls, a newsletter gathering the experiences of parents, stepparents, teachers, coaches, researchers, clergy, counselors, relatives, and other adults concerned about rearing healthy, confident girls. Today, I am publisher of the national newsletter Daughters: For Parents of Girls. All of this gives me the chance to talk with dads of daughters all the time. While New Moon is still going strong, my work with fathers and daughters took another path in 1999.

Thats when northern California father and New Moon subscriber Michael Kieschnick e-mailed us about an idea he had: a national organization for fathers and daughters aimed at helping fathers better understand the issues daughters face, and better understand the positive influence we can have on those issues. Soon thereafter, Michael created the national nonprofit called Dads and Daughters, and hired me to run it. Dads and Daughters (DADs) is a membership organization that, through education and advocacy, provides tools to strengthen father-daughter relationships and to transform the pervasive cultural messages that value girls more for how they look than for who they are. DADs uses Daughters (which DADs owns), biweekly e-mail newsletters, monthly member activism, an extensive Web site, media interviews, educational materials, radio programs, an online fathers discussion group, and presentations around the country to accomplish that mission. Through DADs, Ive met thousands more fathers.

Over the last ten years while writing, traveling, and speaking about daughters and dads, Ive been thinking about the need for this book. I have written it to challenge you, not only to reassure you; to raise questions we can begin to answer together, not to placate any father. There are critical issues our daughters need us to address and we cannot rise to the occasion without taking a critical look at ourselves. My goal is that, after reading this book, you see your relationship with your daughter more clearly, appreciate your own importance in her life, start to listen to her with a sharper sense of hearing, and share your experience, strength, and hope with her and with other dads.

No girls life will be free of problems. Whether those problems are large or small, a fathers involvement can be key. That fact underlies everything in this book and should underlie everything we do as fathers of daughters. In these pages, youll gain a greater awareness of the confusing world girls face today. Youll understand how you can be a positive influence in every part of that world. Plus, youll learn ways to help reduce the number and severity of problems for your daughter and for other girls.

Each chapter lays out an issue, exploring some of its complexity. All of it is in plain English, easy to understand and work into your life. Youll read about how fathers:

successfully listen to girls

overcome fathering hurdles

nurture a daughters emerging sexuality

encourage athletics and physical activity

support good body image

fight cultural limitations placed on girls (and boys)

deal with serious problems like alcohol abuse

strengthen a daughters confidence and savvy

build a lifelong father-daughter relationship.

To help accomplish all this, the book has plenty of practical tools. After all, what dad doesnt like a nicely stocked toolbox? There are tips, resources, and ideas to help you figure out where you are and where youd like to go in your relationship with your daughter. These tools provide ways to have fun with our daughters, communicate better with them, and help them succeed.

While writing this book, I tape-recorded extended conversations with more than 125 fathers of daughters in Nebraska, New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, California, Oregon, Montana, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Massachusetts. These men are grandfathers, stepfathers, biological fathers, married, divorced, raising a second family, widowed, and never married. They come from a wide range of socioeconomic classes, family situations, and ethnicity. In about a quarter of the interviews, I also talked with the fathers daughter or stepdaughter. This book also draws on thousands of submissions to the DADs online discussion group. I make no claim that these interviews and comments add up to a scientific sample. These are simply conversations between fathers.

Fair warning: you may get angry, inspired, upset, encouraged, or all of the above. Thats OKeven good. But youll also get involved and smarter and learn how to make changes. Youll see that when we expand opportunities for girls, we expand them for boys, too.

Fathers influence how daughters see themselves. With a fathers positive words and support, a daughter can be safe and healthy, and can thrive no matter where life takes her. A girl whose father listens to and respects her will