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!
One of the skills my dad taught me that I’ve been the most grateful for over the years that is generally considered a "male "skill is to take things apart and use tools to fix them. My dad has two daughters, so he showed us how to do the stuff he loved. Power tools, electrical work, not being afraid to take out the screw and see how it works and if you can fix it. Not as many things are simply mechanical as they were in the 90’s, but it taught me to be curious and unafraid of exploration and capable in a way that continually surprises the people around me.
