Menstuff® has compiled information on the issue of fathers and daughters. Photo above left is by Jerry Cooke.
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Can Dads and
Daughters Watch the Super Bowl Together Without Cringing?
My Daughter's
A Pro-Linebacker
World Cup
Inspiration
Bend It Like
Beckham
When Daughters Come Second -
A New Rites-Of-Passage
If You'd Only Let Me
Play
Raise Your Daughter
Right
Father-Daughter
Dance
MS Foundation - Only
Daughters to Work?
Take Our Daughters And Sons to Work
Week
10 Tips for Dads with
Daughters
What is Beauty in the
Media
Dedicated
Dads
Teen
Magazines-Will They Harm Her?
Ten Things Every
Father Should Know
Father-Daughter Valentine
Dance
Gender Gap Crap
NCAA's Special
Rules
Father & Daughter
Companies
Missing
Children
Related issues: Talking With Kids
About Tough Issues, Adolescence,
kidstuff, children,
fathers, fathers
& sons, single fathers,
step fathers, military
fathers & fathers stories
and Dads&Daughters
newsletter.
Other related issues: gangs,
hazing, sexuality-general,
sexual harassment, tv
violence.
Books on: children,
communication,
divorce-general,
families, fathers-general,
fathers &
stepfathers, fathers
& daughers, fathers-single,
fathers &
sons, gay
fathers or gay children, stepfathers,
marriage, parenting-general,
parenting-single,
relationship,
ritual-initiation,
sexism, sex
roles, sexuality-general,
sexual
harassment, gangs,
abuse-boys,
abuse-child,
sexual-incest,
abuse-ritual,
abuse-sexual,
violence-rape,
violence-sexual
Journals
- on Child, Emotional, Religious, and Sexual Abuse and Trauma
Periodicals - Children,
Parents,
Teens
Resources on families,
gangs,
parents,
father's
rights, urgent
Slide
Guide: Gangs, stds, aids, safe dating.
Note: New
Moon Network is always looking for fathers with daughters to
write for the"fathering" section. lynettelamb@earthlink.net
A recurring theme in all of my men, women, and women and men retreats had been the impact the father had (whether present, abusive, distant, perfect or absent) in the development of the Father Wound. From this I have come to believe that no matter what we do, we will still mess-up as fathers. By becoming more aware and doing more work on our relationships with our children during the tumultuous years of adolescence, we will have a more positive impact on our children that will effect at least seven generations to come.
While improved communication is important, we need to actually start developing completely new models for positive ways fathers can be with their teen-age daughters.
This realization brought me and our then 20 year-old daughter Natalie, together to create and co-facilitate a new rites-of-passage for fathers and their teen-age daughters. Having single parented her since the age of 8, I found that there were things that had gone unsaid, and things that hadn't been listened to (nick names, no mattered how innocent, really embarrass and hurt). I saw how important it is to deal, in a positive way, with all energies in the relationship.
But, how could we bring fathers and daughters together in a new, healthy way? In ancient cultures, men traditionally initiated the boys into adulthood and the women initiated the girls. Add to this the current cultural messages to fathers. Teach your children how to deal in the real world. Prepare them for the hard knocks, trials and difficulties they will most likely experience. Don't expect to be loved. Add to this the factor that for the first time in any culture, women are doing "nontraditional" roles previously the exclusive territory of the man, and you have a scenario that the rites-of-passage, as practiced for centuries, no longer serves. A need for new ritual to acknowledge and support these major societal changes was needed.
It was about 3AM Sunday morning, three miles up California's Rubican River from civilization. We had previously spotted fresh tracks of a big cat, and signs of deer and many smaller animals were everywhere. It was brisk out, with a sky that we could see a million stars further than we could ever see in the city.
The sound of a deer rattle could be heard. Someone in a Mexican grandfather's mask was waking the inhabitants of the small encampment. "Dress warmly and join us at the fire circle."
Sleepy-eyed, the girls and their fathers prepared for the cold, wondering what was ahead. Slowly, the group began to form around the fire circle. It was time for these teen-age daughters to break from their fathers and go into the wilderness, to their "special spot" each had picked the day before. They would remain there alone for the next six hours meeting their fears and anxieties as they separated from the safety and protection of their fathers. They were about to go through a rite-of-passage never before performed in any culture - the passage from the world of the young daughter, not as a son would become a man but as a daughter would become a woman in the world of her father.
The Vision Quest and its purpose was outlined and we went around the circle so each could express their concerns and fears. At the end of the ceremony, each father sent his daughter off to her special place. Each father passed on a deer rattle they had fashioned out of deer hooves tied to the end of strips of animal hide and wrapped with sinew to a short tree branch. These rattles had all been prepared the day before in the sacred way while the fathers met together. Their daughters were to use the rattles during the night to let the animals and spirits know there was a human among them.
After the girls had disappeared into the darkness, several fathers sat up around the fire. It was a circle of fear, starring into the fire in silence, listening. Now and then a rattle could be heard in the quiet. A chant, a whistle, a song. Soon, all was quiet.
The sun rose around 5:30. Those fathers who had dozed off were awakened at 7:30 and were sent off alone and write in their journals, things that they had never shared with their daughters, maybe never shared with anyone. It could be about a weakness, a fear, a sorrow, something that demonstrated their vulnerability, that demonstrated that they were made of flesh and bone.
By 9:00, they were to join their daughters and spend as much time as necessary sharing both of their experiences that morning and sharing things they felt comfortable with from their journals - their secret writings, secret thoughts. Each father took with him a traditionally made prayer arrow which his daughter taught him to make the day before. She had spent the night with the prayer arrow she had made and they were to create their own ritual to leave the arrows at that sight, along with the things they didn't want to carry around inside themselves anymore.
As the fathers and daughters began returning to camp, there was a different air about their relationships. The experience seemed to make their bond much stronger. The fathers saw their daughters differently now. The daughters, too, saw themselves differently. They felt an exhilaration of having faced the night alone and a new independence of knowing they had accomplished something totally on their own. They had persisted, had overcome their fears, had become more confident and self-reliant in just a few short hours.
Men Still Make the Best Fathers
Our culture has great fear and reluctance to accept this father-daughter connection. Some people, like author Jeff Hearn, believe that "...children are not ours in any sense...". Others, from psychologists to church leaders, still challenge our intention of wanting to spend time alone with our daughters, and they really question our desire to take them into the wilderness alone.
But others like Judith Wallerstein feel "...adolescents are particularly vulnerable when deprived of relationships with their father...". Linda Leonard wrote a whole book dealing with the wounds created in the father-daughter relationship and the need to improve those relationships. And, Miriam and Otto Ehrenberg believe that the father should "give up the traditional role of removed provider and take an active role as an involved caregiver."
Being a father, today, contradicts the fundamental ways most men have been raised. The fact is that fathers are full of strength, power and tenderness. They are very good at loving and cuddling their children as well as disciplining and setting boundaries and limits. They can be gentle and roughhouse, go on roller-coasters and play tea party. They enjoy playing with dolls and much as playing ball.
Fathers build in their daughters the confidence to be self-sufficient in the world without continually running back home for support. Their relationship often mirrors the kind of relationships their daughters will choose. The father helps her become independent from him and is the only one who can really confirm for her that she is unique and separate from her mother.
Fathers are open, loving and vulnerable. It's vulnerability that encourages fathers to show not only their strengths but their weaknesses so that the daughter can learn to accept these in herself and from others.
Fathers have a major impact on their daughters view of their own femininity and sexuality and are very good at accepting their display of sexuality in stride. As she goes through puberty, the underlying attraction between them is understood and acknowledges these feelings, confirming that he, too, is a sexual being.
Unfortunately, as our daughters move through this time and start to develop physically, sexually and emotionally, some fathers withdrawal from their daughters. This usually happens because he isn't clear on how to react, how to work with the feelings that are inside of him, and how to deal with the sexual energy his daughter is displaying.
Since most men don't talk about problems with other men, this leaves many fathers who feel a sexual energy between themselves and their daughters, thinking they are the only ones, and that they must be real perverts. Drawing away from a developing daughter at this time, however, can be very damaging to her own sexuality and how she acts around boys and men in the future. This doesn't tolerate inappropriate behavior. It only says that the energy is there, it is normal, and that we must not withdraw our love, affection, hugs and kisses lest we negatively effect not only our relationship with our daughter, but her future relationships with men.
Additionally, this culture has developed such fear around sex that inappropriate taboos have been created that further confuse the situation. When the taboo doesn't fit with human experience, a situation can develop that clouds right from wrong and may open up more inappropriate sexual activity than would otherwise be present.
We need to develop healthy messages that separate touch from sex and sex from intimacy. We need to talk with other men about our experiences so that we will know that we aren't the only ones with sexual energy. We need to be able to recognize the appropriate limits of parental love and distinguish what is healthy from what we should be concerned about. While somewhat simplistic, if it's comfortable showing affection with others around, it's usually healthy, whether others are around or not. But, if you feel the need to make it a secret, it's at least borderline, if not totally inappropriate. (The Ehrenberg's book provides some very valuable information about appropriate and inappropriate sexual intimacy between fathers and daughters and would be a valuable addition to any personal library.)
It has become my belief that the importance of a close, healthy father-daughter relationship is possibly the most important relationship a father can develop at this time in our culture. It will provide daughters and women with a positive image of a father, which is currently missing, for all intent and purpose.
This change won't come about merely be taking a teen-age daughter into the wilderness for a rite-of-passage, though it's never too late to start. It should begin by making a commitment to be involved from the start and make the care of your children as important as your work. It means working for a company that supports parental leave, not just in theory but in practice. It means taking a job that has the flexibility so that you can take off when your children need you and that allows, and encourages, ample time to be with them. It means letting the boss and people you work with know that you take fathering seriously and encourage other fathers to do the same. It means placing as much importance on your active involvement with daughters as you do with sons.
It's not about parental rights, it's about parental obligations.
It's the only way men will ever know the absolute joy and excitement
of fathering. When it comes down to the short strokes, I've never
known of a father to say on his death bed, "I wish I'd worked more."
- Gordon Clay
Father-Daughter Valentine Dance
or Massery@prodigy.net
Photography
R. W. Morgan & Daughter Photography, 4570 Westside Rd,
Redding, CA 530.244.4046
Some people say I have attitude - maybe I do. But I think you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does - that makes you a winner right there. Venus Williams US tennis champion
Bonehead facts: You have 22 bones in your skull. Don't be a bonehead. Wear a helmet when riding a bicycle or motorcycle - you too, dad!
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