This post was written by Fit Dad Nation member, Joshua Young
I was appalled…
My sense of horror evolved to a general anger and then scorn.
It was a cold Michigan May evening in 2014. I was sitting at a local restaurant with my, then, 8-year-old daughter, Joni. It was going to be a special night for my little lady and it should have been special for a lot of young ladies. I had my doubts, however, as I looked around the restaurant.
From my seat, I could see the host stand as well as multiple different tables situated around the joint. Everywhere I looked, there were young ladies dressed up in beautiful dresses with their hair put up in various styles. Some with tiaras. Some with ribbons. Some with sequins and jewelry. These young ladies had clearly put a lot of time and effort into their outfits for the evening.
It was the night of the first Daddy/Daughter dance I had the privilege to attend since my daughter started public school. Prior to this, my four children had been homeschooled. The divorce and relocation of my family back to our home state of Michigan from West Virginia had put an abrupt end to that endeavor. The details of that painful transition, it’s causes, and its results are a story for another time, though.
When I had heard about this event, I knew that I wanted to take the opportunity to exhibit to my daughter what she should expect from anyone she would actually date in the far far far… faaaaar future. I wanted to set down a foundation of expectations.
Getting Involved..
I try and do this in all my interactions with my children, but this specific event seemed to be a prime occasion to use as an object lesson. From day one, I began helping her to prepare. I took her dress shopping and helped her pick her colors. I then asked her if she had any thoughts on what she would like me to wear and she let me know that, “one of your work clothes will work.” At the time, I dressed in formal business attire and I agreed that I could certainly do that for her.
I then asked what kind of food she’d be interested in getting for the evening and she told me that a lot of her friends were going to be headed to a restaurant near to where the dance was being held. I agreed and made reservations. Prior to the event, I ordered her a corsage that matched her dress.
I also rented a Dodge Challenger in which to drive her around that evening (I own a giant scary white van. Not cool at all). I went and got a haircut and ironed my clothes. I even put on cologne. Finally, I stood in front of the mirror and asked myself if I was honoring her desires with my appearance.
I felt that I was.
I drove the Challenger over to her mother’s house to pick her up. She was unaware that I had rented the car and was ecstatic to see the sapphire blue sports car drive into her driveway. Then I got out and presented her with the corsage (another surprise). She was glowing. We did some pictures and then I walked around the car and opened her door (something I do for her fairly often). She buckled up and then we pulled away. She put on some music that she enjoys and cranked the volume up to 11… (most only go to 10… I had mine made to go to 11).
Without being a complete fool, I took her around the country side demonstrating some of the things the car could do (drive it like you rented it, right?). There was a lot of laughing and hooting from this tiny girl in the passenger seat. It was a blast.
We arrived to the restaurant and were seated in a timely fashion. This is where my inner angry dad made the appearance mentioned at the beginning of this essay. I sat there and looked around the place at all these young ladies that had clearly gone out of the way to look their best.
Then There Were The Dads…
With few exceptions, the dads were dressed in khakis, polo shirts, and sneakers. Most had baseball hats promoting one golf club or another. They looked bored if they weren’t talking to another dad and if they were, the young lady was left sitting there looking around for someone who would care she was there. My heart broke for these little ladies. This was the appalling part.
The anger was sparked when I heard the following conversation between two dads that were waiting to be seated:
Dad one: “Yeah, I don’t think it goes that late, so that’s good.”
Dad two: “Right. My wife wanted me to wear a suit, but I wear that shit all day at work.”
Commence agreeable macho asshole laughing…
I watched as their daughters stood at their sides looking around. Hearing these words come from their dads that demonstrated to them how little importance that these men put on their desires, their needs, their feelings.
That’s when I got angry.
I fumed inwardly. I wondered if these men knew what they were doing. The damage that they were incurring by their actions. Perhaps it seems I am blowing this out of perspective, but here’s the thing. If they are like this during special occasions, what are they like daily?
Saddened, I turned my attention back to Joni and we ordered. I asked if she’d like me to order for her or if she would like to order for herself. She asked if I would and I did. She drank some Shirley temples and I had a beer. We finished our dinner and headed to the dance.
I’ll be honest. It was about one thousand degrees in the hall. There were a million girls between first and fifth grade running around screaming. The music was lame and I hate to dance. This was not an environment that I would normally voluntarily enter.
It’s Not About Us, It’s About Them
However, that’s the point. It wasn’t about me. It was about her. About providing her with an example of what masculinity and fatherhood should look like. Providing her with a foundation from which to measure all her future encounters with men.
The point, if you haven’t gathered it yet, is that we have a very serious duty in front of us as dads if we have daughters. We have an uphill battle against television, movies, magazines, and social interactions provided in their scholastic careers. Places that teach our young ladies that men are shallow and unfeeling.
A world that teaches young women that their dads would rather be watching sports or golfing than cherishing them and respecting them. A society of men who would rather sit and scroll through their phones than ask what Little Pony happens to be her favorite this week.
We must do better.
They deserve the best.
I grew up in an annihilated home. Broken home is too nice a term to use. My older sister grew up to be a wreck of a woman. At one point, during her teen years, I heard my father say, “she didn’t learn that from me.”
I know, now, that is not true. She did learn it from him. She learned from him that to get a man’s attention she needed to operate in all the ways that none of us ever want our daughters to operate.
By allowing our laziness or preferences or comforts come in and dictate how we will raise and interact with these young women, we set them on a path that is almost certain to be far less than what we want for them.
Take The Time, Guys
Open your eyes and be deliberate about how you raise your girls. If she wants to paint your nails, let her paint them. If she wants to braid your beard (if you’re man enough to grow one), let her braid it. Does she want to do your hair? Let her. Take her to get pedicures (trust me, they are amazing…). Go into Justice with her and look at the clothes she likes.
Take the time to play with her dolls, to watch her shows with her, to listen to the music that she likes with her, to pull out her chair, to open her door.
Take the time so that she knows how she deserves to be treated when she becomes a woman.
If you don’t have daughters, then raise young men who know these things. Young men who will defend rather than abuse women.
About The Author
Joshua is soon to be 40, divorced, and trying to be the best dad that he can be to his four awesome kids (3 boys, 1 girl). Works from home as a Health Information Technology Consultant and loves what he does.
I raised a beautiful, sweet, kind and gentle daughter, no thanks to her deadbeat dad! She left home at 19, full of self-esteem and dreams. Sadly, the boys/men she hooked up with drummed that self-esteem right out of her and did nothing to help her fulfill her dreams. History repeating itself, as the same thing happened to me.
So are you her step dad?
I’m her mother.
Wow! As a dad to two teenage girls now, I can affirm that what he said is spot on. My wife and I have always agreed that my goal was to set the bar as high as possible for the young men who might want to date our daughter. In the back of my mind, I honestly wondered just how much each of them was getting. At 15 a guy (notice I didn’t say “young man”) began to manipulate her to…well, you know where it was headed. It took hardly any time before she came to me and said, “He is manipulating me and I need to end this friendship now.” Truly one of my proudest dad moments. She has her first real boyfriend now and he is amazing, respectful, and honors her just the way I would want him to. (Another score was when she came to me immediately after their first kiss to tell me. Those moments are so sacred between a dad and a teenage daughter.) Thank you Joshua for writing this and thank you Steve for sharing it.
Wow, that’s great to hear the communication you have with her. My goal is to foster that same openness and want my girls to be able to tell me anything.
This is a pretty good article. Nothing wrong in the observations and insights, but there’s a deeper problem that is only touched on. Here’s the part where it gets touched:
“We have an uphill battle against television, movies, magazines, and social interactions provided in their scholastic careers. Places that teach our young ladies that men are shallow and unfeeling.
A world that teaches young women that their dads would rather be watching sports or golfing than cherishing them and respecting them. A society of men who would rather sit and scroll through their phones than ask what Little Pony happens to be her favorite this week.”
This uphill battle not only needs to be fought in terms of raising our daughters but also in terms of self perception. Men are under siege and that’s the way many women like it. For the most part the ‘equality’ movement is not at all about equality but about expanding power and influence and put bluntly about vengeance. There is an agenda, spawned initially by the woman’s movement and subsequently carried on by each similar movement, that men must pay for all the shortcomings of society inflicted on any other group. Watch any sitcom or commercial. The dad, when present, is an idiot or a narrow minded critic. The question, to all the ‘others’ is; how is that working out for you?
It isn’t. Women are now much more likely to get divorced and be single mothers, along with a host of other negative freedoms, than in the ‘bad old days’. The narrative would have it seem that these new evils are the result of male behavior and men’s views and attitudes toward women. Men are seen as a sideline, essentially good for only providing sperm to the woman’s egg. We hear how men are simple while women are complex…and many men buy in without thinking about it…and why not? Most were raised by women because their fathers were working and providing. That’s what the great majority of men still do and have always done.
It’s not surprising that women now want to go to work. Selectively of course. Most want nothing to do with manual labor even if those jobs pay well. Look at the next construction site you pass. Check out the cab of the next semi you see on the highway. Sure, you will see the occasional woman but reality is that most of the heavy work is done by men…and it always has been. I’m not sure that women were aching to work in the steel mills, coal mines and whaling ships of yesterday. We’ll never know I suppose, because in many ways men did keep them out of those jobs. Bad, bad men; evil power mongers, why did you not let women into those hazardous positions? So, when we hear the grains of truth that in most cases women were kept out of the workplace we need to see that larger picture in that idea. Men, in general, respected women too much to expose them to those dangerous environments and if first hand accounts of women in labor intensive fields are to be believed women did not want to be there. Today’s statistics about women in hazardous jobs bears that out, given the ability to enter these jobs they choose not to. Women are exposed to discrimination and poor treatment by co-workers in these environments. News flash, so are men. It’s the nature of the work, and in some ways it needs to be. Hazardous jobs require knowing you can rely on the people around you. Men have developed ways to weed out the guys that can’t do the job, it’s not always fair and it’s not pretty but it has served a purpose. Some missions can’t be accomplished by lowering the standards.
That’s a message I make sure my daughter hears. I also see to it that she understands the difference between talk and actions. Men tend to see that difference pretty starkly, and it can be a lifesaver. I can tell her I love her all I want but as the author points out it’s action that speaks loudest. My parents are part of the ‘greatest’ generation. I can count on one hand the number of hugs I received growing up and I had no need of those I did get because I knew my parents loved me by their actions. Something like a dance is all well and good, but it’s something that’s worth is derived from social interactions. Love and respect are instinctively understood by children. There are women who would read this article and their main thought would be disgust at the gender role being reinforced by a dance for girls.
Men and women are different and they play different roles in kids lives. I stay home with my kids and am happy to do it. I also see the women that work with my wife and how they react to me staying at home. I get compliments like ‘that’s so great that you stay home’. It cracks me up because the real ‘compliment’ they are paying is that I have freed up a position for a woman, my wife. I worked for nearly 20 years, married late. Women thinking they will find fulfillment and/or power in working for a corporation or by mainly focusing on career saddens me. They seem to not understand power among other things. I have more power in raising my kids than any job can grant. How are fulfilled adults created and taught and how are strong independent thinkers and leaders forged? By upbringing, by parents. No more frustrating, meaningful job in the world. Mothers that want to provide their daughters with a strong role model by working ought to look at the role model that brought them up to be strong and independent. I’m not against women working, or men staying home, but I have trouble with the emphasis put on the ability to work somewhere as a measure of freedom, strength or respect. It seems quite shallow to me. It also seems eerily similar to the attitude many men adopt.