I have a radar for it. I can spot her from a distance: a girl who knows that her father delights in her.
She is more assured than other girls, more likely to believe that she can accomplish anything she sets her mind to. It’s not that he has carefully cultivated her self-esteem or that he has done everything right. Fathers are human beings, and human beings are notoriously imperfect. It’s that she is absolutely certain — she knows, somehow— that when she walks into a room, her father is glad she is there.
It’s easy to find conversations online and plenty of books about what mothers give their daughters, and rightly so. A mother teaches a girl something about what it means to become a woman simply by living alongside her. But a father gives his daughter something different: the first experience of being loved by a man who wants nothing from her in return.
Before boyfriends and dating and marriage, before the complicated negotiations of adult relationships, there is — or ought to be — a man who looks at her and sees someone precious. A good father teaches his daughter that she does not have to earn a man’s affection by being prettier, quieter, easier, thinner, more agreeable or less herself. She learns that a man can be strong without being frightening, protective without being controlling, interested in her without needing her to perform for him. And she learns this less from what he tells her than from how he lives.
She watches the way he speaks to her mother. That girl grows up noticing whether he keeps his promises. She knows whether he puts down his phone when she is talking. She remembers whether he comes to the game, the concert, the play, the awkward school event he would never choose for himself. She takes note when he says, “I was wrong. Will you forgive me?”
That is especially important because good fathers are not perfect fathers. The demand for perfection has discouraged enough parents already. A good father will lose his temper sometimes. He will misunderstand. He will be distracted when he should have listened. He will make mistakes his daughter remembers long after he has forgotten them.
But he returns. He repairs. And he always, always assures her of his love.
For Catholics, there is something especially poignant here. We teach our children to call God “Father.” Long before a little girl can understand theology, the word father already means something to her — for better or worse. Her earthly father cannot possibly carry the full weight of that word. He was never meant to. But he can offer her a small, human glimpse of what it means to be known, protected, forgiven and cherished.
Gradually, as their little girls grow, good fathers point beyond themselves. One day, a daughter grows up. Her father cannot protect her from every heartbreak, nor can he guarantee that the men she meets will be good. He cannot make the world safe, but he can send her into that uncertain world knowing what love should feel like.
She should know that love does not require her to disappear or to make herself very small. She should understand that strength can be gentle. She should be absolutely certain that when someone truly loves her, he is glad she is there. When a girl is so blessed by a good father, and she hears that she is the beloved daughter of a Father who has loved her from all eternity, something deep within her will recognize the familiar warmth of being completely at home.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
