To the Father of an Independent Daughter
I watched her as she looked into her salad, busy with the leaves as the corners of her mouth tightened.
“I know my father loves me,” she said slowly. “But I don’t think he understands me.”
She was one of those girls I’m drawn to. Messy and wild. Fire in her eyes. Grit in her spirit. She’s not the first of her type that has sat across from me, dreaming and boiling over with what God is doing in her. She’s not the first of her type who has shrugged off her relationship with her dad while swallowing her water.
My male colleagues usually approach me with one of two questions. The first is, how do I raise up female leaders in my church? The second – what on earth do I do with the fireball of a daughter I have?
When you found out it was a girl, you had such dreams. Even if you had initially secretly hoped for a boy, here was this tiny pink thing that curled up on your chest. And you dreamed about how much she would need you. And maybe, although you laugh at yourself now, even in those first days you cried as you imagined walking her down an aisle to the man that would protect her. She would call you ‘Daddy’ and cry on you when boys broke her heart and you made jokes about your shotgun.
And then she started walking. And she wanted to run ahead of you – to show you things and do something new all the time. And she wasn’t scared or hesitant of anything.
And then she started talking. And you thought she would ask you more questions, but instead she started telling you about her tiny ideas that were big to her, and later about her big ideas that seemed terrifying to you.
You wanted to protect her but she is here in front of you as not a damsel but a warrior – and what is your place?
This was not what you thought a daughter would be. You expected soft and pink, and you got fire and granite. And you don’t know what to do with her. You thought you would be her protector, but then she started wearing shinguards or getting on planes or standing in front of a board room and you became unsure of what your place in her life would be.
I was that girl. (Fine. I am still that girl.) And I can tell you what I needed. In the midst of my independence, in the craziest of my ideas, in my most fiercely stubborn moments – I needed my dad to be proud of who I was. I know my parents had more than one moment of wishing I was more like what they thought a daughter would be – but they never let on. As far as I knew, they were glad I was theirs.
So, for what it’s worth – here’s a few suggestions on how to make that happen.
Tell her you are proud of her.
Some days, in the throes of the craziness of leading a church service, I check my phone before walking up to preach, and there’s a message from my dad. He is proud of me. He is praying for me. I don’t even always respond, because in that moment I can’t. But I always feel a little kick from knowing my dad is proud.
Maybe you think she doesn’t need to hear it. Maybe she tells you she doesn’t.
She needs to hear it. She needs to hear it when she’s operating in Type-A mode, when she has her suit on and she’s leading the room. She needs to hear you’re proud in that moment. And she needs to hear it when she tries too hard. When she fails. Or when she decides she’s tired of leading and takes a backseat.
She needs to hear that you are proud of who God created her to be. She needs to hear that you don’t need her to be softer or more easy to love. She needs to hear that you don’t love her in spite of her stubbornness or her grit, but because of it. She needs to hear that you believe she is uniquely equipped like this because God has big plans for her.
There were days I didn’t want him or my mom to know I needed them. Such was my drive to get out into the world and do the thing. I wanted to move, to knock down walls, to get on airplanes and hit the ground running. I don’t know how they felt in that moment, but they forced me into a hug. They said against the side of my head that they were proud of me, that they loved me.
Don’t be intimidated by her.
You are her father. You are in her life to teach her and to mold her. You’re not in her life until she gets a husband and you’re off the hook – you will be her only dad. And you have a spiritual responsibility to help shape her into a woman who understands the heart of God.
I don’t know what that looks like for your daughter but I can tell you what it looked like for me. I talked too much as a kid. (There are a few people reading this who just said out loud to themselves, “You still talk too much.” One is my sister.) I loved to read and I loved to learn. And I loved to talk at length about all the things I knew.
“Nobody likes a know-it-all,” my dad said to me. Constantly.
He didn’t say this to me because girls are not supposed to be smart. He said it to me because it was the truth. And whether I was a girl or a boy, I needed to learn to make space for others’ ideas and to treat them with respect and kindness.
Finding the balance of where to give your kid wings and where to park them so you can teach them is a hard balance. And you won’t always get it right. But they need to hear what you have to say. God gave you this kid – not another version of them – and God gave your kid you. There is no one more qualified than you to parent your kid. So lead them and teach them. Nurture the gifts God has given them but teach them to follow the model of Christ in their relationships.
Find a way to be involved.
I love that my dad and I can ‘talk shop.’ He has experience in my ‘industry’, so we can talk endlessly about things. But not all dads of daughters have this – maybe your daughter is passionate about something that you have no clue about. Maybe you can’t understand why she’s into it, or maybe, to be honest, you could care less about her field.
It’s okay to let her know more than you about some things. Ask her questions about her field. Show her that you are interested. If she tells you about a book she read, read the book. If you can’t understand her viewpoint, don’t write her off. Keep asking questions. And let her overhear you telling other people how great it is that she is passionate about what she is passionate about.
Speak well of other women.
Your words of affirmation to your daughter will lose their power if you always speak of other female leaders as weak, bitter, controlling, or worse. Whether it’s a political leader, a church leader, or a woman in your office – your daughter is watching the way you handle conflict or disagreement with female peers. The world is changing, but women leading is still new – and she needs to know her place in it. If you refer to women in broad sweeping statements, she will look for her place in that.
There is a family in our church with an 8-year-old daughter. When I am around them and the child says my name, her father is quick to correct her to call me Pastor Kelly. Now, I don’t care if the kid calls me pastor. But her father is teaching his daughter that he is okay with me being his pastor. There are some other men in the congregation who I consider friends, but in front of their children they call me “Pastor.” I am glad their children get to watch their fathers affirm the leadership of a woman. Not because I need their validation, but because those kids are going to grow up in a different world than I did.
You may read this and say to yourself that you don’t understand your daughter at all. She is not what you thought she would be. This is not what you thought fatherhood would look like.
You don’t have to understand her. But you need to tell her you are proud of her and that you love her, and that she is more than you had hoped for. She needs to know that you are glad she is the way she is – and that you affirm her being created to lead.