30 Daughters Share What Their Fathers Didn't Know While They Were Growing Up

Now that I’m an adult I realize just how wonderful my father really is. Not just in comparison to others but he is an objectively amazing father. He taught us children the hard life lessons while still protecting us. He taught us to be self sufficient and independent. He taught us to work hard and don’t give up just because things get challenging. He busted his a*s to make sure we got to go on vacation and experience life. He taught me to hunt, fish, and fix a car. He also taught me to garden and grow my own vegetables. How to take care of livestock and other animals with compassion.

However, he also treated me more like a son than a daughter. I only wish that my father would’ve acknowledged that I’m a girl and it’s okay for me to like dressing up and that it’s okay to “throw like a girl”. Granted, I got a full ride to college for sports and that’s partly because I had to hang with the boys and my dad didn’t want me to be a great female player but just a great player in general. I think he messed me up only in the sense that it’s extremely difficult for me to date. I’m either too intimidating to strangers or “one of the boys” to people I know. I think I lost my feminine side because I am so close to my dad and he was slightly dismissive of my emotional side. I had to be tough and stoic.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain; I just feel like if my dad were less of a hard a*s and treated me more like a daughter than a son I would fit in more. Maybe be able to get a date instead of always just being a “bro”. That being said I am thankful for the life skills he provided and the protective eye he still has watching over his baby girl. [26yo F]

Edit: news update; got a lot of confidence from all the positivity and now I’ve got a date coming up with a guy who doesn’t know me or my “bros” and I get to make an actual first impression without being seen as one of the boys beforehand. Wish me luck! He seems kind and intelligent; I’m really excited to see what happens! Even if it’s a flop it’s a good step out of my passive ways!

I wished he knew girls could like girls and it was ok. That would have made my coming out story less dramatic.

If you want someone to respect you, you have to go first. My folks (especially my dad) would patiently explain how my feelings and desires were silly, because they didn't share them: but expect me to prioritize their feelings and desires even though I didn't share them. If you want her to be polite to your boring friends, be polite to hers. If you don't want her wearing a lip ring to the company picnic, don't wear socks with Crocs when you pick her up at school. If you're poor and she has to wear hand-me-down clothes, dress yourself out of the thrift shop.

Don't make your daughter feel bad for going through puberty. My dad made me feel so humiliated when I first started my periods and also made me feel like young going through puberty, growing breasts and having hair down there was something that should only be for adults and somehow I was growing up way before I should have.

That it is best to have a personal bond with your father, a hobby or activity that’s the two of you -no matter how small, and not him just be there when the whole family is together.

When our outdoor cats would get ticks I quickly alerted my father and we removed them. For him a chore and for me the one thing that was *us doing something together*.

- you need to teach by example. Don’t go around preaching things that you don’t even do.

- give her privacy. So many times I had my bedroom door threatened to be taken away, or my belongings taken away, etc. It was horrible and I felt like I was in jail.

- while it is important to compliment her on things she has control over (big achievements, good test mark, etc.) it’s also important to tell her she’s beautiful. I never got that.

- pay attention to her interests and ask about them. Make sure she has opportunities too, like if she’s interested in something around 8 or 9, she obviously can’t sign herself up for a team/lessons of any kind.

- remember that one day she is going to be an adult and you need to prepare her for that as a teen. That means you treat her like she is an emotionally mature person, not a 4 year old. You teach her how to have calm, stable discussions that reach compromises, not screaming arguments. Also teaching her how to cook her own healthy food is very important.

How to put hair in pony tails/brush long hair in general. Just thinking about it twenty years later makes my scalp hurt.

Also, to include the daughter in stereotypically-male housework. I can cook and load a dishwasher like my life depends on it, but I can't do any sort of maintenance like putting up a picture frame or unclogging a sink.

When you do something wrong, apologize. Don't just try to ignore what we just fought about and try to be our friend 15 minutes later. When you try to ignore our problem, it hurts us. It makes us angry. We won't want to be friends.

My friends and I have almost all had this issue with our dads. The worst thing, though, is when you try to have someone else apologize fix things for you. My dad has asked me to be this middleman for my younger sister, my friend has been asked by her dad, and some others have mentioned their dad sending in their mom. It doesn't make things better, and a lot of the time, makes that middleman lose respect for you.

Respect us as people and apologize to us.

That girls are not delicate little creatures who can't do anything. I always wanted to be an auto mechanic and help work on cars and he'd never let me. He told me girls can't do "man jobs" because they cause drama on the jobsites when all the guys are worried about sleeping with them. Now I am always having car trouble and have to pay out the a*s to get a mechanic to fix simple things because he wouldn't just show me how to fix it.

Edited to add that I grew up before the internet. YouTube IS awesome now but there's something really intimidating for me about even trying now just because of the attitude I faced being a girl in my house.

That we can be very sensitive about our bodies/looks once we become aware of them.