Advice to dads of young daughters

As a dad, I’ve had 10 years’ experience in raising a daughter, and yet somehow it still feels like a crash course, some midterm exam that I crammed for the night before. We’ve been through late-night asthma spells, planning a seventh birthday party, and the arrival of boy bands on her horizon. I don’t have any answers, and if you want touching, warm, useful advice, I suggest you look up Michael Mitchell’s “50 Rules for Dads of Daughters,” which found its way to me via e-mail.

That’s got lots of cuddly quotes, like, “There will be a day when she asks for a puppy; don’t overthink it,” and “It’s up to you to teach her the joy of socks on a wooden floor.”

I can’t compete with that. But I can offer certain offhand truths about raising a daughter, at least up to age 10. They are not always convenient truths, but nothing good in life ever is.

1. Don’t make jokes about One Direction. I learned this the hard way: young girls and boy bands are very, very hard to separate. You have to give it time, like Super Glue that’s stuck to your fingers; eventually it peels off by itself. I wrote an article about the aforementioned boy band (“What To Do When Your Daughter Starts Liking One Direction”) and, boy, did I see a lot of irate posts from local Directioners. They hated me (mostly for misidentifying one of the members in a caption… Like there’s a difference!!) When I detected the level of heat-seeking wrath out there pointed in my direction, I was just glad they weren’t my daughters.

2. Don’t force her into playing sports. She might end up joining the Lingerie Football League. I was watching A League of Their Own on TV recently, and I was surprised when the owners of the girl’s baseball league in the movie forced the team to wear skirts. How sexist! We’re so progressive now! Now we have Lingerie Football League (shown on KIX), where legitimately athletic women players are made to wear… bras and panties under their helmets and shoulder pads. Hey, but some of them can really play! Anyway, if women are only allowed to thrive in sports that require wearing underwear on the field, I think our daughter just might stick to math and science. 

3. Your interests are not her interests. This becomes increasingly clearer when your jokes and stories land on the ground with an audible croak. This has nothing to do with how much knowledge and wisdom you think you’ve accumulated over the decades you’ve been on earth; your child is not obligated to subscribe to your life channel. Eventually, though, she might get a few of the jokes.

4. Her interests are not (necessarily) yours; listen anyway. There is only so much mental space you can commit to hearing about iCarly and Adventuretime and Minecraft on a daily basis. But this is your daughter reaching out to you, so you’d better show some interest. Converse about anything, but let her steer the topic. You will find unexpected areas of commonality, like Mark Twain, or “Calvin and Hobbes.”

5. Don’t give unsolicited grooming advice. You may get the urge to run a brush through your daughter’s hair on occasion. But you can’t tell her how you think she should look; eventually, she will have to learn how she likes seeing herself.

6. Postpone the “body piercing” discussion until a much later date. We have this running discussion with our daughter about when she can get her ears pierced, age 11 or 12. I think, by now, she’s heard enough from her dermatologist lola (and seen enough hideous derma textbooks) to not be in such a hurry to get her skin pierced anytime soon. And thankfully, she’s not into tattoos.

7. Ditto the “boyfriend” question. The age before they become “tweeners” is a tricky phase. Girls are notoriously more mature than boys, so they pick up on all the subtexts in movies, songs, TV shows and adult discussions long before you think they do. But they haven’t yet filtered all this through an “adult” perspective; they haven’t connected all the dots. One day they may seem remarkably precocious, the next they rush out of the room going “Eww!” if they see two characters kissing on TV. What does all this mean? Like a toothache, the “boyfriend” question will not go away. All you can do is postpone the pain of seeing a dentist.

8. Books are a safe addiction. Kids don’t learn to love reading on their own; it almost always involves parents who read to them, or who are often seen reading books themselves. It’s a learned behavior, and if it becomes an addiction, it’s okay to feed it. You may want to steer a daughter to the classics you loved as a kid, but don’t be surprised if their passions lie in the direction of Percy Jackson. That’s okay. They will learn to find good stuff to read later. And if you’re starting to go broke buying books, tell her there’s a thing in school called a library.

9. You will never buy enough Oslo paper. Trust me. Kids go through this stuff like tissue paper. I don’t know what they do with it all; I suspect they’re pooling their supplies and selling it at the school canteen.

10. Ice cream covers up for a multitude of sins (thanks to Michael Mitchell for that). Late picking up your daughter from school? Jollibee snack cone. Missed a piano recital? Ice cream sundae! Couldn’t find any more Oslo paper for her watercolor assignment due the next day? Dilly Bar!

11. Cell phones are not necessarily a bad thing. In this culture, it’s way more important to know where your kid is at any given time than to worry about her making telebabad (which nobody does anymore, duh!). At some point, maybe age 11 or so, it’s a smart move to give her a cell phone. And pay for her load. Don’t give her any excuse not to text you. Sure, some kids will abuse this privilege, but it really depends on the personality.

12. Sometimes you just have to go ice-skating. There are activities — like horseback riding, or ice-skating — that are special to little girls. They will talk about it long afterward, and that’s when you know you’ve really connected, and lit up a special place in her heart. So once in a while, strap on those rented skates and brave the ice.