Fathers and Daughters

Leopold Mozart and Wolfgang Amadeus and Maria Anna

Loren Christie inspired me with her post “Golden Promises”, which was about the innocent promises that children make their parents. It made me think of a conversation I had with my Dad when I was about eight years old.

Dad worked long hours during the week, but he and I used to spend most of the weekend together. It would be several years before I was granted a little brother and sister, so he did all the things with me that dads typically like to do with their sons as well. Together we built things (much to my mother’s chagrin, as he taught me how to use a circular table saw when we built a deck together), painted, went to the hardware store, mowed the lawn (also against mom’s wishes, due to accidents she frequently saw in the ER where she worked as an RN), and cleaned the gutters on the roof (also not mom’s favorite place for me). When he bought his first Radio Shack computer, we read the manual together and learned BASIC programming. To this day I take pleasure in doing these sorts of chores (good thing, as Kevin is not a handyman), with Dad accompanying me in my thoughts. Today I am sure I would not want my kids handling power tools or going on the roof; but I am glad my parents allowed me to master these skills.

Dad also liked to challenge me in every way he could. When we went bike riding, he would often race ahead of me, so I could barely see around what curve he had gone. This is the sort of thing that would never have worked if we didn’t trust each other. He trusted that I would ride safely, and I trusted that he would never go so far ahead that he would lose me.

One day, riding side-by-side, I told him that I loved him.

“But do you like me?” he asked, half-joking, half-serious.

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, sometimes when kids get older they don’t like their parents anymore.”

I was shocked.

“That’s terrible! I will always love you, and like you too.”

That was my golden promise, and one that I kept. Sure, there were times when we would get mad at each other, but the love, the friendship, and the mutual trust have always remained.


Me, my sister Joanna, and my Dad Mark Gerold during our recent visit in Tennessee.

The father-daughter relationship is so important to both a man’s integrity and a girl’s self-esteem. Studies show that girls who have a good relationship with their fathers do better in life and keep out of trouble such as drugs and pre-marital sex. Having the approval of their fathers, they do not have a high need to seek it from their peers. Having the love of a man in their life, they do not need to find it in the arms of a young man. Their experience with their own fathers will translate to their view of their Heavenly Father and whether they see the universe as malevolent or benevolent. Finally, they will tend to seek a mate with similar characteristics.

When a child grows up to be happy and well-adjusted, with healthy adult relationships, this helps the parent to progress in a positive way through the adult life stages discussed by psychologist Erik Erikson. In middle adulthood, ages 40-65, the basic conflict to be resolved is generativity vs. stagnation, with much depending on the important event of parenting. One needs to feel he has satisfied and supported the needs of the next generation. If his daughter is not happy, he stagnates. In the stage of maturity, ages 65 and on, the conflict is between integrity and despair. The satisfactory outcome is of a feeling of fulfillment in one’s life in generation.

The Bible has some words specifically addressing fathers and daughters. In the book of Sirach, fathers are charged with the protection of their daughter’s innocence and reputation:

Sirach 42 (NAB)
9
A daughter is a treasure that keeps her father wakeful, and worry over her drives away rest: Lest she pass her prime unmarried, or when she is married, lest she be disliked;
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While unmarried, lest she be seduced, or, as a wife, lest she prove unfaithful; Lest she conceive in her father's home, or be sterile in that of her husband.
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Keep a close watch on your daughter, lest she make you the sport of your enemies, A byword in the city, a reproach among the people, an object of derision in public gatherings. See that there is no lattice in her room, no place that overlooks the approaches to the house.
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Let her not parade her charms before men, or spend her time with married women;
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For just as moths come from garments, so harm to women comes from women:
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Better a man's harshness than a woman's indulgence, and a frightened daughter than any disgrace.

And you dads thought it was all in your head. There is a very good reason you feel so protective of your daughters. God has commanded it to be so.

There is definitely something to be envied in the father’s relationship with his daughters. I can see that special indefinable quality between my husband and our daughters. I can’t put my finger on it, but it is very different from what I have with them, just as my relationship with our son has a tenderness that by nature is different from what he has with his dad. My job here is to step back and let what they share grow.

A Day Out with Dad

Today my husband took the children to his mother’s house while I painted the children’s bathroom. It has cathedral ceilings, so quite a large proportion of working time is spent moving the ladder around.

I was working for a full hour in absolute silence, when I dropped my edging brush from the top of the ladder. It fell twelve feet down and hit the bathtub with a resounding CLANG. I reacted, thinking, “Ooh, I hope that didn’t wake up the baby!”

I am so used to doing this sort of work during her naptime, enjoying the solitude and silence, that I had completely forgotten she was not at home! This was quite an odd experience for me.

I could play music! I could play it as loud as I wanted! I ran downstairs to select some fun working music. I turned the volume up so I could hear it way up at the top of the house.

I played three CDs and returned to the quiet. Quiet work is soothing to the soul. I can think my thoughts and pray unceasingly and maybe even hear a word the Lord has for me at the moment.

Several hours later, I had just finished cleaning up when the husband and kids came through the door. They had had a terrific day. They even went to their uncles’ hockey game. They got to stay out late and play video games at the sports complex. They were dirty and smelly and all smiley. A day with dad certainly agreed with them!

“Be still and know that I am God.”
Psalms 46:10

Fathers’ Rights, Then and Now

In 1854, Elizabeth Cady Stanton addressed the New York State Legislature.
“. . . .4th. Look at the position of woman as mother. . . . The father may apprentice his child, bind him out to a trade, without the mother’s consent – yea, in direct opposition to her most earnest entreaties, prayers and tears. . . . Moreover, the father, about to die, may bind out all his children wherever and to whomsoever he may see fit, and thus, in fact, will away the guardianship of all his children from the mother. . . . Thus, by your laws, the child is the absolute property of the father, wholly at his disposal in life or at death. . . .”

The 1854 women’s property measure was defeated, and again Stanton addressed the New York State Legislature in 1860, on the very eve of the Civil War. She compared the plight of women to that of the slaves in the South.
“. . . .Cuffy has no right to his children; they can be sold from him at any time. Mrs. Roe has no right to her children; they may be bound out to cancel a father’s debts of honor. The unborn child, even, by the last will of the father, may be placed under the guardianship of a stranger and a foreigner. . . .”

Finally, the New York State Married Women’s Property Act of 1860 became law. The above wrongs were set aright with the following clause:
“. . . .9. Every married woman is hereby constituted and declared to be the joint guardian of her children, with her husband, with equal powers, rights, and duties in regard to them, with the husband.”

[These documents appear in History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I., by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage (Rochester, NY, 1881). The six volume were reissued (Arno Press, NY, 1969).]

That was then; this is now. As the saying goes, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

I offer the poem below as a reminder to pray for all the voiceless fathers who have lost their children to abortion.

The Would-Be Father
By Elizabeth Kathryn Gerold-Miller

He knocked
at the door
of her parents’ home
and asked to see his beloved.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea” –
her father refused.
“But she’s carrying my baby” –
the young man protested.
“Not if I can help it” –
the older man replied.
“But I love her –
I want to marry her –
We can make this work!”
cried the lad.
“You’re poor
and uneducated
with no prospects –
you’re a loser,”
said the father,
and slammed the door.
And he was that,
but not by choice.
For there was nothing he could do
to save his unborn child.
They tore it from him
before he could ever know
the child that was his.
His soul filled with sorrow
and left a hole
that could never be filled.
He looked at fathers
playing football with sons
or walking with their daughters
hand-in-hand.
Decades later,
married with children,
and grandchildren even,
he would still wonder
what could have been.
“Precious baby,
he prayed,
Angel in Heaven,
I never meant it to be so.
One day,
we will be united.
Until then,
you pray for me,
and help me to forgive.”

Today is Day One of the 40 Days For Life campaign.