Dads Feel Changed by Their Daughters

This Father’s Day, I hope we remember that there have been generations of silence between men about what it means to be a father. Many men haven’t even heard our own dads talk about it.

At my fathering workshops, the most moving moment is when I ask: “How many of you feel like you’ve been changed as a man by having a daughter? Stand up if you can tell me one or two or three things that are different for you.”

Everyone in the room stands.

Then I ask, “Stand up if your father ever spoke to you about how he was changed as a man by you being his child.”

Many times no one stands, and rarely more than 3 men stand. That’s a very emotional moment.

Most men of my generation (baby boomers) and older never heard anything from our fathers. That’s deeply sad.

However, it’s also an opportunity to break that cycle of silence and talk to other dads (including our own) about it.

Fathers of daughters say they find it especially helpful to talk with other dads of daughters about raising a girl.

In the years before and since I wrote the best-selling Dads & Daughters®: How to Inspire, Understand and Support Your Daughter, I’ve talked and/or corresponded in-depth with thousands of fathers.

Women are always startled to learn that about half of these men (most of whom I never met before) report that I am the first person they’d ever talked to in depth about fatherhood. Men aren’t surprised because we’re so accustomed to father silence.

The good news? With only a handful of exceptions, the fathers I communicate with are articulate and passionate; we have a lot to say about the experience and importance of being stepdads and dads.

And while much of that may have gone unspoken until the moment of our conversations, those men and I quickly learned there’s real power in asking: “How are you changed as a person because you are a Dad of a Daughter?”

The Dads & Daughters Togetherness Guide: 54 Fun Activities to Help Build a Great Relationship

Fathers know that doing things with their daughters is important. Shared activities build trust and self-esteem, show how much dads care, and allow everyone to cut loose and have fun. But even fathers who can beat the generation and gender gaps that make them feel awkward can’t always dream up cool places to go or mutually enjoyable things to do. Like the coach of their favorite team, dads need a game plan, and that’s exactly what Joe Kelly provides in Dads & Daughters Togetherness Guide.

Appropriate for girls of any age, the guide enables dads to grab their daughters by the hand and say “Let’s go…”

See how things are made: Take a made-in-America tour and see how everything from jumbo jets (Boeing) to chocolate kisses (Hershey’s) is produced.

Bake a funny cake: She’ll laugh herself silly in the kitchen making Kitty Litter Cake, a German chocolate sheet cake covered with “cat litter” (dyed, crumbled cookies) and topped with miniature Tootsie Rolls.

Take a drive to nowhere: Let the copilot navigate, and leave time for fun stops to poke around in flea markets or join a game of pickup softball for a few innings.

With dozens of other engaging activities—such as creating a daddy-daughter journal, devising secret codes, and exchanging poems—this is the ultimate rain-or-shine resource for developing wonderful parent-child rapport.