Every Daddy's Princess

Courting Your Daughter's Heart Point your kids in the right direction—when they’re old they won’t be lost. (Proverbs 22:6—The Message)
“Your children love you, they want to play with you. How long do you think that lasts? … We have a few special years with our children when they’re the ones that want us around. After that you are going to be running after them for a bit of attention. It’s so fast…it’s a few years and then it’s over.” –Moira speaking to Peter in the movie Hook (1991, Tri-Star Pictures/Amblin Entertainment)

I remember sitting in the theater that holiday season and being taken aback by that line. I know that this was a family oriented movie. And, I really should not have been surprised to find the line coming from a Steven Spielberg production. He has produced some of Hollywood’s highest grossing films without having to lower himself or his art to the lowest denominator to resort to titillation to achieve his accolades. He has made decent movies that have promoted family values throughout his entire career. But to hear such a profound statement as that from a Hollywood production. It was a very fine moment in film history that probably has gone unnoticed anywhere else.

I remember those words so clearly because they struck a cord with me. When that movie first hit theaters my wife and I had just decided to stop practicing birth control and start preparing to expand our family. Thoughts about family values were central to my thinking at the time, even if it were still going to be another sixteen years before I became a father.

As parents we really do have only a few years where our children chase after us for our attention. This is a gift from God and if we do not cherish it while we have it, we will be the ones chasing after them in their teen years, and beyond, begging for whatever scraps of their lives they can spare for us.

As a father of a daughter I also know that there is even a greater importance placed on these times that I have where she is pursuing me. These years have a great impact on the young woman she will become and how that young woman’s coming of age years will shape the woman she will be.

I know that I not only have a responsibility, but I also have the privilege of being the first one to court my daughter’s heart. I know that I am her first love and as such I have a sacred duty. My relationship with her will help to define what romance means to her. My relationship with her will fulfill in her, for this first part of her life, the need that God created in her heart that can only be received from a male authority figure in her young life. A need that, if left unfulfilled, she may feel the need later in life to find false ways to satisfy that need through improper relationship with other men. My relationship with her will help set a standard she will one expect a man to exceed, if he is going to win her hand in marriage.

I know that if I do my job right now, not only will she feel confident in her daddy’s approval and love, but she will also feel confident and valuable in herself. She will see herself as worthy and valuable and won’t allow the world to rob her of her self-esteem. If I do the best I can to court her heart now, she won’t need to seek out the ever-fleeting false fulfillment of that need to be met in her future.

John Eldredge, in his book Wild at Heart, identifies three basic needs that God created in the heart of both women and men. These needs are distinctly unique for each of the sexes. Every little girl recognizes these needs and demonstrates her understanding of them in her imaginative play times. And, no matter how jaded life or society has tried to make adult women, inside every grown woman, that same little girl exists who still knows she needs those basic three things. They are at the very core of her being, written on the walls of her heart.

Every little girl and every grown woman needs to know and feel she is worth it. She wants to feel she is worth fighting for. She wants to be caught up into something greater than herself (an adventure to share with Prince Charming). And, she wants to know that she possesses a real beauty that will be realized by Prince Charming, not merely conjured up by a professional makeover.

Every little girl wants to be the princess that the hero slays the dragon for and wins her beauty and hand in marriage. She dreams of riding off into the sunset to live happily ever after, living a life of great adventure with her hero at her side. This is one of the first dreams that every little girl grabs a hold of, and it is one of the last most women let go of before they settle for Squire Flunk-Out and a humdrum life.

What do I do now? I court my children’s hearts. My sons get to have regular times where they get alone with dad and I give them my blessing. I let them know how proud I am of them, what a joy I get out of being their dad. I let them know the things they do and the abilities they demonstrate that I am really proud of. I reinforce that I believe that they will do great things as they continue through life. That they possess the ability to succeed at whatever brings them the greatest joy.

My daughter, gets daddy’s blessing too. She gets the same pep rally that they boys do, but she gets a date with daddy. We get all dressed up. Daddy cleans the car until it is spotless inside and out. We go out to a nice place to eat and do something fun together after dinner and good conversation. We usually go to a movie because that is something we really enjoy doing together, at this point in her life.

I am doing everything I can to instill in my little princess that she is worth it. She is worth waiting for. She is worth fighting for. She is worth holding out for the best, no settling for comfortable and easy.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am deeply in love with all of my children. But, if you are fortunate to the father of a daughter, you know that the love relationship between father and daughter is undeniably different than it is between father and son. My wife realized this only moments after our daughter was born.

My wife had always gloried in how much in love I am with our children, but even given the great relationship she had with her father, I don’t think she was completely prepared for how different that love would be for a daughter than a son. I remember hearing her ask another mother of a little girl who was less than a year older than our daughter, whose daddy was obviously dead gone over his little princess, as well, “Will I ever get his heart back?” The other mother just smiled and watched her husband holding her daughter for a moment and then answered sheepishly, “No.”

My wife realized from the moment that our little girl was first placed in my arms, moments after she entered this world, which a part of my heart that had previously belonged only to her, now belonged to her daughter. I think se was jealous for all of about five minutes and, fortunately, she was too exhausted and on painkillers to give too much thought to it, before she had time to really think about it.

In time, I think my wife came to realize that this was just how it was meant to be. Being one of three daughters who shared a close relationship with their father, up and until he passed on to the next life, I think she realized that there was a time when her mother had faced the same realization.

I love my daughter and she is my little princess. She knows her name to be “Princess” when it is spoken in her daddy’s voice as well as if any called her by her given name. Her whole countenance lights up when I call “Princess” to her from across a room that she didn’t know I was in. She drops everything and comes running into my arms. We spend a lot of time walking and talking, holding hands and just glowing in each other’s company. I cherish these years when captivating her heart is nearly as easy for me as her captivating mine is for her, but I do not want to keep her my little girl forever.

I do not want to keep any of my children little forever. I cherish the days of their youth that I have with them, but during these years I am their parent, their teacher, their priest, and their disciplinarian. I do not pretend that in these years that I can be their friend. We can be very close and equally cherish each other, but, for now, I am the parent and they are the children. When they become adults, then we can become friends. I look forward to getting to know the adults they grow up to be and becoming friends and equals with them, then.

My little princess needs to grow up, not too fast, but she does need to grow up. And, part of that growing up process will one day include having to share her heart with another. Eventually, I will even have to be willing to let go of possessing the totality of her heart that I do today because it will naturally transition to the ownership of the man who will have proven that he is worthy of her and can love her even more than I can.

As much as imagining the day when I will give my daughter away to another, in marriage, is hard to think of today, I will embrace it when that day comes. For, when that time comes, she will be transitioning into a stage of her development, as a person, where she will realize a completeness that she could never fully realize alone, even with her daddy’s unconditional love.

I will be able to embrace that day because I know that what I invest in her life now has set the stage for her to be able to make good choices in the future. Because I taught her what to expect from a healthy romantic relationship, because I taught her how to expect to be treated by a man who really loves her, because I taught her how to expect to be treated by a man who respects her for who and all that she is, I know that she will never settle—she will hold out for what is best.

I hope that, in some small way, my ramblings here make even a little sense to you and inspire you in the relationships you have with the little princess in your life.

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John Donahue author of Every Daddy's Princess