I know that I am not a unique example of the male of the human species. I was never very athletic when I was growing up and I probably did more things that would traditionally be associated with girls than boys. That is probably why I had more close friendships with girls growing up than I did boys my own age.
My whole life I knew that I wanted to be a dad. Even in kindergarten when the teacher asked everybody what they wanted to be when they grew up, I said, “I want to be a dad.” My teacher was taken aback, she tried to redirect me by asking me if I didn’t want to do one of the heroic occupations that my male classmates had all chosen. I said, “Yes, but only so I can afford to be a dad.” You see even at a very young age nothing else mattered to me, if I couldn’t be a dad. And, I was very specific, I wanted to be a dad of girls.
I grew up the oldest son in a house of all boys. My younger brothers were close together in age and distant from me. Like I already said, I had little in common with most boys my age, so I felt more comfortable with girls, so it seemed natural to me that I just wanted to be the dad to girls.
As I got a little older, I began to become an astute observer of human behavior. I love to go to a crowded shopping mall and just sit and watch people. When I was a teen ager I used to go with my guy friends and watch girls, and I did really like watching the girls, but unlike my friends I probably watched as many other people around me as I did girls.
I love to observe people and their behaviors and try and figure out things about them. I don’t usually try to delve to deep, that requires too much assumption, that is without getting to know the individuals personally. But, surface things in their character and about their relationships can often be easily detected. Usually, if you watch them long enough they will prove your observation correct. Sometimes I am wrong, but usually, I am right.
One of the things that I began to really enjoy to watch, especially because I wanted to one day join their ranks, were fathers and daughters.
I began to notice how easily one of the simplest and most rewarding relationships God gave to human beings can become so complex and draining. I noticed the teenage girls who walked five steps ahead or behind their fathers barely acknowledging his presence until they wanted him to pull out his credit card and pay for their material desires. I noticed those same fathers desperately following along hoping that this would help to accumulate to an entrance price back into her heart.
At the other end of the spectrum, I noticed middle-aged fathers who might be resting at a play area watching the grandkids play when their adult daughter approached, sat on his lap, kissed him, and said, “I love you daddy. Thank you for watching the kids while I ….”. This was a father who still beamed with pride when he saw his daughter, even out of the corner of his eye. They still have the special relationship they were gifted by God when she was first born.
I knew that I wanted to be a father of daughters and I knew which of those fathers I wanted to be. I was now on a mission. I was not only dating girls or spending time with my close friends that were girls, I was learning from them and their fathers. And the girls that I dated, if they didn’t have that special relationship with their father’s they probably didn’t have much of a chance of anything ever getting very serious. I wasn’t going to marry a woman who did not have that special relationship with her father. After all, I wanted a father-in-law who could round-out my education before I became the father of a daughter.
Well, fortunately for me, the first part of my mission was easily accomplished. I was able to observe many father-daughter relationships up close and personal. I even was able to get some fathers to talk to me about their relationships with their daughters. And, I eventually fell in love with and married one of those girls who had a wonderful relationship with her daddy.
Unfortunately, my wife and I dealt with infertility for over seventeen years before our daughter was born, so the second part of my mission took a painstakingly long time to come to reality, but it did give me the chance to continue my education.
In that time, my father-in-law and I became good friends and I was able to cherish the relationship he had with my wife that much more. We spent a lot of time with my in-laws during the first fifteen years of our marriage and I don’t remember a single time that we got together that my wife didn’t at some point end up in her daddy’s lap in a cherished moment.
I became the father to a son before I became the father to a daughter and that scared the life out of me. I was afraid that I was going to really screw this boy up. But, God, literally, dropped this little boy into our lives through an unplanned adoption and I fell head over heels in love with him. We have a great relationship and I don’t think that he is any the worse for my lack of machismo. He and my father-in-law had a great relationship together. He was the only person my son would willingly leave my side for during that first year of his life. But, sadly, shortly after my son turned a year old, we lost my father-in-law to a couple of really bad and unexpected heart attacks.
My wife lost her daddy, I lost my good friend and second father, and my son had lost his grandfather. My father-daughter mentor had been graduated to the next existence before any of us were through loving and living with him. It was devastating.
I have come to learn from my experiences with my father-in-law and those of my observations of the fathers and daughters of my whole life, that there is nothing more precious than the moment you have with your daughters right now. For the fathers whose daughters are still very young, they have the very best opportunity to build lifelong loving relationships with their daughters. For others whose daughters may have entered the rebellious teenage years, adulthood, or even the later stages of life estranged from you, it is never to late to repair, rebuild, or even start building a rewarding relationship with them. No matter how much pain may exist from past wrongdoings, a rewarding future is possible if you are both willing to work towards it. It may be hard, but it will always be worth it.
The relationship that a little girl develops with her daddy is so vital not only to her self esteem, but to all of the relationships that she develops for the rest of her life. If she knows that she is daddy’s little princess-that she is the most beautiful girl in the world in his eyes, that she is capable of doing anything she sets her mind to, that she captivates him whenever she’s around-she will possess a confidence in life that no self-help guru could ever teach.
From that relationship she will learn what to expect from romantic relationships. She will either have a measure by which to judge what is offered to her or she will be searching to compensate for what she didn’t receive from her father.
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John Donahue author of Every Daddy's Princess
Cinderella
Words and Music by
Steven Curtis Chapman
from the album "This Moment"
She spins and she sways to whatever song plays,
Without a care in the world.
And I’m sitting here wearing the weight of the world on my shoulders.
It’s been a long day and there’s still work to do,
She’s pulling at me saying "Dad I need you!
There’s a ball at the castle and I’ve been invited
And I need to practice my dancin’"
"Oh please, daddy, please!"
Chorus:
So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
’Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh I will dance with Cinderella
I don’t want to miss even one song
’Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she’ll be gone.
Verse 2:
She says he’s a nice guy and I’d be impressed
She wants to know if I approve of the dress
She says, "Dad the prom is just one week away
And I need to practice my dancin’
"Oh please, daddy , please!"
Chorus:
So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
’Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh I will dance with Cinderella
I don’t want to miss even one song
’Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she’ll be gone
She will be gone
Verse 3:
But she came home today with a ring on her hand
Just glowin’ and tellin’ us all they had planned
She says, "Dad the wedding’s still six months away
But I need to practice my dancin’
"Oh please, daddy , please!"
Chorus:
So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
’Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh I will dance with Cinderella
I don’t want to miss even one song
’Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she’ll be gone
©2007 Sparrow Song
Administered by EMI Copyright Management Group Publishing
Peach Hill Songs
Administered by EMI Copyright Management Group Publishing
BMI
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