Fathers and Daughters

I see good dads struggle sometimes to stay connected as their sweet little daughters grow up into teenagers and then adult women. You can't tickle her like you might have when she was little, or carry her around on your shoulders. She's probably over board games and throwing the baseball with you by her teen years. Now what? What's a father to do to stay emotionally connected, when he has, of course, never been a young woman himself ?

Sometimes fathers of girls tell me they feel like they are at an unfair advantage, as mothers and daughters may have more same-sex ways to connect with each other, like shopping, cooking, getting nails done, crafts/art, etc. Fathers need to be more creative. Fathers don't often do as much phone contact with daughters as mothers do, or have the same length of conversation. It doesn't mean that your daughter doesn't need you just as much.

Much of being a good father or stepfather has to do with being interested in her, and listening more than you give advice.

It helps her to know that you are there.

Meet her friends when you can. Take the college roommates out with your daughter for a meal.

Be protective.

Express your love for her.

Help with her car. Teach her how to maintain it.

I like to see fathers develop their own relationship with teen or young adult daughters, not hearing news indirectly through mothers.

The good news is that you don't have to figure this out all by yourself. You can ask your daughter what kinds of activities she would be open to doing together with you. She will probably have a lot of good ideas. Daughters are usually touched by dad's interest and concern.

Take an interest in her college and career path. Encourage her to get a part-time job and internships later to build her experience and confidence.

Role model through how you treat the adult women in your life with respect. She's watching.

Teach her life skills, so that she becomes strong and independent.

Teach her about money, and the value of saving it. Help her understand about investing.

Talk with her about choosing relationships that honor her, because she's very important to you.

Point out her strengths.

Daughters need loving, involved fathers. Granddaughters need caring, interested grandfathers. Girls whose mothers remarry need loving, supportive stepfathers. Just because you've never been a young woman doesn't mean you can't try to understand the complexities of emotion that the special young women in your life are experiencing. Transcending self and your own gender role to be a beloved father, grandfather or stepfather might just be one of the very best experiences in your life. It might help you build compassion and understanding for the adult partner in your life as well. Mothers bring children in to the world and nurture them, but fathers have their own irreplaceable role to play taking our children out into the world, develop courage and confidence. You don't have to have been a girl to love one well.

Trouble with the Curve (Movie Review)

The newly released movie, "Trouble with the Curve," stars Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, and Clint Eastwood, and it's well worth seeing. Essentially, it's a baseball movie, about an old scout for the Atlanta Braves (Eastwood). He's got some serious issues with his declining health as he nears retirement age. He's being pushed out of his job by all the generation X scouts who use computers to find prospects. Eastwood identifies prospects the old-fashioned way, by sight and even by sound.

The aging baseball scout is widowed, and has a distant and conflicted relationship with his only daughter (Adams).While Eastwood's character is a bit too curmudgeon-like for my taste, it's still a heart-warming story about estranged family relationships, differences in perspective, and the capacity of the human heart to heal relationships, even late in the game.

Amy Adams is genuine, and shows depth of character as an attorney trying to make partner in a male-dominated law firm. Her adult life has been, in large part, a reaction to her childhood wounds. She's been through a great deal of loss, including the early death of her mother, and an absent father. She's admirable in her willingness to dig deep and recognize how she has kept herself guarded and emotionally unavailable as an adult because she holds on to the legacy about loss and abandonment she experienced as a child.

Justin Timberlake is delightful and just the right touch of funny and challenging to both the leads. He is another scout trying to transition his career after blowing out his arm as a pitcher in the majors.

"Trouble with the Curve" works on several levels. It's a touching film about the love of baseball and the human element in the game. It's also a great metaphor for looking at how we each deal with the unexpected curve balls we are thrown in life. In this movie, the curve balls are losses in career and family, aging, disappointment, health changes, and unexpected chances at loving someone again. In life, we all get thrown curve balls. Many things happen to each of us that we never expected, some of them good, and some of them heartbreaking.

"Trouble with the Curve" is a good reminder that choosing to be flexible, resilient, and have your heart made gentler and softer by the unexpected is an excellent choice. You can learn to adapt to life's curve balls, rather than let them take you out of the game. Curve balls, it turns out, are both a part of baseball and a part of life. Adapting well and keeping your heart vulnerable and your defenses down gives you the best chance at batting 300 in life.