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From the notebook

Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters

Meg Meeker

Book Cover

AI Summary:

Here is a summary of the key points from the notes on the book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters:

Overview

  • The book emphasizes the critical role fathers play in their daughters’ lives in shaping their self-image, relationships, decision-making, and more.
  • Daughters intensely watch their fathers and hang onto their words and approval. Fathers are the most important men in their daughters’ lives.

Key Themes

Be a Hero and Leader

  • Daughters need their fathers to provide strong leadership and be heroes who guide and protect them. This establishes trust and respect.

Express Love and Affection

  • Fathers should openly express love to daughters through words, hugs, spending quality time together. This teaches daughters what to expect from men.

Instill Humility and Realism

  • Teach daughters humility and realism about life’s limits rather than entitlement. This prevents selfishness and depression.

Set Rules and Morals

  • Fathers must establish clear rules and morals to equip daughters to handle challenging situations. Daughters want to know fathers’ standards.

Guide Sexuality and Relationships

  • Fathers play a vital role in guarding daughters’ sexuality and relationships with boys. Establish accountability and enforce standards.

Share Spiritual Guidance

  • Fathers introduce daughters to concepts of God. Live out values to provide an example. Seek spiritual guidance together.

Address Emotions and Passions

  • Help daughters balance emotions and passions with reason and discipline to prevent self-destruction. Fathers provide steadiness.

Spend Time Together

  • Simply spending time together, without entertainment or events, conveys love and provides a safe base for daughters.

The core message is fathers uniquely shape daughters’ self-image and development. Engagement, love, protection and guidance help daughters thrive despite surrounding cultural challenges.

Chapter One: You Are the Most Important Man in Her Life

  • Daughters are never lukewarm in the presence of their fathers. They might take their mothers for granted, but not you. They light up—or they cry. They watch you intensely. They hang on your words. They hope for your attention, and they wait for it in frustration—or in despair. They need a gesture of approval, a nod of encouragement, or even simple eye contact to let them know you care and are willing to help. (Page 15)

  • She will see sexual innuendo or scenes of overt sexual behavior in magazines or on television before she is ten years old, whether you approve or not. She will learn about HIV and AIDS in elementary school and will also probably learn why and how it is transmitted. (Page 15)

  • Perhaps you come home and notice that she is in her room. You’re exhausted, and even though you assume that she is watching shows you don’t approve of, you feel relieved that she is home and safe, and you’re just too tired to intervene. (A word of advice to make your life easier: don’t let your daughter have a TV, or a computer, in her room. Save TV time for family time when you or your wife can decide what to watch.) (Page 24)

  • When you are with her, whether you eat dinner and do homework together or even when you are present but don’t say much, the quality and stability of her life—and, you’ll find, your own—improves immeasurably. Even if you think the two of you operate on different planes, even if you worry that time spent with her shows no measurable results, even if you doubt you are having a meaningful impact on her, the clinical fact is that you are giving your daughter the greatest of gifts. And you’re helping yourself too—research shows that parenting may increase a man’s emotional growth and increase his feelings of value and significance. (Page 33)

  • Your daughter will view this time spent with you vastly differently than you do. Over the years, in erratic bursts and in simple ordinary life together, she will absorb your influence. She will watch every move you make. She might not understand why you are happy or angry, dishonest or affectionate, but you will be the most important man in her life, forever. (Page 33)

  • Fathers inevitably change the course of their daughters’ lives—and can even save them. From the moment you set eyes on her wet-from-the-womb body until she leaves your home, the clock starts ticking. It’s the clock that times your hours with her, your opportunities to influence her, to shape her character, and to help her find herself—and to enjoy living. In the chapters that follow, we’ll look at how fathers can help their daughters: physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. (Page 36)

Chapter Two: She Needs a Hero

  • So how do you become a hero to your daughter? First, you should know that she can’t survive without one. She needs a hero to navigate her through a treacherous popular culture. And you should know that being a twenty-first-century hero is tough stuff. It requires emotional fortitude, mental self-control, and physical restraint. It means walking into embarrassing, uncomfortable, or even life-threatening situations in order to rescue your daughter. (Page 37)

  • You might need to show up at a party where your daughter’s friends—and maybe your daughter—have been drinking, and take her home. You might need to talk to her about the clothes she wears and the music she likes. And yes, you might even need to get in the car at one in the morning, go to her boyfriend’s house, and insist that she come home. (Page 37)

  • Here’s what your daughter needs from you. (Page 38)

    • Leadership (Page 38)
      • The only way you will alienate your daughter in the long term is by losing her respect, failing to lead, or failing to protect her. If you don’t provide for her needs, she will find someone else who will—and that’s when trouble starts. Don’t let that happen. (Page 38)
      • Nowadays, the idea of assuming authority makes many men uneasy. It smacks of political incorrectness. Pop psychologists and educators have told us that authority is suffocating, obtrusive, and will crush a child’s spirit. Fathers worry that if they push their kids or establish too many rules, they’ll just rebel. But the greatest danger comes from fathers who surrender leadership, particularly during their children’s teen years. Authority is not a threat to your relationship with your daughter—it is what will bring you closer to your daughter, and what will make her respect you more. (Page 38)
      • In fact, girls who end up in counselors’ offices, detention centers, or halfway homes are not girls who had authoritative fathers. Quite the opposite. Troubled young women spend most of their time in counseling describing the hurt they felt from fathers who abandoned them, retreated from their lives, or ignored them. They describe fathers who failed—or were afraid—to establish rules. They describe fathers who focused on their own emotional struggles rather than those of their daughters. They describe fathers who wanted to avoid any conflict, and so shied away from engaging their daughters in conversation, or challenging them when they made bad decisions. (Page 39)
      • Let me tell you a secret: many daughters challenge their fathers too. They’ll dive into a power struggle with you, not to see how tough you are, but to see how much you really care about them. So remember that when she pushes hard against your rules, flailing, crying that you are mean or unfair, she is really asking you a question: Am I worth the fight, Dad? Are you strong enough to handle me? Make sure she knows the answer is yes. (Page 39)
      • Your daughter needs your guideposts of right and wrong, of proper and improper behavior. When she hits third grade or high school or marriage—all new experiences for her—she needs to know what you think is best for her. You’ve been there before. She trusts your opinion. So let her know. Don’t be afraid. And don’t shy away from the big questions in life. She’ll want to know what you think her life’s purpose is: whether you believe she should indulge her own passions or devote herself to helping others. (Page 41)
      • Fathers need to be strict, but they also need to be kind, accepting, and loving. It’s a matter of balance. The don’ts are easy. Don’t let your daughter think of you as the enemy. Don’t use your authority in ways that are cruel or that sting. Don’t try to live your life through hers. Don’t try to make her your robot. But do lead. (Page 44)
      • If you don’t accept the authority that is naturally yours, if you don’t set high standards, if you don’t act to protect your daughter, if you don’t live a life of moral principle, your daughter will suffer, (Page 44)
      • It is a fundamental principle of human behavior that having an authority makes us feel good. Yes, all of us. While instinctively we want to buck it, when the sky falls in, we run to it. When confronted by any problem, any challenge, any mess that we can’t get ourselves out of, we want someone who has answers, someone who can offer support, someone who can offer a helping hand and who knows what to do. (Page 47)
      • If you do what your instinct tells you to do. If you get angry and take action, she will feel affirmed. She will feel loved. She will feel defended. She will feel a sense of justice. She will feel a sense of closure over the horrible incident. When you respond as her hero, both of you win. (Page 48)
    • Perseverance (Page 49)
      • One of the toughest aspects of being a hero to your daughter is not just deciding what is good and right for her, but also keeping her on track. Fathers can demand tremendous discipline from themselves, but they can find it much harder to stand firm with their children. Fathers get tired. Daughters can become defiant, manipulative, and wear their fathers down. This is where perseverance comes in. (Page 49)
      • Sure, other kids are experimenting with sex and drugs and alcohol, but other kids aren’t your daughter. And your daughter will respect you more if you don’t give in. The minute you waffle on your convictions, you lose stature in your daughter’s eyes. She thinks you’re smarter than other parents, tougher than her boyfriend, and care more about her—and what’s right for her—than other people. Let me tell you a secret about daughters of all ages: they love to boast about how tough their dads are—not just physically, but how strict and demanding they are. Why? Because this allows daughters to “show off” how much their fathers love them. (Page 50)
      • And that means not just setting and enforcing rules, but leading by example. When you persevere, even when your principles cost you dearly, she learns the lesson. She’ll see you as a hero, and if she admires what you do, she will do it too. (Page 50)
      • Here are a few pointers that all dads should have. (Page 55)
        1. Make a plan.
          1. Your aspirations for your daughter will be clearest when she is young. When she’s an infant, you know with crystal clarity what you will expect from her: everything from what she will be allowed to say and do to whom she can date. Write it down now, and keep it clear in your mind and in hers. Teens love to tangle with your thinking. So have your rules inscribed like the Ten Commandments—and stick to them.
        2. Have courage under fire.
          1. Yes, you will be fired upon—by friends, pop psychologists, television programs, your wife, and your daughter. Keep your cool, but be firm and consistent. In the best men, kindness, strength, and perseverance go together.
        3. Be the leader. Remember that you have far more life experience than your daughter. Even if her IQ is higher than yours, she can’t make decisions as well as you can. You can see the big picture and weigh the consequences of actions in a way that she can’t. Young children, particularly smart young children, have an astonishingly cunning ability to manipulate fathers. So, nice men, beware. When your two-year-old daughter has a temper tantrum, put her in time-out and ignore her until she calms down. When she’s sixteen, do exactly the same. If you need to ground her for a week, or a month, do it. And don’t ever take personally the venom spewing from her lovely tongue. She’s still a kid. So you lead; don’t let her. She’ll have the entire rest of her life to run the show when she has her own home.
        4. Don’t cave, persevere. Heroes see a battle through until the end; they never run away. So stay in the fight, stay engaged with your daughter and your family, spend as much time at home as you can, stay consistent, loving, kind, and patient, and remember that you are more resilient than your daughter is. Parents often say that kids are resilient in crises like divorce. But they’re not; kids just don’t have a choice. You do. You can make the choice not to run when things get tough. You daughter can’t tell you this, so I will: If there is any way you can stay married, do it. Even if your marriage seems doomed, stay in it, stay at home with your children for as long as possible, for their sake. Getting divorced when your daughter is twenty is better for her than when she’s fourteen. And you might find that the best remedy for a bad marriage is sticking it out. Things really can improve. (Page 55)

Chapter Three: You Are Her First Love

  • Your daughter yearns to secure your love, and throughout her life she’ll need you to prove it. (Page 58)

  • daughter identifies easily with her mother, but you are a mystery to her. You are her first love, so the early years of your relationship with her are crucial. The love you give her is her starting point. (Page 58)

  • If you have a good relationship, she will choose boyfriends who will treat her well. If she sees you as open and warm, she’ll be confident with other men. If you are cold and unaffectionate, she’ll find it hard to express love in a healthy way. (Page 58)

Words (Page 59)

  • You have to talk to her. A good rule of thumb is to use twice as many words as you normally would, even if it means just saying things twice. Daughters can be prone to self-doubt. Pay her compliments repeatedly, so she knows you’re sincere. (Page 59)

  • When she talks, she wants you to respond. Your daughter is sensitive not only to herself, but to others, and is always asking herself: Does he like being with me? Is he quiet because he’s thinking about something? Is he angry? Is he depressed? She wants you to be happy because then her life is better. She’ll often act as your personal aide, doing what she can to improve things. You are the center of her world. (Page 60)

  • Reflect on your daughter’s character, praise her best attributes, talk about her sensitivity, compassion, or courage. Your daughter will draw a picture in her mind of how you see her, and that’s the person she’ll want to be. (Page 60)

  • Your daughter wants you to admire her deep, intrinsic qualities. Keep your comments positive, keep them on these qualities, and you can’t lose. (Page 61)

  • Instead of saying, “I love you because you’re so beautiful,” tell her that you love her because there is no one else in the world like her. (Page 61)

  • you can write her a letter. Girls of all ages love letters and notes. You might think they’re corny, but I guarantee that she won’t. (Page 61)

Fences (Page 61)

  • Daughters with a curfew know that someone wants them home and is probably waiting for them. Daughters without curfews wonder. Girls who are told to mind their language know their parents want them to grow up to be well-spoken women. Girls who grow up swearing in front of dad don’t believe that. (Page 62)

  • Teenagers often try to manipulate fathers by accusing them of not trusting them. And this kind of manipulation often works. Tell your teenagers that the boundaries you’ve erected aren’t about trust, but are about keeping them safe and moving them in the right direction. We all have boundaries that we respect because life is safer that way. (Page 62)

  • Because we want them to make good decisions, we assume they will. We want to believe our kids are stronger, more mature, and better capable of handling situations than other kids. And that’s when mistakes happen. (Page 62)

  • Fathers often overestimate their daughters’ maturity. We’re all taught that girls mature faster than boys, which is partly true. But researchers now know that some girls don’t develop adult cognitive skills until their early twenties. (Page 64)

  • According to new studies, the pre-frontal cortex usually does not reach a level of genuine maturity until someone reaches their mid-twenties. “It’s sort of unfair to expect [teens] to have adult levels of organizational skills or decision-making before their brains are finished being built,” says Giedd. (Page 64)

  • Many fathers fear that enforcing rules on their daughters will only make them rebel. Some daughters do rebel—but not because of rules. They rebel because the rules aren’t balanced by anything else. Rules can’t be the center of your relationship. That’s where love comes in. (Page 65)

Silence (Page 65)

  • If a daughter can trust her dad to listen, she will come to him again and again to talk. (Page 66)

  • Sit down. Look her in the eye. Don’t let your mind wander. And you’ll be rewarded with a daughter’s trust, love, and affection. (Page 66)

Time (Page 66)

  • Being a father means giving up your time without resentment. (Page 66)

  • So you have to take the initiative to spend time alone with her. (Page 66)

  • spending time with your daughter shouldn’t be full of pressure, because she doesn’t need you to do anything; she only needs to be with you. So don’t worry about finding activities to entertain her. (Page 67)

  • start dad-and-daughter time when she’s young, it will bring you closer when she’s an adolescent. The rewards can be enormous. Daughters often say the most meaningful conversations of their lives were one-on-one with their dads. (Page 67)

  • Keep one-on-one time simple. Avoid activities that put you in competition with your daughter. Always use this time for emotional balance, for relaxing and having fun. You can work out conflicts later. (Page 67)

  • Over the last forty-five years, the amount of time kids spend with their parents has gone down by ten to twenty hours per week. At the high end, that’s almost three hours a day gone from your relationship with your children. (Page 68)

  • Some of the best medical literature about keeping kids out of trouble comes from the Add Health Study. With overwhelming evidence, the study shows that kids who feel connected to their parents (and who spend more time with them) fare much better than kids who don’t. Parents keep kids out of trouble; parental influence can be more important than pressure; and specifically, daughters who spend more time with their fathers are less likely to drink, take drugs, have sex as teenagers, or have out-of-wedlock babies. Your time with her matters. (Page 68)

Will (Page 69)

  • If you’re upset, you might watch a football game, go for a jog, or go fishing. Not her. She wants to spill her tensions on you. It makes her feel better. So be ready—and don’t be surprised if she does this from an early age. (Page 69)

  • It’s inevitable, too, that your daughter will go through stages. She’ll draw close to you, then she’ll pull away; she’ll adore you, then she’ll want nothing to do with you. You need to love her not only when she is your sweet, affectionate girl, but also when she’s a real pain in the neck to be around. When she’s moody, you still need to communicate with her—and you need to keep yourself from exploding when she’s disagreeable. (Page 70)

  • How do you do that? Discipline. Grit. Will. If you need to distance yourself emotionally for a time, do it. If you need physical separation for a bit, okay. But always come back. Will, patience, calm, and persistence will pay off in your relationship with her. Nothing better expresses serious love than this combination of qualities. (Page 70)

  • Having kids is terrifying because parenting is like walking around with your heart outside your chest. It goes to school and gets made fun of. It jumps into cars that go too fast. It breaks and bleeds. (Page 70)

  • Most parents pull away from their teenage daughters, assuming they need more space and freedom. Actually, your teenage daughter needs you more than ever. So stick with her. If you don’t, she’ll wonder why you left her. (Page 70)

Words, Fences, Silence, Time, and Will: What Difference Do They Really Make? (Page 73)

Make Time Count (Page 80)

  • The purpose of your time with her is to help her walk away feeling better about who she is. Research shows that daughters who feel a stronger emotional connection with their fathers feel more attached to them. And the more attached she feels to you, the lower the likelihood that she will be depressed or have an eating disorder. 6 One study concluded, “The asymptomatic group reported the lowest levels of depression and the highest levels of paternal attachment security.” 7 (Page 80)

Listen to Her (Page 82)

  • Girls like to talk more than boys—including dads—do. It’s healthy for girls to talk a lot, but it can be a problem for you because men are experts at tuning people out. You have a lot on your mind, you’re less verbal than women are, and all of us, particularly when we’re really busy, have a tendency not to give people our full attention. (Page 82)

  • I can guarantee you one thing: if you listen to your daughter attentively for ten minutes every day, by the end of the month you’ll have a completely new relationship with her. (Page 82)

Fence Her In (Page 83)

  • Boundaries and fences are a must for girls, particularly during the teen years. Remember that whatever she says, the very fact that you thoughtfully and consistently enforce rules of behavior makes her feel loved and valued. She knows that these rules are proof that you care. Equally important, they train her to build boundaries for herself and teach her that such boundaries are necessary. From your rules (and your own behavior) she will learn what is acceptable and what is not, what is good and what is bad, and what she will and won’t do. (Page 83)

The Importance of Words (Page 84)

  • Listen hard and long. Then listen some more. Try to understand what she’s up against, what’s going on inside her, and what struggles she feels. (Page 84)

  • Here are some extremely important don’ts. They apply to you and they apply to any close friend or relative interacting with your daughter, so feel comfortable telling other adults what they can and cannot say to her. That’s your right.

    1. Don’t comment frequently on how she looks.
    2. Don’t comment on your own need to diet.
    3. Don’t make derogatory comments about her body. Many fathers think they are being cute when they tell their daughters they have cute butts, strong thighs, and so on. Some get quite crude and name their daughters’ body parts. Don’t. It will come back to haunt both of you.
    4. Don’t comment frequently about her clothes. Yes, you should have standards for what she can and can’t wear, and about makeup. But you don’t ever want to communicate to her that appearance is a high priority. (This is one reason why school uniforms are a good idea. They set a basic standard for neatness and appearance, while establishing right away that everyone is equal and that focusing on dress sizes and styles is irrelevant.) Your daughter is just a kid and she really wants you to be happy with her. Let her know that you are, and that what matters is her, not what she wears.
    5. Don’t constantly focus on the importance of exercise. Yes, healthy exercise is important, but many Americans are egocentric about their exercise. They do it because they want to look good. Be very careful.
    6. Don’t make her feel she needs to do things to get your attention. Give it to her naturally, just as part of everyday life. Your daughter craves your attention and will do anything she can to get it. If you talk constantly about something, she’ll head in that direction. So be careful what themes you reiterate to her; think about where they might lead. She’s watching you, and she wants you to watch her. (Page 84)

The Importance of Will (Page 86)

  • To love your daughter well, to draw her close to you, to strengthen the bond between the two of you, you must have a will of steel. There will be times when you’ll want to walk out. Don’t. Take a break instead. There will be times when you’ll want to scream. Don’t. Have a plan for when you think you’re going to lose it—and practice it. There will be times when you don’t feel like expressing your love for your daughter. But do it. It will make you both feel better. (Page 86)

Chapter Four (Page 88)

Teach Her Humility (Page 88)

  • Teaching humility will demand more of you as a father than that. Humility doesn’t make sense unless it is modeled. If you want your daughter to love reading, you must read. If you want her to be athletic, go for a run. The same is true with humility. If you live it, she will get it. Remember, she is a dry sponge following you around, waiting to see what you think, feel, and do. (Page 88)

Humility Makes Her Feel Significant (Page 89)

  • To fulfill her potential, your daughter needs to understand who she is, where she comes from, and where she’s going. And her understanding needs to be accurate. (Page 89)

  • Your support and encouragement are important. But you need to be careful too. If all you do is bolster her self-esteem with applause, she’ll eventually see through that, and she’ll wind up feeling frustrated. If she doesn’t understand the virtue of humility, she’ll start looking in the wrong places to try to feel better about herself. (Page 89)

  • Humility is seeing ourselves honestly. It keeps us in the real world. Because we want our daughters to excel at everything they do, to be prettier, smarter, better than everyone else, we can confuse our priorities—and theirs. (Page 90)

  • She often views her talents more realistically than her parents do, and the harder her parents push the praise button, the more she questions herself: Is this the reason my parents love me so much? Am I worth more to my dad if I play the violin better? (Page 90)

  • Henry Fairlie was right to remark, “Pride excites us to take too much pleasure in ourselves, does not encourage us to take pleasure in our humanity, and what is commonly shared by all of us as social beings.” (Page 90)

  • Don’t let this happen to your daughter. Keep her world larger than herself and her talents. Gently guide her to recognize her strengths and limitations. Let her fail. Let her know that you still love her when she fails. Let her know that she’s valuable not only for what she does, but for who she is. Here is your chance to teach her one of life’s greatest lessons: people are valuable because they’re human, not because of what they do. (Page 91)

  • But if you teach your daughter that improving her talent, intellect, or beauty will increase her self-esteem, you’re setting her up for a terrible lesson, a lesson that can be exploited by others. (Page 91)

Humility Strengthens Her Relationships (Page 92)

  • Humility, however, prevents bullying and being bullied. When your daughter recognizes that all humans have equal value and never esteems herself above another, she doesn’t worry about asserting her superiority or take seriously a bully’s taunts. (Page 93)

  • bullies can’t feel superior over people who refuse to feel inferior. Humility levels the playing field. (Page 93)

  • Humility is the foundation of all healthy relationships. Humility keeps each party in a relationship respectful, honest, and relaxed. (Page 94)

Humility Keeps Her Balanced (Page 97)

  • The problem with making happiness her goal is the lack of guardrails. A goal of happiness can become a justification for self-indulgence. It can encourage selfishness. It can be how children become “spoiled.” And, most important, it can actually lead to unhappiness, as there are no limits to a child’s—or an adult’s—“wants,” and these wants never ultimately satisfy a deeper need. So happiness remains out of reach. (Page 98)

  • The paradox is that happiness is truly found only when it is routinely denied. In my practice, the happiest girls are always the ones who live with humility. The unhappiest girls are the ones who are most self-indulgent in their pursuit of happiness. (Page 98)

  • Humility teaches us rules and self-restraint, that we’re part of a larger community and need to work together for the good of the whole. Humility teaches responsibility, and it teaches us to consider the needs of others. It tells us to look outward rather than focusing obsessively on ourselves, and it reminds us that we aren’t the only ones who count. (Page 99)

Note: THERE IS SOMETHING BIG HERE. HAPPINESS IS NOT THE ULTIMATE GOAL LIKE EVERY PARENT SAYS. DO MORE RESEARCH HERE TO REALLY FIND THE ULTIMATE GOALS, AUTHOR HERE SAYS HUMILITY — MAYBE AS WELL AS SELF-RESPECT? LOOK MORE INTO THIS.

  • Humility readies her for a life that has depth because it involves service and taking on challenges. It provides joy because it teaches her to look outward, not just inward. It gives her the wisdom to understand right from wrong. As her father, you need to give her the rules that keep her from harming herself and others. The rules you give her will direct her view of herself for the rest of her life. (Page 99)

Humility Keeps Her Living in Reality (Page 100)

  • Girls who insist on having their own way, who always want to be the boss on the playground, are tough kids to be around. They can drive other kids away. Selfishness is a bad habit, but training it out of girls (or anyone else) is a tall order. It takes time, discipline, and fighting against a popular culture that promotes selfishness as a virtue. (Page 100)

  • far and away the most destructive lesson popular culture imbeds in our little girls’ minds is that they deserve more. They have a right to things and your responsibility as a parent is to provide those things. That’s what good parents, she thinks, are supposed to do in the twenty-first century. (Page 101)

  • Now, there is nothing wrong with giving our daughters every opportunity to discover their talents, to provide them with educational opportunities, and to give them the material things they truly need. We provide these things because we love our daughters. The problem occurs when year after year we focus on their needs and desires and how we can fulfill them, so that this becomes their focus as well. Our daughters become the center of our lives and their own. That intensive self-focus makes a daughter spoiled and miserable. (Page 102)

  • If you don’t clearly establish your family’s priorities, your daughter and your other children will. (Page 103)

  • What many parents don’t realize is that giving in to a daughter’s selfishness puts enormous pressure on her. When she’s the focus, when she has the power to maneuver family schedules, vacations, or finances, when she has to decide what innumerable possibilities might make her happier, she becomes not only selfish but neurotic. Your daughter really doesn’t want that much power. She’s a kid. You’re the dad. You should decide. You should set the priorities. When you bring realism into her life, you bring her comfort because you bring limits. When you teach her always to think about other people, to put herself in their shoes, to know that everyone—her friends, neighbors, and sister and brother—is important, you’ll give her the gift of friendship and living to the fullest as a caring, social being. (Page 103)

  • If you teach your daughter to be good rather than simply happy, she will become both. (Page 104)

Chapter Five (Page 105)

Protect Her, Defend Her (and use a shotgun if necessary) (Page 105)

Institute a Defense Plan (Page 107)

  • Your daughter needs you to hug her often. If you are gentle, respectful, and loving, that’s what she will expect from boys. And she needs to know—all the time—that you love her. (Page 108)

  • Few dads realize how important hugging is to their daughters, but I’ve heard countless girls tell me they had sex with a boy (not even a boyfriend) simply for the physical contact, because their fathers never hugged them or showed them affection. (Page 108)

  • Defending her in a toxic culture is challenging when she is eight, nine, and ten. The challenges can intensify as she grows older. (Page 111)

  • Standing guard over your daughter’s sexuality is tough. It is nothing short of war. But teaching her that modesty is a strength and not a commodity of the prudish will pay off with enormous dividends. (Page 112)

Protect Her from Sexual Activity (Page 112)

  • Pornography that encourages sexual behaviors previously frowned upon has helped spread disease. One study has shown that with the surge of popularity in oral sex among teens, herpes simplex type 1 (cold sores) now causes more genital infection than herpes simplex type 2.5 (Page 112)

  • The bottom line for you, fathers, is that condoms alone aren’t good enough for your daughters. Not by a long shot. So you need to move in and help your daughters in a way that your parents didn’t have to help you when you were growing up. Life is different today—really different. (Page 122)

Depression as an STD (Page 123)

  • Researchers have known for a long time that teenage sexual activity and depression are linked, but the question was which came first—the sex or the depression. Depressed kids are more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors, and sex is a high-risk behavior. (Page 123)

  • teach kids to postpone sexual activity until they are older. Some educators believe this is impossible, but the abstinence movement taken up by young people around the country is a hopeful sign. The popularity of these programs among teens shows that they are looking for help and encouragement to wait. (Page 125)

Summing Up (Page 127)

  • guarantee you two things. First, you might be opposed to what’s being taught; and second, your daughter wants to know what you think about sex. Believe it or not, you have more influence than her teachers, Britney Spears, and Abercrombie & Fitch. You need to use that influence. If you think she should wait to have sex—even if she senses this from your behavior and beliefs rather than your saying it directly—she is more likely to wait. Studies show that kids who perceive that their parents don’t want them to be sexually active or to use birth control are less likely than other kids to have sex as teenagers. (Page 127)

  • You need to decide what you want for your daughter and implement a plan to protect her. If you don’t, the testosterone-charged boys at her school will implement quite a different plan. (Page 128)

What to Do (Page 128)

  • Here’s a model plan, based on what I’ve seen—in research and experience—work for fathers.

    1. Teach self-respect early. When she is three, begin telling her that her body is special. It is beautiful and she needs to keep it special. As she grows older, let her know that the places a bathing suit covers are very private and only a doctor, you, or her mom are to see those private places. Let your daughter know that if anyone touches her private parts to let you know about it. Don’t let her run around naked at home. Talk to her about clothes before she buys them. Even if you’re divorced and your ex-wife disagrees with you, stick with it for your daughter’s sake. I guarantee you that in the long run, teaching your daughter modesty will make her feel better about herself.
    2. When she dates, sweep the garage. Every boy who dates your daughter needs to know he is accountable to you. It doesn’t matter if he’s just taking her for coffee or taking her to the movies. It doesn’t matter if he’s just a “friend.” Let him know you’ll be waiting. And when he brings her home, be sure he sees you. (Page 128)

  • Many parents make the mistake of trying to stay in the background. Parents fear being too controlling or overprotective. We don’t want to embarrass our daughters. But daughters tell me they feel loved when dad insists on shaking hands with their boyfriends, and when he circulates among her friends at a party. (Page 129)

  • As a father, you may think this unnecessary. After all, you reason, your daughter is a good kid. That’s exactly my point. Nice girls can be too nice. Over and over again nice girls tell me how they date boys they don’t like and have sex with boys only because they don’t want to hurt their feelings. (Page 130)

  1. Plan with her. Teach your daughter that sex is for later. Let her know that her body isn’t ready—and neither are her emotions. Some fathers encourage daughters to wait until after college or after high school. Some encourage waiting until marriage. From a medical standpoint, infection risk is all about numbers of partners. The fewer she has, the better. One is best. From a psychological standpoint, the same is true. Girls who avoid deep romantic attachments during their teen years have lower rates of emotional problems. Girls who avoid sexual activity in their teens have lower rates of depression. Let her know that the longer she waits, the better. (Page 130)

  2. Say something. Fathers squirm at the idea of discussing sex with their daughters. Make it easy on yourself by keeping it simple and starting such discussions in the fourth or fifth grade, when most public schools start their sex education programs. Just as you discuss the rest of her school day, talk about this and find out what they’re teaching her. If you disagree with what she’s being taught, correct it. Tell her to come to you for answers to her questions. (Page 132)

  • Let me put it this way. If you don’t want your daughter to be sexually active in high school, you need to tell her, you need to teach her. Otherwise, she will be. Popular culture trains our daughters for a life of promiscuity. (Page 134)

Chapter Six (Page 135)

Pragmatism and Grit: Two of Your Greatest Assets (Page 135)

  • My point is that fathers are often the ones who bring pragmatism and solutions to family discussions. Men see problems differently than women do. Women analyze and want to understand; men want to solve—they want to do something. This often annoys wives and daughters, who can get swept up in thoughts and emotions, and conclude, as Leslie did, that you “just don’t get it, do you?” or even that you’re uncaring or heartless. But that’s only because you’re less interested in talking about a problem than in doing something about it. (Page 139)

  • For more than twenty years I have watched fathers come to grips with their daughters’ problems, analyze them (sometimes in an almost mechanical way), and solve them. Of course, I’m not saying that all fathers are analytical or pragmatic or better at this than their wives, but it is certainly true in general that mothers and fathers have complementary approaches to problems: fathers reach immediately for solutions while mothers yearn to understand and empathize. Your daughter needs you to be that voice of reason and pragmatism. (Page 139)

Why Your Daughter Needs Your Pragmatism (Page 139)

  • A girlfriend of mine quipped that there are two types of women in the world: princesses and pioneer women. Princesses believe they deserve a better life and expect others to serve them. Pioneer women expect that any improvement in their lives will come through their own hard work; they are in charge of their own happiness. To most of us, princesses are spoiled—but whenever we teach our daughters that they deserve “all the best that life has to offer,” we help to create princesses. But princesses are often depressed, because they might not ever get the best that life has to offer. Princesses are taught to be self-centered. Their lives are centered on their needs and wants, and they will expect others—parents, teachers, friends, and eventually spouses—to focus on meeting these needs and wants. Princesses use the pronoun “I” so often that their lives become narrow. And their search for the best that life has to offer is hopeless, because there will always be something better just out of reach. We groan at the neighbor’s child who screams “I want!” all the time, but is she any different from the twenty-five-year-old professional who consistently draws conversations back to herself and who thinks of other people as objects to be manipulated for her own ends? (Page 139)

  • you teach her that life has limits and that not all her needs or desires can or should be met, she will learn to accept realism, and she will not live expecting—or waiting for—others to be servants to the princess. (Page 140)

  • Your daughter’s attitude toward herself comes directly from you. Her expectations, her ambitions, and her assessment of her own capabilities all come from what you believe—what you say and what you do. As a father, you have to ask yourself what sort of woman you want your daughter to become. (Page 141)

  • The damage comes when a loving father indulges a daughter to the point that she expects always to be on the receiving end, and that all her material, physical, or emotional needs are to be taken care of by someone else. What or how much you give her doesn’t matter as much as the way in which you give. I have seen many wealthy girls grow up unspoiled and many poor girls become demanding, selfish grown-ups. (Page 141)

  • The trick is to teach her that gifts, love, and attention are wonderful, but that she is not the center of the world. You want to teach her to appreciate these things and be humbly thankful for them. You do not want her to feel entitled to and selfishly focused on them. (Page 141)

  • Don’t let your daughter grow up to be a victim of life. Too much of our popular culture teaches us to love victims. So we create people who are helpless, incapable, and terribly needy. But you, as a father, can prevent that. You can teach your daughter that she needs to do, not just to want. (Page 142)

Teach Her to Use Grit (Page 144)

  • Nothing makes a woman’s heart melt like a man with courage and resolve. We admire men who are willing to risk their lives to help good triumph over evil and who have the moral wit to distinguish between the two. Masculinity means strength. You see it in the way men work. (Page 144)

  • He listened to her, he sized up the situation, and agreed with how she felt. He told her that she was right to feel upset. But then he helped her find solutions. They worked together and little Gretchen learned how to not just endure, but to thrive during a difficult time. Sure, it would have been easier if Gretchen had simply switched schools. But Doug took the extra time and extra work to build Gretchen’s character because he knew it was what she needed. (Page 148)

Keep Your Family Together (Page 156)

  • Fathers, you can make the difference. And one huge way you can make a difference is by keeping your family together. The most common cause of unhappiness and despair, what crushes the spirit of children more often than anything else, is divorce. Divorce is really the central problem that has created a generation of young adults who are at higher risk for chaotic relationships, sexually transmitted diseases, and confusion about life’s purpose. But that’s where fathers who stay engaged with their families can make all the difference. (Page 157)

Chapter Seven (Page 163)

Be the Man You Want Her to Marry (Page 163)

  • You need to ask yourself: Do I live my life as a father with integrity? Am I honest? Do I work hard for her and my family? Am I loving and protective of my wife and daughter? These are very tough questions, but if you want a healthy marriage for your daughter, this is where it begins. A healthy marriage is based on respect. You want to have your daughter’s respect, and if you model integrity, you will—and you will teach her to expect it in her future husband. Choosing a spouse is the one of the most important of life’s decisions. Careers don’t bear children, fill you with exuberance, or bring you soup in bed. Spouses do. And you are the man who will teach your daughter about men. (Page 164)

See It, Do It, Teach It (Page 164)

  • For your daughter to know what a good man looks like, she has to know one. She has to see a model of masculinity in you. And what does that mean? It means you need to be a man of integrity—a man who inspires trust and respect, a leader. It means that you need to live with honesty, you need to live your life committed to your family, and you need to be willing to sacrifice for them. (Page 164)

  • So many kids opt for lying and cheating because it’s easy and appears—on the surface—to make them more successful. Don’t let this happen in your home. Stop it before it happens. If it has already happened, confront it and implement a plan to reverse it. (Page 166)

  • It’s up to you to be strong, to realize that your family needs you back. Your daughter, your son, and your wife need you to live without the secrets—about pornography or anything else. Truth heals, and truth sits at the core of integrity. (Page 167)

  • You also need to take a hard look at your own thinking, speech, and behavior. This is tough, but you must do it. Your daughter watches you all the time, and the truth is, if you’re lying about something, she may not know the details, but you can be certain that she knows something’s up. Daughters are like that. (Page 171)

Good Men Are Hard to Find (Page 172)

  • “The amazing thing was,” Alicia told me one year later, “that he never ever rubbed it in my face. He never said ‘I told you so,’ or anything like that. He just came and helped me take care of things. (Page 176)

People Come First (Page 177)

  • If you teach her, by example, that happiness requires a bigger house, a higher salary, more cars, a boat, and expensive vacations, she will marry a man who constantly leaves home to do the same. People who are dissatisfied with their material possessions can become dissatisfied with who they are—and who other people are. (Page 178)

Note: THIS IS SOMETHING I REALLY NEED TO HEAR. I HAVE SUCH A FEAR OF LOSING EVERY MATERIAL POSSESSION.

  • Don’t set your daughter up for that pain. Show her the truth that the most important part of our lives is our relationship with loved ones. Those relationships are the only avenue for deep joy and contentment. When they are good, life is good, and we feel that we need little else. That’s what you want your son-in-law to feel—and if you model that behavior, your daughter will seek a husband who does the same. (Page 178)

  • It’s a great strength to live knowing that if you lost every material possession, you would still have a life worth living. That means living without fear. We live frightened of things being taken away, but we don’t need to be afraid. Strong relationships ground us. They complete us. You don’t have to worry about losing material things; your life won’t collapse without them. You can treat them as gifts and focus on the loving relationships that are really important, for they are the greatest gifts. (Page 178)

  • you live this way, your daughter will perceive that she, too, is a gift. You might even tell her that on occasion. She is a gift who has changed your life through her love, compassion, and strength. Teach her that she is enough. She needs to know this so that when she chooses a husband, she will look for another man who considers her a gift, who considers her “enough.” (Page 178)

Finding Balance for Yourself—and for Her (Page 179)

  • Wise fathers know that the difference in their daughters’ lives between exhilaration and disaster, joyful contentment and erosive anxiety, can turn on a single smart or foolish decision. Your three-year-old daughter runs her scooter into the street. Your fourteen-year-old breaks from the group at the theater and heads off alone with her boyfriend. Your nineteen-year-old drives home from a party after just a “few” drinks.

  • As a father you have to live with this tension. You want to keep her safe but you want her to be independent. You want her to be bold, but not careless. You want her to love but not to be too needy. While you cannot change her personality or determine all the challenges in her life, you can support her, point her in the right direction, and help her mature. And how your daughter matures will depend on what she sees when she watches you wrestle with the big issues of life, when you show courage amid challenges. Where can she see your courage exercised at home? Everywhere. My sister-in-law watched her physician father go into prisons to perform autopsies on people who had died of AIDS when no other doctor would. I recently heard a father of fifteen-year-old twin girls tell them that they could be okay, even happy again, after their mother died of breast cancer. I saw anguish in his eyes but heard conviction in his voice. (Page 179)

  • Courageous men take stock and do what is right. Integrity is not complete without humility. True humility comes from finding that balance between who you are and what the world is. And the great reward is that humble fathers are wonderful to be around. Daughters love humble dads and distance themselves from haughty ones. (Page 180)

  • Humility and balance also play a role in knowing the difference between healthy love and suffocating love. You will want to protect her. She needs you to fight for her and to care, to be there for her, to be strong. She wants the world to know that if you mess with her, you mess with her dad. Don’t let her down. Fathers who shrug their shoulders and turn away leave their daughters feeling crushed. (Page 180)

  • Listen to your instincts and err on the side of protecting your daughter. It is a common mistake of fathers to back away from their daughters too fast and too soon. Please, please don’t. You’re not being overprotective or overbearing if you keep her from learning the hard way that drinking too much is dangerous, even life-threatening. Protect her, but do so subtly and wisely. Be there. Be the man of integrity, with reason and with muscles, to keep her pointed in the right direction. (Page 181)

  • [Warning to all fathers: whenever your daughter says a guy is “really nice,” that means he has a nice smile.] (Page 183)

  • Watch out, fathers. Fellows like this are all around and nice girls love them. They swoop in to care for these needy, broken-winged pigeons, and whammo! She marries him, she gets a job to support him until he is “strong enough” to work, and in short order the weight on her shoulders becomes unbearable. (Page 186)

Chapter Eight (Page 189)

Teach Her Who God Is (Page 189)

  • Your daughter needs God. And she wants you to be the one to show her who He is, what He is like, and what He thinks about her. (Page 189)

  • You need to have someone behind you, someone your daughter can turn to when you’re not there. You both need a bigger, better father on your side. (Page 189)

A Father’s Wisdom (Page 193)

Why God? (Page 195)

  • No matter how influential you are in your profession, how wealthy or hardworking, you can only offer your daughter so much. Many men don’t like to face this fact. But you can’t protect your daughter from all pain and suffering. When people are really hurt, they cry out to God. (Page 195)

Why You (Page 202)

  • You are not only the first man in your daughter’s life, you are the first authority figure in her life, and your character is invisibly overlaid onto your daughter’s image of God. If you are trustworthy, loving, and kind, your daughter will approach God much more easily. He will not be frightening to her. She can understand that He is good, because she knows what goodness in a man looks like. (Page 202)

What to Do (Page 205)

  • Whether you believe or disbelieve in God, your daughter will turn to you for answers; and if you believe, she will want to know what He is like. Girls say that their parents are the primary influence over their faith. So get ready. (Page 205)

  • Before anything else, you have to ask yourself, “What do I believe about God?” Get off the fence. Be courageous and take a stand. If you are unsure, go find out. Read the Bible. Read books directly related to your quest, whether they are popular works like those of C. S. Lewis, straightforward books like Lee Strobel’s The Case for Faith, or classics like The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, the Pensées of Blaise Pascal, and the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Nothing stretches the limits of human intellect like faith; no other subject has prompted deeper thought than faith in God. So start down the path where the greatest human minds have gone—in a search for God. Start where you are comfortable. Find a good church around you, or take your daughter to temple. Give her something to sink her teeth into and engage her mind. She is hungry for understanding and for knowledge and if you don’t give it to her, I guarantee you that she will find some spiritual information somewhere. (Page 205)

  • If you believe God exists, don’t stop there. Ask yourself: what difference does it make if I do believe in God? When kids were asked whether they felt close to God, the majority of regular churchgoers said yes. Your daughter will want that feeling of relationship with God and will be influenced by how you see your own relationship with Him—if it inspires you to serve others, if it leads you to weekly church or temple attendance, if it encourages you to pray and read the Bible daily, if it grants you a sense of peace and hope, if it gives you strength to deal with calamity. The beauty of fatherhood is that each of you teaches loved ones in your own way, according to your personality. (Page 208)

Chapter Nine (Page 210)

Teach Her to Fight (Page 210)

  • Women tend to want more intense relationships. Men tend to want peace and quiet away from work. And both often feel like they are being shortchanged. (Page 213)

  • Discontentment, frustration, and angst are part of the human experience. But our lives improve when we understand the internal passions that drive us and that drive these emotions. You don’t need psychoanalysis or psychotherapy to understand these passions. All you need to do is identify the few internal passions that drive our behaviors and that can dramatically alter the way we live. (Page 213)

  • Why is this important to you as a father? Because you need to understand that your daughter’s emotions are overflowing with impulses that, if acted upon, could lead her toward self-destruction. Your job, as a man, as her father, is to help her keep her emotions in check. (Page 213)

  • So first you need to train her to assess her impulses: Are they good or are they bad? Are they encouraging her to be stronger or weaker? Then you must help her identify thoughts, emotions, and desires that should be weeded out, one at a time. Help her to clarify her thinking, help her keep it simple.

  • And once you do that, teach her to fight. Let her know that you and she are on the same side. Let her know that you will defend her from a very toxic, woman-unfriendly culture. (Page 214)

Train Her Early (Page 214)

  • She wants to do what she wants to do (or what others tell her she should do), and she still has not fully developed her ability to think reasonably and abstractly. If you have teenagers, you know teenage logic. They might want to drive really fast down an alley to see what it feels like. They don’t imagine crashing into a wall at eighty miles per hour. (Page 215)

  • From the moment your daughter starts thinking about what she wants to do, you need to challenge her thinking and question her behavior, so that by the time she’s a teenager she naturally comes to you to ask, “Dad, this is what I really want to do, but what do you think I should do?” You daughter can know her own feelings, but ultimately, when it comes to making a decision, you know best. (Page 215)

  • Help your daughter find the balance between feelings, reason, and will. Don’t just tell her; show her, in your own behavior, how that balance can be found. Reason, experience, and our moral compass help us decide what to do. (Page 215)

  • On campus, the notion of right behavior and wrong behavior—when it comes to sex and alcohol and often drugs—is dead. And where we find desires ruling young men and women, we find self-destruction. The cruelest part is that so many of us adults stand by, shrug our shoulders, and say things like, “Well, kids are kids.”

  • Don’t go there. Not with your daughter. Don’t put her in situations where her intense, complicated, and passionate feelings will be subjected to so much pressure—and especially don’t put her in these situations if you haven’t taught her not to give in to her impulses.

  • Be her ally. Teach her that superficial women feel and respond. You want her to have emotional depth, intellectual wisdom, physical strength, and mental prowess. And none of that can be had without developing her mind and disciplining her will. (Page 217)

  • savvy in choosing your battles. In general, if her food choices, her hairstyle, or her taste in music annoy you, you can let these go (unless they are part of a larger problem—like an eating disorder or hanging out with a bad crowd). Save your energy for the bigger issues that you absolutely need to focus on: honesty, integrity, courage, and humility. (Page 218)

Clarify Your Morals (without apology) (Page 218)

  • Give her a set of clear moral guidelines. To do this, you need moral clarity in your mind, and preferably in your life as well. If you don’t want her to lie, don’t ask her to tell the phone solicitor that you’re not home. If you want her to speak respectfully to others and to you, take charge of your tongue. Don’t let insults or swear words fly around your house. If you don’t want her to get drunk, don’t drink too much. (Page 219)

  • Children are wonderful at forcing us off the moral fence, because they want to know the ground rules for living. They want the facts, they want to know what you think, and they watch what you do. (Page 219)

  • daughters respect fathers who stand for something. She wants to see conviction and leadership in her father. She might discard your beliefs when she’s older, but at least she’ll know where you stand. (Page 219)

  • One of the gravest mistakes we parents make is blurring the lines between right and wrong for our daughters. (Page 220)

  • You cannot normalize the bizarre and aberrant; you cannot tolerate rudeness, abuse, or dishonesty. (Page 220)

  • Your daughter needs to know your standards, because everyone else is trying to sell her theirs. Here are a few of the most common ones you’ll have to battle. (Page 220)

“I Need to Be Beautiful” (Page 221)

  • Your daughter’s desire to look beautiful is fine if you, as her father, help direct it. The standards should not be MTV’s, they should be yours. Don’t let her believe that she needs to look one way or another as dictated by popular culture. She is who she is and doesn’t need any plastic surgery. She’s beautiful just as she is. (Page 222)

  • The best way to prevent anorexia nervosa from striking your daughter is to help her define her self-image, to talk to her often, and if you find she has toxic thoughts, to challenge and defeat them. (Page 224)

“I Need to Be Sexy” (Page 225)

  • Don’t make her feel bad about her desire to be attractive. Just affirm that modesty is attractive too—and more self-respecting. Help her to understand what signals she sends to boys through her clothes and behavior. Let her know that you have her best interests in mind; clothing companies don’t. She will love you for it. (Page 226)

“I Need to Be Independent” (Page 226)

  • Many young women have absorbed the feminist idea that women don’t need men. Yes, we do. We need fathers, husbands, lovers, protectors, and nurturers. To say that we don’t contradicts the most elemental truths of human nature. We need other people. And women need more than just other women. (Page 226)

“I Need More” (Page 227)

  • Does your daughter really need extra toys, bikes, jeans, and shoes in order to make her life better? Of course not. You know that. And she needs to learn it. So act on that knowledge. (Page 228)

“I Can’t Say No” (Page 228)

  • If your daughter is sensitive, sincere, and very nice, you have a serious problem on your hands. Every father alive wants his daughter to display these qualities in addition to being disciplined and wise. These are wonderful aspirations, but you need to be warned. (Page 228)

  • nice girl needs to be taught to be nice but firm, and to say no and mean it. Teach her to act according to what is best for her, have her practice saying no, and tell her that the most important part of being nice is living up to the moral code you’ve given her. Paint scenarios for her so she can visualize what to do. If she goes to a friend’s sleepover and the kids are watching Fatal Attraction, she needs to leave the room and call you. (Page 228)

  • remember, nice girls die in car accidents. Nice girls get pregnant. Nice girls fall for bad boys. Teaching your daughter to say no could save her life. (Page 230)

Chapter Ten (Page 231)

Keep Her Connected (Page 231)

  • All your daughter needs is for you to spend time with her. Think of yourself as your daughter’s base camp. She needs a place to stop and settle, to reorient and remember who she is, where she started, and where she’s going. She needs a place to rest and get reenergized. You are that place. (Page 232)

Work, Play, and Plan (Page 232)

  • Fathers like to do things outside the house, so here’s a tip: take your daughter with you. Teach her to build an engine. Take her fishing or hiking, or go to a museum, or take her out to dinner. You don’t want to turn her into a boy, but let her spend time with you when you’re doing what you like to do. It will help you open up and share with her. She’ll see you when you are comfortable and enthusiastic. The great thing about outdoor activities is that conversation flows naturally. And especially today, when so many kids live on the Internet and their BlackBerries, having a real flesh-and-blood connection is more important than ever. (Page 232)

The Lonely Teen (Page 234)

  • Since you are competing with e-conversations, e-songs, and e-relationships, steal her away from the screen as often as you can. Remember, when all is said and experienced, you are a better communicator than cell phones, e-mail, or chat rooms. They can’t comfort her when she’s in the hospital. They can’t walk her down the aisle toward her future husband. You will. (Page 237)

Surviving Stress (Page 238)

Afterword (Page 242)

Realize Who You Are to Her (Page 243)

  • When she is a baby, her eyes will search for your face. Her ears will listen for your voice and everything inside her will need to answer only one question, “Daddy, are you here?” If you are there, her body will grow better. Her IQ will start to rise, her development will track where it is supposed to, but more important, she will realize that life is good because you love her. You are her introduction to love; you are love itself.
  • When she goes to kindergarten she will think about you and she might even talk about you. If another classmate makes a hurtful remark, your daughter will boast to the bully that he’d better be careful because you, her hero, will come over to his house and beat him up. To her, you can do anything, and, most especially, you can protect her.
  • In elementary school, her challenges and her world expand, but her question for you will be the same: “Daddy, are you still there for me?” When she is thirteen and wearing lipstick, or fifteen and competing in a spelling contest, or seventeen and living at a friend’s house because she can’t stand you, one question alone will haunt her: “Dad, are you there for me?” She needs to know that the answer is always yes. The more you leave her wondering, the harder she will push for an answer—and she might go to extremes to try to force it from you.
  • And when she has her first child, or is diagnosed with breast cancer at thirty, or her husband walks out on her and her kids, the question will remain: “Dad, please, dad, are you there?”
  • If she knows that you are there, dependable and full of love for her, you will have taught her this great lesson: Life is good. Good men help make it so. (Page 243)

Open Your Eyes to Her World (it’s different from yours) (Page 244)

  • You might not be able to single-handedly change popular culture or reform school curricula, but what you say and do, the example you set, and the leadership you provide can absolutely keep your daughter on the right track—or put her back on it. Your influence is that important. And even if you feel that it’s too late, that she’s too far gone from you, run to find her. It doesn’t matter how old you are or how old she is. She is still your daughter. You are still her father. (Page 244)

Fight for Her Body (Page 244)

  • By far the greatest danger to your daughter comes from the aggressive marketing of sexuality that, unchecked, can give her a horribly skewed sense of self. (Page 244)

  • Don’t let this happen to your daughter, please. Protect her mind, protect her body. Remember, setting rules has nothing to do with trust—particularly during the teen years. Setting rules and being vigilant about protecting her is a matter of her anatomy and emotions, and your parental responsibility. Her brain is not fully developed. (Page 245)

Fight for Her Mind (Page 246)

  • Never let popular culture steal your daughter from you. Teach her the centrality of family, the importance of humility, and the rewards of helping others. Teach her to look beyond herself. (Page 246)

Fight for Her Soul (Page 246)

Fight for Your Relationship with Her (Page 247)

  • Many fathers think they need to entertain their daughters to make the time seem special. This is particularly true of divorced fathers. But your daughter doesn’t need—or even want—special events or outings. She just needs to be with you, next to you doing chores, washing the car, living life. So just live it with her. (Page 247)