Dear Fathers of Daughters,

Do you understand that your daughter loves you unconditionally? You are their first love, their first dance, their first Prince Charming, rescuing them from the dangerous dragon, or the dog that she put fairy wings on. They adore you. Don’t forget that.

You are the one who will teach them what their value is. Because there are plenty of people who will tear her down. Take her on a date, dress up, buy her flowers, open the door for her, treat her like she’s the most important person that night. Don’t look at your phone when you’re at dinner, make conversation with her. Color on the kids menu with her. Share a milkshake with her. On those lazy weekend mornings when you just want to sleep in but she wants to paint your toenails, get up. Let her paint your toenails, style your hair, and put makeup on you. I have long hair and my daughter LOVES to put my hair up in a ponytail, or seven.

Teach her that she is beautiful, precious, loved, unique, and smart. There’s going to be a world out there that is just waiting to pounce and tear her down. She needs to know that there is someone who will lift her up and love her

Encourage her to explore her interests. My daughter loves collecting rocks. Whenever we go on hikes, or are just outside in general, she has to pick out a few rocks that she really likes. My wife and I took a trip recently while my daughter was at her mothers for the weekend. We bought her a bunch of those souvenir rocks and a box to put them in. Agate, fools gold, quartz, pink rocks, red rocks, brown rocks. I don’t know what they are but she does. She knows the difference between igneous and metamorphic rocks. I just had to ask her if metamorphic was a rock, then she told me what the different types were. She wanted to color the box we gave her. We told her that it belongs to her and she can decorate it however she wants.

In our house she’s allowed to express her creativity(as long as it’s not on the walls) and to have her own personality. Wearing a multicolored polka dot skirt, with a shirt that looks like someone left melted rainbow sherbet on it along with mismatched socks. We only ask two questions when it comes to that. One, is it seasonally appropriate? Two, Does she like what she’s wearing and thinks she looks good? If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then she’s good to go. Fathers, let your daughters express themselves in whatever manner that makes them happy and comfortable. There’s going to be enough people in society telling her that she doesn’t look good. I can pretty much guarantee you that her school has a whole list of items she can’t wear because boys are unable to control themselves if she doesn’t cover her elbows! The boys list is probably limited to ‘keep your shirt on’.

Teach her how to change a tire, the oil on her car, unclog a drain, throw a punch, and haggle with a salesman. It’s important for two reasons. One, so she can be an independent woman who is able to do all of that stuff herself, but is smart enough that she can convince a man to do it for her. Two, there’s going to be some guy who will try to take advantage of her, and she needs to know when to pull out her dick and show him she knows what she’s talking about. Because, my wife did that once. She wanted to get her battery checked at a local chain automotive retail store. She pulled the battery out herself and borrowed a friends car to get it checked. The guy behind the counter kept referring to her as sweetheart, darling, etc. and tried to tell her the battery might be fine and it could be the alternator, or something else. He didn’t check the battery. So she went back to her house got an ‘item’ and went back to the store. She asked again about checking her battery, he started in on the whole ‘darling’ bit. She pulled out of her pants a big purple dildo and slapped it on the counter. “Here is my dick! Here is proof of my manhood! Does this qualify me to know what I’m talking about? Can you check the battery now?” Needless to say the clerk was aghast and checked her battery.

Teach her that her body is sacred. That it is a treasure and beautiful no matter what shape it is in. The world is going to tell her that no matter how hard she tries she doesn’t look good enough. At some point in her life some guy will teach her that her body doesn’t belong to her. It’s going to happen. Some guy is going to reach out and grab her, arm, leg breasts, butt, or some other body part without her permission. Something is going to happen to violate the sacredness of her body. There’s going to be guys that will randomly message her online about wanting to have sex with her, send her unsolicited pics of their wangs, request pics of her naked body. Don’t believe me? Ok, go to a dating website and create a profile as a woman seeking a man. You don’t even need a profile pic, because in a few hours you are going to start getting messages. Most of them won’t be nice, sure they’ll call you beautiful and complement you. But, they’ll also want to know when they can see you naked, or just send you pics of their peckers and want to know what you would do to it. Trust me. I created an online dating profile as a woman seeking a man on one occasion, it disgusted me. Men are jerks.

Play dolls with her often, have a tea party, play dress up. There are so many things that you can do with her that are insignificant and ridiculous to you, but they are the things that she will remember for a lifetime.

Share your scars with her. Let her know how you’ve been hurt or how you’ve tried to hurt yourself in the past. These are important for her to know. Use age appropriate terms and explanations for her. Recently I had to discuss with my daughter my past scars. My wife is going to be getting a tattoo on her wrist of a charm bracelet, and on it there are going to be different ribbons for each thing our family has overcome. There are two that brought up one of our most painful conversations to date. For my mother in law, my oldest daughter, and myself the purple ribbon for domestic violence. An orange ribbon for self harm for my oldest daughter and myself.

I had to gently explain to her that at one point daddy wanted to go away and to do that he tried to commit suicide and he used to bite and hit himself to make the pain go away when he was younger. I discovered that my 9 year old daughter who is the most chipper and happy of persons had tried self harming because the kids at school were mean to her and she wanted it to stop. That was hard to hear. But, I wouldn’t have known about it if I hadn’t opened up to her. I talked to her about the pain and how daddy dealt with it, and that if she ever felt like that again to call daddy and we can talk about it. Because there are more people who love her in this world then there are people who are mean to her.

The hardest part was trying to explain that daddy was a victim of domestic violence in a past relationship. Daddy was in a relationship with someone who made fun of him, tried to control what he could wear and cut his hair, who berated and belittled him, and at a moments notice would fly into a rage about the simplest things. Someone who disrespected daddy as a person, and used her words to cut him down. That person was her mother. It’s very hard to explain to your daughter who unconditionally loves both of her parents, and wants to spend as much time with them both as she can, that the person who was mean to daddy was her mommy.

Fathers, when you share your scars, fears, rejections, and disappointments with your little girl it creates a bond between you two. I know you want her to envision you as being an unassailable wall of strength and resolution, but you need to let her see you cry. That’s not a suggestion. Do it. Let her see tears well up in your eyes and roll down your cheeks. She needs to know that you have a wide range of emotions and it’s ok for her to see them and for her to express them.

Why is all this important? Because when she’s a teenager or grown up and someone is pressuring her to drink, do drugs, have sex, or whatever might make her uncomfortable or unsafe. She’ll know that she can always go to you and trust you to understand her side of the story.

Hug and kiss her as often as you can. When she gets older and her body starts changing and she goes from dolls and princess dresses to cell phones and bras. Hug her. Let her know she’s beautiful. I covered this already I know. But, this is different. When she’s changing and feeling uncomfortable about herself, and you’re feeling uncomfortable about her changes, hug her anyway and let her know that she’s beautiful. When she’s gangly and awkward and pimple faced, hug her. Big bear hugs and kisses on her forehead. Except when she’s around her friends. Because seriously dad you’re going to embarrass her. These are her friends! (cue eyeroll and sigh)

At some point you’re going to say something stupid that’s going to hurt her feelings. You may not realize it until it’s too late. It’s ok. You’re going to make mistakes. Don’t worry. The reason you follow the little tidbits that I gave you up above is that when you do, it’ll be easier to reconcile with her. She’ll understand that sometimes daddy doesn’t think when he opens his mouth.

Fathers this advice I have given you is very important. It’s important for your relationship with your daughter. It’s important for your daughter’s relationship with herself. She’s going to grow up and get married, move away, and have kids of her own. Remember, you were the first man she fell in love with. Treasure that and try to never break her heart. She’ll always be your little girl, and she’ll always dance standing on your toes.

In fatherly love,

Jeremy Martin