June 19th 2009

Dads and Daughters, Part I: In Search Of (Good) Fathers

You don’t have to be Meredith Grey, the tormented star of Grey’s Anatomy, to know that an absent father can warp a woman’s understanding of herself and the men in her life.

Many fathers tend to vanish during a girl’s teen years, and not necessarily by moving across the country as Thatcher Grey did. They disappear at home - to their computers after dinner and to television on weekends.

There’s some evidence today’s dads spend more time with their little girls than in the past - that is, during infancy and childhood. They turn up at father-daughter events at school and coach girls’ sports teams.

But by middle and high school, such structures are harder to find. And pulling a maturing daughter onto one’s lap seems creepy. Research shows, in fact, that fathers do less with their adolescent daughters than with their sons, and less than mothers do with daughters or sons. Right at the age when girls’ interest in guys shifts into high gear.

Unless dad and daughter work at the relationship, the distance between them can widen.

“Of all my girlfriends I only have one who hangs out with her dad,” says Liz Funk, a recent college graduate living in New York. Funk, who interviewed more than 100 young women for her book Supergirls Speak Out, says dads are seen more as ATMs than sources of guidance. “There’s a lot of unsaid tension and awkwardness. You’d have to have a really open family where a girl could talk about sex with her dad.”

Funk’s book also makes the point that girls see their mothers working overtime to be wage earner, housekeeper, caretaker and babe. “It gives the impression that women should put much more energy into...pursuing relationships than men do...Young women learn that they have to compensate for their gender by being extraordinary.”

Does this help explain why some women are reluctant to commit to a serious relationship? Or to marriage? Being Supermom like Mom... Who wants that?

What can men do to show women early on that they would be equal partners in a more serious relationship?

Check back on Father's Day for more on Dads and Daughters...