Dads and daughters – a special relationship

Joe Kelly knows a thing or two about girls. A former journalist, he is the father of adult twin daughters, and he once worked for his wife, the creator of New Moon magazine, which is written and edited by girls.

Mr. Kelly is now executive director of the nonprofit group Dads and Daughters (www.dadsanddaughters.org), which was founded to support and mobilize fathers. He is also the author of the new book, "Dads and Daughters: How to Inspire, Understand, and Support Your Daughter When She's Growing Up So Fast" (Broadway Books, $23.95). In a recent interview (excerpts below), he talked about the relationship of daughters to their fathers.

What do fathers bring to the parenting relationship with a daughter that mothers do not?

Well, first off, I think fathers are not more important than mothers, nor are they less important. But I think a father sets a standard for what it is a daughter can expect from boys now and from men later. And not just that, but a father sets a standard for what to expect from a partner in a long-term relationship.

My shorthand for that phenomenon is "the first man." We're the first man in our daughters' lives. We may not always [be] first if we're a stepdad, but we're influential men. And that influence takes on special meaning in our culture, because girls are bombarded all the time ... with the message that they don't measure up, that they don't look right, that they're not attractive enough.

What's a father's role in helping counter the onslaught of media messages that objectify women and girls?

The first thing is to listen. [By] using the advantage we have as the first men in our daughters' lives – playing on the underlying message of culture, that a female's primary purpose is to get males to notice her – we ... counter that [message] by listening to her, recognizing that her voice, both literally and metaphorically, is her most valuable and threatened resource.

We do that by asking questions, having regular conversations with her where she does more of the talking than we do, having an ongoing series of [informal] talks, rather than waiting for "the Talk."

Another crucial thing is to be physically active with her. So much of what she's told is that how she looks is more important than who she is and what she does. By playing catch, shooting hoops, horsing around, playing word games with her, I am showing her that she has a body for what it does, not for how it looks.

I can demonstrate that powerfully by showing up at her extracurricular activities, her concerts, her games, her recitals, by volunteering at her school, by trying to make the world better for girls.

It might seem that mothers bring more understanding to raising a daughter, because they were once girls themselves. How do fathers learn to understand and speak to daughters in a way that makes sense to them?

I think the biggest hurdle we face as fathers of daughters is that we grew up as boys. We don't know what's it's like to grow up as girls, which is why it's so important for us to learn what it means to grow up as girls.

I think you learn it a couple of ways. One, by watching, by talking to, and by being coached by the women in your life. We're really fortunate we have all these people around us who grew up as girls, who can give us perspective and insight.

I hear many men talk about this, about how they start to see the world through their daughters' eyes.

One example I give is a story many men have told me in some variation. They say, "I've walked through malls or down main streets all my life with my mother, my sister, or girlfriend and didn't even notice that other men were eyeing them or making comments about them. But when it's my daughter, I have this visceral reaction: 'Don't you dare treat my daughter that way.' "

Something happens that helps fathers see more clearly the ways in which our culture treats females. And it helps us understand better some of the issues they face in a culture where girls and women are objectified, where girls and women are still not taken as seriously as boys and men, because this is still a sexist culture.

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