A MAN-OF-DAUGHTERS

Photo: Daddy with his 3 daughters:
Sandi, Lila, and Skitch

THEN:

Written in 2000, not long after marrying my second husband, but still wonderfully true today.


     There is a wonderful tenderness to a man-of-daughters. I first found this out as a child living in a home that had borne four daughters and no sons. My father, who had always been a rough and tumble man, soon succumbed to our gentle sensibilities and treated even the tomboys among us like upstanding Victorian princesses. He had long adored his mother, and he cherished our mother deeply. Seemingly with ease, he transferred that love and respect to his own girls. With infinite patience, he sat while we braided the longest strands of his hair and pinned bobby pins and bows in the rest. To his great credit, he held his face immobile while tasting many a pretend and real culinary attempt. Then, with a noble smile, he would proclaim it, "Delicious"! We knew! We knew that every attempt we made was different and that not all of them could reasonably be palatable (especially those daisy eggs we popped into his mouth) let alone delicious. We also knew that, in his eyes, we did no wrong, and that was what mattered, what we carried with us all our days.

     Over the years, as we softened him, something unexpected happened, and he softened us as well. We came to enjoy being treated like ladies and we expected like treatment from every male around us. This led to more than a few disappointments that, in the long run, will not be ours. By his standards we measured our male friends, teachers, suitors. Poor men -- so few of them ever touched the bottom of the level we had placed our daddy on. Somehow two of our staunch tomboys imagined themselves stronger than they were, more influential than they could ever be. They married men off the graph, expecting them to soften as dear daddy had, but some men don't soften. As one of the tomboys, I found that out first hand. I married a boy from a house-of-sons. He was a gruff nurtured boy, with no sisters to set before him a standard of how women should be treated, and he held little softness in his heart for his own mother. How was I to know that this would render him incapable of the tenderness to which I had become accustomed? Many hardships later, after problems with substance abuse and violence, I stopped looking for it within him. It simply was not and would not be there. 

     My man from a house-of-sons had given me sons, and I struggled daily to provide for them a well rounded upbringing. With my tomboyish nature I was able to be a decent semi-dad. I taught them to throw a baseball and climb a tree. I was also a nester by nature, and as such was teaching them to cook and do laundry. I wasn't doing a bad job, overall, but something was missing. For, when I asked them to lift the toilet seat they lifted instead, an eyebrow and thought their mother suddenly nit-picky among her kind. And if I, out of respect for other females that would soon be entering their lives, cautioned them about words like "snot" and "fart" they considered the possibility that I was daft indeed! Didn't I say these words myself? Didn't I laugh at their fart jokes? It seemed to me that a tomboyish mother-of-sons was destined to raise men-of-sons with little or no regard for feminine sensibilities, for they only resented the difference between how I allowed them to treat me and how I hoped they would treat the more tender of my kind. I did not want to pretend to be someone I was not, but I was beginning to consider it because, ironically, I was fathering my children pretty well, but feeling like I was falling short as their mother.

     It was at that wonderful and opportune time that I met my own man-of-daughters. He had five of them! And one little son of his own. He had a mother he adored and a sister he cherished. With sensibilities not seen by me in too long, this man gathered us all into his strong but gentle arms: five girls, three boys, and me. My sons now raised both eyebrows in enlightenment when he instructed them on the necessity of lifting (and then even lowering!) the toilet seat. They nodded understandingly when he explained the obligation of watching one's language in front of females. It suddenly made sense to them now that not all girls were as staunch as "Momma" for they had five sisters in varying degrees of "princess" and their step-dad expected the females in our world to be treated with great respect. As the girls grew dearer to my sons, so did their regard for the opposite sex. They seemed to treat unknown girls in a manner similar to how they wanted the tenderest of their sisters to be treated. Suddenly, females in general were held in higher esteem and my new husband had mothered my sons for me. 

     There are exceptions to nearly every rule, of course: But my advice to womankind is this: marry a man that cherishes good relationships with the females in his life. As he treats his mother, his sisters, his daughters, so shall he treat you. Be aware, of the respect -- or lack of it, in your friends and suitors. And for men it rings as true: If she adores her daddy, her brothers, her sons, she will be more likely to adore you. That makes for a smoother relationship and a pleasure indeed. For I cannot express how delightful it is to watch the circle go fully around, as I sit observing little girls "fixing" their daddy's hair and popping over-cooked bacon into his mouth.

Photo: Daddy with 3 daughters:
Sandi, Lila, and Baby Skitch