I’ve spent the last 23 years of my life being a girl dad. I’ve been a husband for nearly 25 years. I consider both to be the most important jobs I could ever have.
As the father of four daughters, I’ve long been praised. While such positive attention from others is appreciated, it’s also somewhat misguided. Most of the praise from strangers was based on sympathy and the uniqueness of our family.
Having four kids is unusual in this day and age. Having four girls, even more so. But having four girls doesn’t mean I’m a good father. Just because I’m “outnumbered” doesn’t mean I’m upset about it or should earn sympathy. To be clear, I do consider myself a good girl dad. My wife is an amazing girl mom.
Girl mom doesn’t seem to be a thing, though, does it?
I haven’t seen that hashtag, or any other parent hashtag, for that matter. Granted, that could be due at least partially to my algorithm.
Being a feminist, I see mostly feminist-themed posts and videos online. Which is fine; the algorithm is doing its job in that respect. But I am under no illusion that what I read, watch, and witness in my narrow window of the Internet is all there is worth noticing.
As a girl dad, there is video after inspirational video of the impact good parents could/should have on their daughters. It’s validating and powerful and so goddamn important.
As nice as that is, it’s an incomplete puzzle.
Just like any other parent of daughters — and women in general — the most prevalent fear I have for my girls’ safety is men.
This fear is nothing new. My wife loves to recall the first sentence I uttered when I held our firstborn in my arms in the delivery room, “Now, we have to keep her alive.”
Part of that statement was due to being petrified first-time parents with a brand new, helpless infant to take care of. Another part of that fear was knowing that sooner or later, a man could come along to cause pain that I couldn’t protect her from.
I felt the same concern and fear after each of our girls was born. That concern, that pit in your stomach, that raised hair on the back of your neck never truly leaves a parent, no matter how old their children get.
Our girls’ ages currently range from 16 to 23. That is prime territory for being harmed by men one way or another. They’ll be in that range for the foreseeable future, which is scary as hell for all of us.
All four have endured unwanted attention, harassment, and mistreatment from men. All four have friends who have dealt with the same intentional behavior or worse.
One daughter spent months babysitting two young sons of a cousin of mine. When their arrangement came to an end, my cousin’s wife gave our daughter a gift that was both amazing and terrifying.
It was a pink bedazzled keychain complete with taser, flashlight, siren, and pepper spray attached. The terrifying part is that such a gift is needed.
Our third daughter will be attending college six hours away starting in September. You can bet your ass we’re getting her the same keychain. In a different color, obviously. A girl’s individuality is vital.
So is her safety.
That includes physical, mental, and emotional safety. Yes, my girls can be hurt by more than just men. Life is like that. Any one of us can get sucker punched at any time by anyone or anything.
All of that being said, nothing scares me more for my girls’ overall safety than men. And nothing angers me more than having to type that last fucking sentence and know that it’s true.
As I said earlier, I’ve been praised for the last 23 years for being a girl dad. While I appreciate the warm fuzzies, my wife deserves the same, if not more, praise than I do.
My wife is just as dedicated as a parent as I am. She loves them as I do. She would lie in traffic right next to me to save any one of them.
My wife also had the pressure of being the mom of girls because if someone has a negative reaction to a girl’s wardrobe, behavior, or attitude, the mom usually bears the brunt of any negative blowback. (This negative feedback is often from other women, by the way. But that is a topic for another day.)
Since my wife is an amazing parent, why am I (and other girl dads) hashtagged all over social media, while girl moms are not? The answer is simple and aggravating: We’re needed to show our girls how men are supposed to treat women, meaning our wives as well as our daughters.
That is the power behind #GirlDad. We’re showing our daughters — by example — how they should be treated by men.
Why is it only us, though? What about other men?
What about boy dads?
One of the biggest feminist battle cries is how women are always blamed, shamed, ignored, pressured, et al, when men cross the line.
Women are questioned and shamed after being assaulted by men for what they were wearing. In fact, that is the only crime where victims are questioned about their wardrobe.
Women are blamed for drinking alcohol, even though men are the ones drugging their drinks. This is done despite men being known for horrendous behavior, violence, and decision-making after consuming alcohol.
Women are shamed for what they wear at the gym, at work, at school, on dates, for distracting men as if we can’t be expected to control ourselves otherwise.
Women are instructed not to jog or run alone, or at night, or with music in both ears, etc because men could attack them and women must be ready to defend themselves from men.
And so on.
More pressure is on women to protect themselves from men than there is for men to respect women. As an extension, girl dads are hashtagged/pressured into teaching our daughters how men should treat them.
For the record, I would do that whether #GirlDad was a thing or not. I would do the same thing if I had sons. Which brings up a vital question.
Why is there no similar pressure/praise/hashtags for boy dads to do the same with their sons?
Feminists have been yelling this to the heavens for years. Instead of blaming and shaming women, sons should be raised to respect women.
Racism, sexism, hatred, and cruelty are behaviors learned from their parents. The same applies to love, acceptance, sympathy, empathy, and respect.
So if girl dads are praised for raising their daughters to know how men should treat women, why aren’t boy dads praised for doing the same thing?
There is more to being a boy dad than just a father having a son. Just being a father of a daughter doesn’t earn the hashtag either. It works the same for any parent.
Hashtags have to be earned.
Being a mother or a father is different than just being a parent. Being a mother or a father means getting your hands dirty. It means preparing your son or daughter for the future, even when that future is scary as hell.
Children learn what they are taught at home. They practice and parrot what is preached to them until they find out for themselves if they agree or disagree.
#GirlDads show their girls what not to accept from men as well as what to accept. #BoyDads need to do the same with their sons. So do moms of girls and boys.
Women do not owe men a goddamn thing.
Just being a man doesn’t mean you’re better, stronger, smarter, talented, or deserve anything more than women. Being a man means you were born with a dick and girls are born with a vagina.
The more parents who teach that to their children, the greater the impact will be. But none of that is easy or quick. Not yet.
When I was a kid, there was protocol to playing games with other kids. If a game was already in play, it was bad form to ask to join. Teams were set, points had been scored, the groove was in motion. You had to wait until the game was over to get your chance to play.
That is the biggest detriment to #BoyDad being a thing.
Too many other games are still in play, with too many dominant players on the wrong side.
There’s the Boys Will Be Boys team. I’ve written about my disdain for that bullshit before, so I won’t rehash it here.
We also have the despicable Bro Club. Same hatred, another article.
Then there is the veteran team packed with parents and grandparents of multiple generations. The stereotypical way so many men were raised to show dominance, strength, power, while never crying or any other kind of perceived weakness, while praising or excusing anger and rage.
Those are just three of the formidable opponents we’re up against. That doesn’t even include the patriarchy, where the percentage of men (especially white men) who are in positions of leadership and power compared to women.
It seems like the very idea of being respectful to women is paramount to men showing weakness.
Fighting back against that kind of ingrained philosophy and belief is no easy task. Neither is being a parent. Neither is being a woman. Neither is being a feminist man. Neither is being alive.
None of that means that we shouldn’t try.
Not trying = wondering what if 100 percent of the time.
Not trying = uncertainty 100 percent of the time.
Not trying = not winning 100 percent of the time.
Not trying isn’t in my DNA. It’s not in my daughters’ DNA. I would venture it’s not in most people’s family tree.
In the end, it comes down to priorities. It comes down to effort. It comes down to the volume at which we yell and act and how often we do both. In our social media-dominated world, anything can become a hashtag movement.
I spent much of the last year marveling at the massive popularity of six-seven. Every year, we’re bombarded with a myriad of TikTok trends. If those movements can catch fire, imagine what could happen if #BoyDad became a thing.
Granted, it’s easier for trends with the moral weight of lemon meringue to catch fire because, in the end, the success or failure of them doesn’t make an impact on our lives overall.
On the flip side, look at how people united in and with Minnesota this winter, the constant protesting against ICE, and rising to bring attention and demands for justice to various murder and assault cases.
Women are half the population. We’re here because women birthed us. Despite their importance, the system and too much of our society are slanted against them.
It will take more than girl dads to turn this tide. We need boy dads to step up in the same way. We need girl and boy moms to get their due.
We need more. From all of us.
It stands to reason that if the treatment of women by men is important enough to shout out girl dads, we should also focus attention on boy dads for the same reason.
Maybe we could get to the point that no hashtags will be needed for any of us.
That would mean we didn’t create a hashtag trend; we made a systemic change.
Thanks for reading.
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