The Importance of Dads Loving Daughters

May 1, 2003
Michael Evans

Around eight hundred years ago, an historian by the name of Salimbene wrote about a horrific experiment designed by King Frederick II.

His evil mind wondered what language children would speak as they grew up if they had spoken to no one beforehand.

And so, to conduct his wicked experiment he conscripted the services of foster mothers and nurses, whose sole purpose was simply to nurse and bathe the infants.

The foster mothers and nurses were forbidden to speak to or with the infants or prattle with them in any way.

King Frederick II was curious as to what language skills would develop in the absence of speech and affection.

Would they speak Hebrew, which was the oldest, or Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perhaps the language of their birth parents?

The King’s misguided experiment failed because all of the young children died.  They simply could not live without the petting and joyful faces and loving words of their foster mothers (Gary Collins, Fractured Personalities, pp. 35-36). 

Ten years ago, surveys indicated that dads spent 38 seconds a day being totally attentive to their children and 20 minutes being partially attentive.  It is less than that today.

Most mothers, by God’s good design, spend much more time than fathers in both “total” and “partial” attentiveness to their children.

It’s also true in my observations that children of all ages generally tend to feel more distant from their fathers than they do from their mothers.

Could it be that we fathers have unwittingly bought into the spirit of King Frederick?  Perhaps we spend little time actually speaking eye to eye with our children and wonder why they seem “dead” to us in some ways.

Our children need words from us.  Our children need affection from us.  Our children need time from us.  Children are by nature communicative, though this attribute can be severely stunted by a harsh father and/or mother.

One of the priceless moments I have with four-year-old Elisabeth several times a week is this:  I pick her up, look into her big, pretty blue eyes and ask, “Who’s your favorite man?”  To which she always points a finger in my chest and replies,   “You are, Dad!”

It thrills my heart that when I get home from work, and Elisabeth is outside playing, she will drop everything and run to give me a hug and tell me how much she loves me.

As much as I’d like to believe these responses to me will never change, there is a realistic part of me that thinks her manner of expressing love to me might change a bit through the years.  But I don’t like the idea.

Even if the Lord should one day raise up some young man who would be good enough for my daughter, and the thought is borderline ludicrous, I would like to think that I will always be her favorite man, and that she will always run to me with the same unbridled enthusiasm that she now shows.

Whatever the case may be, Elisabeth knows that she is much loved by her dad.  Her dad knows this by the way she acts when he is around.  Dads, let’s shower our daughters with good words and fatherly affection. 

If we fail to do this our daughters will seek affection in all the wrong places from pretend daddies.  

Years ago I was a youth pastor to junior and senior high students.  Once we got to know the kids it was often times very clear to Karla and me which young ladies had a close relationship with their fathers and which did not.

Sadly, we could not help but make our silent and sober predictions of which young girls were at the greatest risk of seeking “love” in all the wrong places.  Even more sadly, the years proved it out.

Next to loving the Lord with all his heart and next to loving his wife, the best things that a father can do for his young daughters are to shower them with love and affection…spend time with them in their pretend worlds… look often into their eyes and tell them just how much he loves them.

There are no iron clad guarantees in Christian parenting. There are plenty of solid general principles, but it is simply wrong, cruel, and unbiblical to derive absolute positions from general principles.

The Word of God is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.  The Word is not the Sun.  The Word shines forth as a beam of light, but sometimes    only a few feet in front of our difficult paths.  But shine it does!  

Some dads and moms spend way too much time worrying about their daughters and the things they cannot control and not nearly enough time simply loving the person and building the relationship.

If we hold off on building the relationship until we have read the latest “must read” parenting book, we run the risk of imitating the King’s experiment.

Sometimes the best thing a dad  can do is to put the book down and bounce his daughter on his knee, and stop the worrying.

Philip Melancthon, the great Reformation theologian, once said to his friend Martin Luther, “This day you and I will discuss the governance of the universe.” 

What Luther said in response was unexpected: “This day you and I will go fishing and leave the governance of the universe to God” (Our Daily Bread, March-May, 1996). 

There are times when going fishing or golfing, or throwing rocks into the river, or picking flowers, or going bowling, or quietly watching birds (with your daughters) is the best thing you can do.

Rather than trying to micro-manage and over-analyze all the moments of our lives we must learn to live a little more, and enjoy the children entrusted to our care.

Of all people, those who educate their children at home ought to be leading the way in this kind of living.  Unfortunately, it is all too often the case that we stress out about every little detail.

Or perhaps we live with the gnawing fear that we are “inadequate” for the task at hand. 

Worse, in our weaker moments we may fear that we are harming our children by not affording them all the “normal” experiences [we had] of the “Great Experiment” of government education.

These are the moments when we need to go to the Dairy Queen for a large twist cone and talk some sense to one another. 

Because, at the end of the day (at least most days) there is not the least bit of regret or uncertainty in my heart as to whether or not this is the course God would have for us, and for our children.

So brothers, let’s live fully, love (especially our daughters) freely, and lumber ahead in the strength of the Lord!

****

On a lighter note:

How busy are you?  In a recent email interaction  a friend was writing of how busy he was. He asked if I ever felt like I was treading water with leg weights on.  Not a bad image, but I wrote him back the following:

“No, for me it's more like doing sitting bulls off a three meter diving board with a blind fold on at night, wondering whether there will, in the end, be water in the pool when I hit...with all the grace of a bunker buster bomb.”    

Gifts for your wife:

In hindsight I really blew Valentine’s Day this year.  I really did try to find something nice and meaningful to express to Karla just how much I love her.  I spent a chunk of time trying to find something good. 

What I ended up purchasing was a bar of soap and a card.  It was a nice bar of soap…with a fancy brand name. It smelled very pleasant, and Karla was appreciative. 

But, it was still a bar of soap and I’m reminded each time I wash my hands of just how lame this gift really was. 

As  you read this article Mother’s Day will be in the rear view mirror.  If you blew it on Mother’s Day, as I did on Valentine’s Day, be the man. 

Admit it! Then, do something really special with your wife, and by that I don’t mean driving to the store and letting her pick out a bar of soap.