Don’t Tell Me You’re a Girl Dad — Show Me

We’ve got the merchandise. We’ve used the hashtag. But what are we doing to deserve the title?

“You’re having a girl!”

I remember the Ultrasound Technician’s words as clearly today as I did eight years ago. I was thrilled!

During the weeks leading up to the ultrasound appointment, I couldn’t help but wonder what I would hear. While I had no premonitions or dreams pointing me toward the future, I was confident that my wife was carrying our daughter. After being raised by a single mom and having a close relationship with my Grandma, bringing a daughter into the family just felt right.

As we made the announcement telling our friends we were having a girl, the inevitable comments came.

“Uh oh! You better watch out!”

“She’s gonna have you wrapped around her finger.”

“You got your shotgun ready?”

A few years later, as we announced baby number two was also a girl, the same comments followed.

I was thrilled. As often as I heard, “Are you hoping for a son?” I found myself doubling down on my desire to have another daughter. I loved having a daughter. Why wouldn’t I want more?

In January 2020, after the untimely losses of Kobe and Gianna Bryant, the term #girldad went viral, being used on Twitter alone more than 175,000 times over the first three days following the tragic accident.

Dads around the world were showing love and appreciation for their daughters. It was almost as if since Kobe Bryant, one of the fiercest and most ruthless competitors in sports history, could have a soft side for his daughters, Jim, the General Manager of your local Best Buy, could, too.

The trend prompted companies to monetize the term “Girl Dad,” placing the two words on clothing (I’ve got it all), bumper stickers, you name it. To this day, when I wear my Girl Dad sweatshirt out and about, I’m almost guaranteed to get a comment about it.

Being a Girl Dad was trendy and fun! Seeing dads play Pretty Pretty Princess or sit down for tea parties was adorable, especially in contrast to those who were visibly upset to find out they were having a daughter.

While you would assume a reinvigorated focus on our daughters would lead to an improved world for the women around us, four years later, almost all signs show that our daughters are stepping into a worse environment than the one they were born in.

In the weeks following the COVID-19 breakout, women’s unemployment rates skyrocketed, in large part because of the unfair burden that’s placed on women to take care of families. In addition to further harming the wage gap, women left promising careers and were robbed of future promotions simply because they had to put their families first.

Since 2022, millions of American women have lost the right to legal abortion access, placing their reproductive health in the hands of extremist politicians who also won’t pass legislation in favor of Paid Family Leave.

You can travel the globe and find millions of women who can’t vote, dress independently, or are forced into marriages with men decades their senior. This type of widespread ugly authority over women, often at the hands of men, requires us to ask the question: what does it mean to be a girl dad? Or better yet, here’s a question for me and the other proud girl dads out there: what are we doing for our daughters?

What does it mean to be a girl dad?

It is brutally unfair how girls are treated at a young age. The constant emphasis on “being pretty” and caring for others is hammered into too many girls at an early age. While our boys are encouraged to be tough and aggressive (something that leads to another set of problems), even if our homes are as progressive and pro-women as possible, our daughters will still enter schools, grocery stores, and social circles where our work can quickly unravel.

Adam Bulger wrote an article on Fatherly titled “7 Things All Daughters Need to Hear From Their Father.” The list included many gems, though my favorites were “You Don’t Just Look Good When You’re Dressed Up” and “I Value and Support Women.”

You’ll never help your daughter become a strong, capable woman if she thinks you don’t believe women are strong or capable.

It’s our job as dads to dismantle any bias or preconceived notions we may have had before having daughters. Man, I wish this was work every man could do, regardless of their status as a girl dad or not, but it’s next to impossible to look your daughter in the eyes and credibly say, “You’re going to achieve great things!” while uplifting systems or people hellbent on stripping away their rights.

To be a girl dad is to acknowledge our imperfections and flaws while turning up the dial on empathy and listening for the sake of understanding. It requires a break from our upbringing and a shift in our thinking because to be the best dad for our daughters, we need to be brutally honest with ourselves.

What are we doing for our daughters?

While discussing societal norms and historical stereotypes, it’s easy to ask yourself, “Well, how can I make an impact?”

I can’t imagine this is true, but if you’re a congressman who can affect change on a higher level, the answer to that question for you will look different than most. For most of us, the answer lies in what you can do at home and within your circle of friends.

Empower

You don’t need to write an emotional speech to deliver to millions. The audience in front of you is worth more than temporary attention anyway. The way you empower your daughter today will show up in her relationships decades down the line. Empower her to make decisions. Empower her to make mistakes. Because when she knows Dad’s love is unwavering through good times and bad, she can stand firm in her future built on strength and trust.

Uplift

Give your daughter compliments on things that do not concern her looks. Compliment her artwork. Compliment her kindness. Compliment the fantastic meal she just cooked up, complete with plastic food and dirty cups. When the majority of compliments you give tend to be based on appearances, our girls will start to think that’s where their value lies. Instead, uplift your daughter by showing her beauty is more than what we look like or wear.

Educate

It’s not enough to say, “Oooh, that topic is mom’s territory.” In fact, defaulting “girly” conversations to their moms robs us dads of a much needed education. To get that education, we’ve got to step all the way into difficult and uncomfortable conversations.

Every time I hear some old Congressman explain why he doesn’t think women should have autonomy over their bodies, I feel like screaming because issues like pregnancy and abortions are far more elaborate and complicated than most men understand. For example, I was a full-blown adult, well into my thirties, before I learned that globally, hundreds of women die each day of preventable causes due to pregnancy and childbirth. Call me crazy, but I don’t think Chuck Grassley should have any say over women’s healthcare decisions.

And it’s not just issues related to abortion. 1 in 5 American women have been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, meaning the probability of our daughters facing these atrocities is uncomfortably high.

So, that joke about sexual assault? That candidate who tells it like it is who also brags about forcibly grabbing women by their genitalia? No matter who the subject is, and no matter how uncomfortable the conversation may make us, at some point, we need to look at the culture we’re creating and ask ourselves if we’re placing our daughters in a better or worse situation than the day she was born. Are we willing to appease a society where sexual assault is this common? God, I hope not.

As girl dads, we need to constantly educate ourselves to understand the immensely complicated patriarchal world we’ve stepped into and, day by day, use our privilege to tear it down to the ground.

There are zero scenarios in which we’d be fine knowing no matter how hard they worked, the best grade our daughters could get in class was a B- while every boy could receive an A+. Still, we know that in 2022, women were paid 82 cents for every dollar a man made in the same exact job (Black, Latina, Native American, and Asian women all made less than that), and we rarely question why that is.

To be effective girl dads, we must advocate for our daughters. This may start with a blog post and end at a rally, or it could start with a conversation and end with an apology. Whatever it looks like for you, it is no longer enough to wear the sweatshirt and call it a day. Our girls deserve men who are brave in all the ways we’ve been taught to avoid, and there is no better time to do what’s right than right now.