This is a serious question, mostly addressed to the adult women among us but also to anyone else who has a stake in the matter.
What did your father do for you/not do for you, that you needed?
Context: I have recently become a father to a daughter, with a mother whose father was not around when she was growing up. I won’t bore you all with the details but our daughter is here now and I am realising that I’m the only one in our little family who has really had a father before. But I have never been a girl. And I know that as a boy, my relationships with my mother and father were massively influential and powerful but at the same time radically different to each other. People say that daughters and fathers have a unique relationship too.
Question: What was your father to you? What matters the most when it comes to a father making his daughter loved, safe, confident and free? To live a good life as an adult?
I’d like this to be a mature, personal and real discussion about daughters and fathers, rather than a political thing, so I humbly ask to please speak from the heart and not the head on this one :)
Thank you
P.S Apologies if this question is badly written or conceived; I haven’t been getting enough sleep! It is what it is!
My dad was a wonderful man with a great heart, but I think in this conversation, it’s more productive to speak of his downfalls. He died when I was 15, and I was very close to him until then. He was so often smiling, and giving, and generous, and caring to everyone and anyone he met. But one of the most impactful things I remember is that he was severely depressed in the last 5 years of his life. As a child, I didn’t know what to do about it. Shit, as an adult, I wouldn’t know what to do.
If you feel depression creeping up, for the sake of your daughter - for the sake of your family - get help.
I miss my dad so much, and I hate that the dominating memories I have of him are when he was max depressed, or when he was in a coma.