Fathers are usually busy with work and rarely make time for their children. It's all the more heartening to see families where both parents understand the importance of a trusting relationship with their kids.
Here is what the father of a 7-year-old girl shared:
“I swore this would never happen to me. I wouldn't become like my own father was. But now I see I'm doing exactly what he did.
I say, ‘because I said so.’
I used to hear those very words when I had to eat porridge I didn't like... when I wasn't allowed to go play soccer with my friends... when I had to hang up my jacket exactly one way and no other.
And now I catch myself ordering my daughter around simply because I have the power to do so, setting up too many rules and prohibitions for her.
I called my daughter by a funny nickname in front of other children. As a kid, I felt terrible whenever my parents called me by a childish nickname in front of my friends.
My neighbor's parents never took any interest in what their son and the kids who visited him were up to. At their house you could do whatever you wanted — try smoking, watch porn. In the end, their son ended up being treated for alcohol addiction as a teenager.
I was always the very last one picked up from the after-school program, and I was ashamed of it — as if my classmates were loved more than I was.
Now my wife and I work a lot, and we even pay the after-school teacher extra to keep our daughter a little later.
I talk to my daughter from another room and answer her while staring at my computer screen. Now I realize I'm losing precious minutes of connection with my girl.
I try to make her love the same music, the same movies that my wife and I choose. That's the same pressure I got from my own father. What's happening in our family reminds me of my own childhood, and I'm going to change it.
I want to learn to communicate with my daughter in a way that brings joy to all of us — to me, to my wife, and to our girl.
