One of the toughest aspects of being a hero to your daughter is not just deciding what is good and right for her, but also keeping her on track. Fathers can demand tremendous discipline from themselves, but they can find it much harder to stand firm with their children. Fathers get tired. Daughters can become defiant, manipulative, and wear their fathers down. This is where perseverance comes in.
Perseverance
One of the toughest aspects of being a hero to your daughter is not just deciding what is good and right for her, but also keeping her on track. Fathers can demand tremendous discipline from themselves, but they can find it much harder to stand firm with their children. Fathers get tired. Daughters can become defiant, manipulative, and wear their fathers down. This is where perseverance comes in.
I have seen this operate in my own home. My husband and I work together. With patients he is clear, decisive, and expects that his advice will be followed. Then he comes home. When our seventeen-year-old daughter insists on going to a beach party with friends until one in the morning, he listens attentively. It’s ten o’clock at night and we’re both exhausted. She -isn’t, so she looks at her dad and offers, “Pleeease, Dad.” Then something peculiar happens. Rational convictions leap from his brain. This man who only hours before was clear and firm about what was best for his patients goes to complete mush. “Oh, honey, I guess if you promise to be home by one, you can go.”
“Are you crazy?” I blurt out. “Seventeen-year-old guys and
seventeen-year-old girls on a beach until one in the morning? I don’t think so.”
Too often fathers give in to daughters and then rationalize it away: “All kids experiment with alcohol and sex and a little bit of drugs, I -can’t keep her from that forever,” or “Now that she’s seventeen she’s mature enough to handle herself.” But this is the same daughter who, when she was ten years old, you pledged to protect from all these things—and the dangers -aren’t over. They’re getting worse.
Sure, other kids are experimenting with sex and drugs and alcohol, but other kids -aren’t your daughter. And your daughter will respect you more if you -don’t give in. The minute you waffle on your convictions, you lose stature in your daughter’s eyes. She thinks you’re smarter than other parents, tougher than her boyfriend, and care more about her—and what’s right for her—than other people. Let me tell you a secret about daughters of all ages: they love to boast about how tough their dads are—not just physically, but how strict and demanding they are. Why? Because this allows daughters to “show off” how much their fathers love them. If only you could be privy to the private conversations of girlfriends.
If you only had to fight for her once, twice, or even ten times, the process -wouldn’t be so tough. But you might have to fight for her two hundred times. You only have eighteen short years before she is on her own. If you -don’t show her the high road now, she -won’t find it later. Perseverance in setting her on that road -isn’t easy. She might appear embarrassed by your interventions. She might sulk. She might even say she hates you. But you can see what she -can’t. You know how sixteen-year-old boys react when they see her in a halter top. You know how even one beer can make her unsafe to drive. You know a lot more than she does, and however hard it is to persevere in leading her the right way, you have to do it.