Am I ready? A letter to my daughters

For many of us, we are just getting started on our journey with our adolescent girl and at times it can feel overwhelming. I often look to friends who have raised daughters that are thriving for guidance and advice.

This Father’s Day, I reached out to my friend Chris Donaldson to share his experience. His two daughters are in their twenties and pursuing their dreams – the eldest working in Hollywood and the other studying pre-med at the University of Washington.

Chris shared this beautiful letter to his daughters followed by some resources that helped him be a guide for his girls - a game changing strategy you can use every week, a book for fathers feeling intimidated by it all, and a web site to help boost your girl’s self-esteem . Thank you, Chris.

Dear Q + P,

I remember during your delivery Q, maybe a half-hour before you were born, me getting dizzy and feeling like I was going to get sick. So I told your Mom I’d be back in a second, then walked into the bathroom, splashed water on my face, and asked, ‘Am I up for this?” 

Am I ready? 

That moment could have gone in many ways. But what you asked me to do was simple: get back in there and get it done. So I looked myself in the mirror, took a deep breath, and went back in there and got it done. And though your Mom did 99.99% of the work that night, I realized this was the beginning of being asked, again and again, to be better: A better person. A better man. A better father. 

When I looked at you for the very first time, I saw a beautiful little girl. In your eyes, you held the possibilities of angels and every world imaginable. Every direction was in your grasp, and that optimism forged my love for you and helped me answer the question. 

Am I ready? Not exactly. No one is ever quite ready for this sort of explosion of where we’ll go next. But I was more than willing to try. 

It was like the engines bursting and us leaving the gravitational pull of earth for a second. Heart pounding and terrified, but knowing we were all very much headed in the right direction. 

There have been many many more moments in the bathroom like that, me looking in the mirror—me asking the same questions. But your answer is always the same. Get back in there.  

Chris and his first born daughter.

When you were born, Phoebe, this was amplified even more, listening to you as your own seashell. The sounds were so unique and wonderful. There was double the chaos, double the scheduling, double the laundry, double the time spent explaining things then explaining things again, double me doing things wrong like putting sweaters on you upside down and inside out (this happened). Runs to the doctor, the emergency room, sports, and then dinner needs to be made again. Then clean the kitchen again. The true arrival of adulthood is when you find yourself lost in endless paperwork and unpaired socks. 

You were a force multiplier across happiness. The two of you teaching your Mom and me and each other, in the middle of it all, we are here. 

In the 5th Grade, you asked ‘Yes, but when do we learn about the women presidents?” In 2016, you held yourselves high even when you learned the truth about all that, how hard it will be, the sheer face rock climbing it will take to get there. The people who will try so hard to stop you and make it more difficult. Your first ascent into the reality that doesn’t treat you like it should. 

You demanded more.    

And today, the challenges have grown. The problems are bigger. As young women of consequence, you’re being asked as the next generation to push even harder on the glass ceilings holding you back. You’re being asked to focus even more on social justice, on equity, on perhaps our greatest gift: empathy. As people suffer in the streets, as politics spin into crazy, as pandemics and shrinking job markets swipe across everything, you’re being asked to clean it all up. The old establishments will use one hand to ask for help, and another to push you down. 

If I had just one piece of advice for you - just one - I might say ‘Question my assumptions.’ Look for your own new ways and new solutions. Don’t listen to people who say ‘it’s never been done that way.’ Forge ahead. Bring your sledgehammer and your grace. You both have always been good at that. 

For 24 years now, our job as parents has been to whisper hope into your ears. But the hope, really, has come from you. You have been our affirmations that we can slay dragons, we can shoot into space, and that the wings of possibility are beneath us here and now. You spun the looking glass and pointed it back at us. Because of who you are as people and who you aspire to be, I have the deepest optimism for what the future holds. 

Chris’ girls, now in their twenties

So yes, it’s Father’s Day. You’ll make me too many pancakes and pour me too much coffee, and I’ll groan again (for the umpteenth time in our many years together now) about how I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. They’ll be laughter and a few carefully wrapped gifts as we all climb into bed (it used to be so much easier when you were so much smaller) and watch the morning roll by. There will be some stories, and a dog, and a cat, maybe an afternoon of gardening or a hike, or a board game.  

But whichever way we go, your gifts were already given to me long ago. Unwrapped then cloaked again in onesies, held tightly in my arms, you singing whispers of songs to me about the future. About glimmers of what could be. You’ve sung them, both of you, a light that does nothing but get stronger and stronger.  

Am I ready?

Very much. To see what great things you’ll do next, on this special day you made for me. Thank you. 

Love, 

Dad

Chris recommends the following resources and advice for Dads of younger girls.

Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters  - This book helped me be a strong mentor, protector, and friend for my daughters, which can be a tricky balancing act. If you’re as intimidated by fatherhood as I was, this is a must. 

The Dinner Table - The best single piece of advice I can give is to have dinner as a family three-four nights a week. Schedules will get tricky, life will throw you curves, but do your best to protect this time. This is where stories are shared and life can be exchanged, and where you can check in with each other. Memories are made here. 

BrainsAreFun - This website is put together by my father, who is a lifelong educator. Everything is free and geared towards teaching kids of all ages the value of earning, which translates into self-esteem. Self-esteem can be in short supply for us all, but especially girls and young women who are bombarded with mixed messages on ‘how to be’. My favorite tip: reading aloud to your kids at bedtime, an age-old but often overlooked practice that is a game-changer.