One of the strangest things about being a father of girls is that I’m encouraged to be sympathetic and informed about the female experience at the same time as being told I will never appreciate what it’s like to be a girl. Show that you care, but mind your own business. Try to understand us, even though you will never understand us.
If I were a male chauvinist—I stress the "if"—I could suggest that insisting a man should do something you also believe he is incapable of doing is a classic female trap. Anyway, before I get into any more trouble, let’s get back to dads with daughters. I was and remain very happy to have two daughters.
I’m often asked, "I bet you wish you had a son, though?" and I always said no. Firstly, I never thought of having children as a consumer choice. I was delighted and grateful to get what I was given.
Two girls suits me just fine. And, secondly, I’ve long repressed the relief that I’ve never had to concern myself with what a son would probably have liked: soccer, cars, boogers (there’s no way of knowing this, of course: my hypothetical son may have loved baking cakes and embroidery). It’s also true that, if a man had a troubled relationship with his own father, it can either make him want to put this right for the next generation or avoid it altogether.
I wasn’t given a choice, but I’m happy life took on the latter course. As my daughters get older, my role has become less obvious, and it takes more work to maintain the blissful relationships I shared with them before middle school. All the big biological questions—and there are many—are deferred to my wife.
This is all perfectly natural, but it has the effect of cutting me out. It’s not that I want to get into the details of what happens to teenage girls’ bodies, but that my absence from these conversations leaves me outside looking in. I can’t help envying the intimacy between mother and daughter, even though I’m glad not to have to discuss the, well, you know…the awkward stuff.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
