Whether you want to believe it or not, dad, your little girl is growing up. Before you know it, she’s going to be dating, driving, and you might even find that you have your hands full trying to keep up with a maturing adult mind that is 16 or 17 going on 30. Before you start cleaning your pistol at the dinner table every time she goes out with a new boyfriend, perhaps a more rational approach to dealing with your daughter’s blossoming into being a grown woman is worth considering.
Her First Adult Bathing Suit
If you are a single dad, then you were probably expecting puberty and all the joys that go along with it. But, what do you do when your daughter tells you that she wants to buy her first adult bathing suit? It is not like you can tell her to go talk with her mother about that sort of thing. Let’s face it, it would probably be pretty awkward to take your daughter down to the mall to watch her try on swimwear. In fact, that might be a little creepy for her too. However, there might be a solution to problems like this. Since you know this is something that mothers usually help their daughters with, and not really a dad sort of thing, perhaps this situation warrants asking a female relative or coworker to tag along. Just be sure to pick someone who would tend to share your values and help your daughter to pick a bathing suit or swimwear that covers all the bases. This way, you will not necessarily need to stand outside the dressing room while your daughter is trying on bathing suits. In fact, just politely excuse yourself and tell them to meet you in the tool aisle when they have made an appropriate choice.
Your Little Girl Got Pregnant
No matter how much you work to raise your daughter right, you may find that she really has a mind of her own. Of course, she might have to tell you something important some day, like the guy in her biology class and her decided to practice this thing the teacher called “reproduction”. Instead of blowing a gasket–especially when you find out that the guy then dumped her. What is really needed is a modicum of understanding. Sure, you may be a little disappointed, but you have to come to grips with the fact that part of the experience of growing up is making huge mistakes. This is a time when your daughter needs to know that her Dad can be truly understanding, even if he does not agree with what she did. Because, if you think about it, becoming pregnant really is not the worse thing that can happen to a young woman.
That First Car
For the first sixteen years of your daughter’s life, you got used to driving her all over the place. Now, she is getting to an age where she doesn’t necessarily need for Dad to pick her up from school or the mall anymore. What she really wants is a car of her own and a little independence. This is a great opportunity for a Dad to bond with his daughter, as the two take to searching for the right car for her to purchase. The bonding experience does not have to end there. She’s going to also need someone to teach her how to properly change a tire, change the oil, and fill the car up at the pump. If this happens to turn into a daughter and Dad hobby of tricking out her car, that is not necessarily such a bad thing either. Just because she isn’t your son, that does not mean that she should be cheated of that type of bonding time. As a woman matures, that is when she should grow closer to her dad, not further away. And if she is handy with a wrench and a jack, then you can rest easier if she blows out a tire on the side of the road and has to change it herself.
As your daughter grows up and starts to branch out into the world, that does not mean that her dad has become irrelevant in her life. But a lot of how she relates to her dad depends on how her dad treats her and reacts to her when she goes through rough times in life. Many fathers think that becoming a disciplinarian is the way to teach their daughter, but more often than not all it does is drives them away unnecessarily. If she knows that you genuinely understand, then she will always be Daddy’s little girl.
