Reforming FamilyLife & Public Culture

The relationship between a dad and his sons is so critical in their formative years. A son needs his dad, he needs to be close to his dad, he needs to feel his dad and he needs to be initiated by his dad. But this close relationship is not just important for sons only.

Thus, what we want to do today is to give equal time to dads and daughters, because that relationship is just as critical and just as formative. In fact, there are many who would say today that it’s harder to be a woman than it is to be a man.

Three Challenges for Daughters and the Introduction of the “New Womanhood”

I want to begin by giving you an overview – I mean we spent all previous sessions talking about men, and we’re going to cram the world of women into one session. I want to give you an overview of some of the immense challenges for women today, and how they affect daughters. We are going to look at 3 challenges for our daughters in the 21^st Century:

1. A new supreme pursuit from home to career. Let’s face it: a profound change has occurred among women in the last years. Life for a little girl today has been turned upside down. It’s unlike anything women have experienced since the Traditional society. In fact, against a host of ‘more maternal instincts,’ a young girl growing up today, from the time she enters elementary school, till the time she finishes the university, she’s bombarded with images and slogans, and told directly by the heroes that she sees portrayed on the screen – or in the classroom- or in the workplace – about what a woman should be and how a woman should be honored. She’s told over and over and over again that a career is everything. That’s become the new, supreme pursuit. It’s the ultimate adventure for a young woman. It’s the self-fulfilling goal that every woman should have for herself.

Thus, that has redefined how a little girl thinks of herself as she is growing up today. It redefines how she interacts with young men growing up; what her aspirations and her pursuits and her priorities are, because she’s told of this pursuit all her life. Please hear me out and don’t jump way down the line by saying ‘this guy’s talking about women can’t work; they need to be in the home – barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen…’ and all that other extreme rhetoric. I’m not talking about that. I just want you to feel the challenges of a young girl today, because having those kinds of images over her life, has changed the way she thinks about herself and the way she thinks about her life. In fact, Americans even have a holiday in light of this new, supreme pursuit. It’s called “Take Your Daughter to Work” day.

Did you know all that began in the 60s with a book by Betty Friedan. It’s a landmark book called The Feminine Mystique. In the book, she calls homemakers ‘parasites.’ Not long after that, Germaine Greer in her bestselling book in 1970 The Female Eunuch called motherhood ‘a handicap,’ and called pregnancy an ‘illness.’ All through the 60s, 70s and 80s, there was this call – not necessarily as extreme as in those books – but a call nonetheless to get out of the home – and into the workplace, ‘where you belong’ because it should be your supreme pursuit in life.

What sounded radical in the 60s and 70s, in a milder tone, is now the value system of mainstream World for your daughter. It’s true whether you’ve got a 5-year-old at home or whether you’re like me and you’ve got a 25-year-old in the workplace, it’s the new, supreme pursuit.

There are new realities for a young girl growing up today. The supreme pursuit of a career is pressed over her throughout her life and it’s a great challenge to how you and I raise our daughters. How we raise them to think about themselves and to think about their priorities in light of the new realities that we live in.

2. The decline of traditional feminine values. You ask, ‘what is that?” Well, I’ll let actress Sharon Stone tell us. She probably says this in a small way, and captures it better than anyone. I’m quoting her now: “As I see it, the choice today is between being feminine or equal. And I choose equal.”

That’s the new reality for your daughter today. One generation ago, if you asked someone to define feminine, you would have heard words like ‘soft,’ ‘virtuous,’ ‘responsive,’ ‘nurturing,’. (can I just put a little aside in here?) I believe for modern men in the 21^st Century, those words still sound good. But if you asked someone to define feminine in the 21^st Century, you hear the words ‘equal,’ ‘assertive,’ ‘sexy,’ ’independent.’ Those are the new feminine values.

Young women today are excelling at competing with men, but they’re also finding with that competition, more and more difficulty in finding intimate relationships with men. The home itself and homemaking itself, are more and more foreign terms. For Last years, if you had put Titus 2 on the screen it would have made perfect sense. But I want you to feel how strange Titus 2 sounds right now. Look at the words there: “Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior, teaching what is good, that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, and to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, that the word of God may not be dishonored.” Titus 2:3-5

Now that sounds foreign because what mothers are teaching that today? What dads are emphasizing that today? It sounds foreign, and the reason it sounds foreign is because it is. Which then leads us to the natural conclusion of the third challenge, because this third challenge is the outgrowth of the first two and that is.

3. The rise of the Absent Mom. Despite all the sociological data we have today that says how important, how absolutely critical it is, for young children to have a mom at home. Yet young moms continue flood into the workplace and with the enthusiastic encouragement of their young husbands. It is so short-sighted.

Most mothers today with children under 4 – the very years when kids need mom most, are back into the workplace and yet, those children are the very ones whose lives are most moldable and most shapeable at those years. And yet, mom is gone.

Some, of course, have advocated Daycare as a clearly viable substitute, but I want to put up a quote from Dr. Burton White, the director of the Pre-School Project at Harvard University, about the daycare, he says about daycare as a substitute. Here’s his quote: After more than 30 years of research on how children develop well, I would not think of putting an infant or toddler of my own into any substitute care program.

It all depends on what you want, what you’re trying to produce, what your priorities are, and what your values are. We live in a world that we simply are sheep who follow the standard program. I called it earlier “Conventional Manhood.” But we’re not here to talk about conventional manhood. We’re here to talk about the quest for authentic manhood, and it will go a little bit against the grain, because it’s priorities and values are different. A dad needs to understand what pressures and issues his daughter and his wife are under, and decide what he really wants to see accomplished in his home with his wife.

I’m afraid many young women – the young women right now who are in junior high and grade school and high school – those young women – as more and more moms flood into the marketplace – I’m afraid they’re going to experience what most boys experienced with their dads, the Absent Father Wound. You’re going to have many, many young women who are going to grow up in the coming years and they’re going to sit in a room, confused and wounded – with no maternal instincts and fears of home and children, as they recklessly pursue at all costs, this new, supreme pursuit – a career. You know who they’re going to blame? They are going to blame the mom who wasn’t there -- that’s who they’re going to blame.

Let's read an article entitled “I Met Your Child Today.” It’s from one mom to another. She writes this:

“Dear Career Mom;

You don’t know me; I’m just another mother. But I wanted to let you know I met your child today. I was on an outing to the park with my own children when I met her. She’s a beautiful little girl, obviously lacking for nothing materially. Her baby designer clothes looked so cute as she toddled along with the bigger kids, the new van parked at the curb and the abundance of workers indicated that this must be what is referred to as ‘quality childcare.’

The several workers you pay to care for her were grouped together, smoking, talking and occasionally yelling in the general direction of the constant bedlam on the playground. Your child seemed polite and well-behaved as I’m sure you’ve taught her to be, but what captured my attention was the pleading in her big round eyes as she made her way up to me – a complete stranger – and asked timidly, ‘Can you watch me?’ And her pleas for attention kept coming as I sat there with an eye on my own 2 children. ‘Watch me do this.’ ‘Could you push me?’ ‘Can I sit by you?’ The hunger etched on her face for special attention was so painful to see, it broke my heart. I wanted to scoop her up, hug her and tell her she was special, but of course, the 5-minute overtures could never replace the fact that all day – every day – she is no one’s Number One Girl. Only 3 or 4 years old and already her world is an institution, however learning –centered and high- classed it may be – and she is not unique by any means. The eager glances my way from the other little faces were just as painful. Your child just happened to get to me first. I was clearly not the first stranger she’s reached out to, nor will I be the last.

Fortunately, I was a caring mom. I don’t know her family situation or the myriad of reasons why you, her mother, must leave her each day. It really doesn’t matter to me or to her. She’s too little to understand about quality time or future college expenses. She probably doesn’t even care if she’s wearing expensive or thrift store clothes. She only knows she needs some snuggling and someone to watch her tricks on the swing, as if she was the only child at the park. So, from one mommy to another: I just thought you’d like to know, I met your child today.”

Now, men, I tell you that because you will be an integral part in the decision-making in your home as to how your daughter and your wife and you decide the values of your home as you grow up with these new realities of career first, and a different feminine value system, and moms who aren’t there. That’s going to be the challenges. So, what can dad do? What about dad? What does dad contribute to his daughters?

What Dad Contributes to His Daughters

A. If Dad Is There

According to a major research study, if a dad is present in his home – if he’s loving his children and his wife – if there’s an emotional connection, a warm sense of bondedness between father and daughter, if they’re strongly connected -- in other words, if he’s there, he empowers his daughter in 3 significant ways:

1. Those daughters become very secure in their identity as women. The number one man in their life growing up – by the way he interacts with her and with the most important woman in her life, his wife – makes this young daughter feel good about being feminine.

That’s where she develops her feminine instincts. It’s in relationship and off dad.

Dad is destiny. It is dad who is the key, scientists say, to the femininity or the lack of it, in daughters. And how he interacts – or doesn’t interact – with this young creature growing up around him. But if he does it well – if he connects well – if there’s a heart bondedness; if there’s a sense of integrity in that home – in the way he loves and responds, not just to her, but to his wife – then these little girls become secure in their identity as women later on. They feel good about themselves.

2. They can easily relate to the opposite sex. Of course, that seems real obvious, doesn’t it? These daughters have little problems loving later and supporting later, and complementing later – their boyfriends and/or their husbands, because of how they related to dad growing up. It’s just a natural thing. They just continue to do what they’ve already learned to do in those formative years.

3. After they’re married, they have a highly fulfilling sex life with their husbands. You say, ‘why is that?’ Because sex for a woman is directly related to trust and admiration of a man. And if they learn to trust and admire a man at home with dad, then when they meet a man they can admire and trust, there’s just a natural bondedness that occurs that’s so easy – that then gets expressed in the physical life between the two that becomes – not only fulfilling for her – but fulfilling to the man that she married. That’s what the research says.

B. If Dad Is NOT There

On the other hand, if dad has not been there – if he has not been involved emotionally with his daughter; he’s not supportive or stable; if he’s been absent; or worse, if he’s been abusive, as some men are – with little or no clue or about relationships between fathers and daughters – then, the research says, one of two things happens and it gets expressed later on in that daughter’s life in adulthood.

1. These daughters either develop personalities that are insecure and anxious, and have difficulty in forming healthy relationships with men later on. Relational connections are always a fight. It’s kind of like they want a healthy relationship and they don’t at the same time. You, as a young man, enter into that and it feels strange and disconnected. You’re wondering what’s going on, and you don’t realize – just as we talked about what happens to men – that what you’re experiencing there has roots all the way back to dad. Either she experiences that

2. Or those same young women become inappropriately self-assertive because of fending themselves off with dad, or fighting against dad. They become angry or promiscuous, some hating men because of what their dad did to them.

If you ever went back and read the life stories of the radical feminists of the 60s, there is one common theme in every one of those women’s lives – they all had abusive dads – every one of them. So they grow up in a home where dad’s not there or he’s been abusive. Then when they are older the either hate men and complain bitterly all the time. They also want to make social policy for the whole world – or they end up throwing themselves at men because they want -- desperately -- to have the love that their dad didn’t give them.

We call those women promiscuous. But here’s what I want you to know. She maybe a promiscuous woman, but if you really knew her life, what you would really know is she is a desperate daughter. Do you get it? That’s what’s going on. And dad is destiny. Dad is key to a young daughter’s life.

Practically, What Can Dad Do for His Daughters?

I’ll encourage you to get books, if you’re a father, and read on the father- daughter relationship. I want to mention some basics for us in this session:

A. He can establish with his wife a clear definition of what it means to be a real woman. Definitions are so important. We can’t take a lot of time looking at this, but I’m going to give you my summary definition. Here’s how I define a real woman from the Scripture:

A real woman is one who:

a) Rejects worldly temptations for significance, especially those that inhibit her core callings in life. (And you remember, when we were looking at the husband and wife relationship, those core callings are the husband, the wife and the home.)

Anything that inhibits a woman from fulfilling that core calling – she needs to reject that. A woman can do a lot of things and women have done great things, and some women have much greater capacities than others, but anything that would lure her away from her core callings – she needs to reject – even when it tells her ‘you can be significant.’

Remember back in Genesis 3? The big problem with the man was that he went passive in his role as the leader? Do you remember that? And that was his Achilles heel. What was the Achilles heel of the woman in that temptation? It was the counterpart to passivity. It was the fact that a woman struggles with deception of believing something is better out there for her than what she already has. Remember, Eve was the one that looked at the fruit and it was a delight for her eyes; and she thought, ‘Yeah, this could make me really wise.’ She said, ‘This is better than what God has already given me.’ And so she was deceived.

One of the hard struggles growing up today – especially for a young woman – is they are constantly being offered a ‘better life’ out somewhere else than what they already have. ‘You can be better out here, away from this.’ And so, there’s always that lure to something more significant: ‘It’ll be better for me out there.” Well, maybe – maybe not. There are a lot of women now who are working for hours and trying to balance that with home. The husbands are saying ‘Is this better? Or have I found what men don’t like?’

There’s always that temptation and what a real woman needs to do is first of all, say, ‘I have the world that I can invest myself in, but in doing that – whatever I invest myself in, I need to stay true to the core callings God has given to me, which will involve marriage and family and a home. How do I balance that with the world? I’ve got to be careful with all the temptations that come my way that would lure me away from those things by saying “something else out there is better.”’

b) Believes in God’s priorities. In the 60s, when the women’s revolution was starting you heard this term the “Super Mom.” It was the one who could fry up the bacon, love her husband, raise her children well, keep the home clean and work a significant job. And that lasted for about 10 years, until it was discovered that the Super Mom was a Super Myth. You know, that’s been the issue all throughout the generations.

Can I take you back to Titus? about what the older women are supposed to do. “Older women, teach the younger women (and here’s the first thing they’re supposed to teach them) to be sensible." Titus 2:3-5

What ‘sensible’ is addressing, from an older woman to a younger woman, is this: “Sweetie, you have to make choices because you can’t do it all. And you need to be sensible about that, so you need to choose wisely. You need to decide what your values are and what your priorities are, because you’re not going to be able to do it all.” And the question is “Well, okay, what do I choose?” See? And that’s why it’s so important to have a good understanding of what God’s calling is over a woman’s life.

In 1990, Barbara Bush (the wife of George Bush, Sr) was asked to speak at Wellesley College – a liberal arts institution for women. When she was asked, the women of that institution railed in protest against her. They said Barbara Bush was the old woman. “We don’t need old women telling us what to do! We’re the new women!”

Now the way things eventually worked out, she did end up speaking for their commencement. Can you imagine what she felt as she got up out of her seat and walked to the podium? After all the women had said ‘we didn’t want Barbara Bush’. Here’s what she said: “The choice that must not be missed as a woman is to cherish your human connections. At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test; not winning one more verdict; not closing one more deal. But you will regret time not spent with your husband; time not spent with your child; time not spent with your friends and your parents.”

You see, a real woman believes in God’s priorities.

c) Nurtures the next generation. Nurturing takes time. You don’t nurture young children – or even teenage children – on the fly with the last residue of energy you have left in your being. Nurturing takes time and kids need nurturing.

A story is told of little Timmy. Timmy wasn’t doing well at school and the principal called Timmy’s mother and as they talked about Timmy’s failure in his homework and the way he was socially interacting with the other kids in the class, the teacher just mentioned that periodically when she would get on Timmy, Timmy would just mutter under his breath, “Love is slow. Love is slow.” And the mother just broke down and started crying. Just weeping. And the principal said, “Why did that upset you? Because it just reminds me” she said, “I have to get up and get Timmy dressed at 5:00 because I have to catch a subway train into the city and I have to get him there. I’m always pushing him. At night when I come in – I come in late and he’s wanting me to help him with his homework and I’m saying ‘Come on, Timmy. Get it done! Get it done! Get it done! We’ve got to go to bed. And I say to him ‘Timmy, you are so slow!’” And Timmy says, “Love is slow.” Nurturing takes time, guys.

d) Expects the greater reward. It’s back to Barbara Bush. “Somewhere at the end of your life, if you’ve lived it well, you’ll look back and say ‘I have no regrets.’” It’s instinctive in a woman. And when those get blotted out under the pressure of the 21^st Century, they may get what they’re told, but they won’t like what they get, because they haven’t embraced the wisdom of the ages. For you, dad, it is critical for you to understand what the wisdom of the ages says to a young girl.

B. Help mom, (if at all possible) stay home with your children, especially in their critical, formative years.

Did you know that most of everything your child will know, they will know by the time they’re 5 years old? Their sense of trust; their sense of identity; their sense of communication and relationship and in many ways, social scientists tell us, even their capacity for intelligence – is all established by the time they’re 5 years old. Yet with all that data telling us that, mom and dad are still leaving during those very important formative years.

I would especially encourage the young guys — if at all possible, you help your wife nurture those children in those formative years, by giving her the option of being at home.

C. A real man will support, honor and cheer for true feminine values in his wife and daughters. He will honor them. He will reward the fact that they have these values of home and husband and marriage. Those things are lifted up. Those things are not forgotten about in pushing my daughter to be on the basketball team; or president of the student body.

Your daughters can be leaders; they can be strong; they can have all kinds of credentials of work and succeed in the workplace. I’m not putting that down. I’m putting it in perspective. Along that line, while they achieve and doing those things – Talk to them about kitchen staff, cooking; Make them enjoying being in the home. Talk about the importance of marriage and the priority of marriage. What it would take to have a good marriage. All those things should be lifted up as values, so that it would give perspective in the whole of life, not just mindlessly walking after a conventional lie that’s being told us by people I don’t even know, with values I probably wouldn’t even like if I knew them.

Somebody has to say “we’re going to live like this.” And, dad, I think it‘s you who needs to say it. You need to be the one rewarding them, cheering for them when they take on some of those special priorities.

D. You should date your daughter and stay involved in her life on a personal level. Always date your daughter throughout elementary school, junior high and senior high, and into college, if you can. Make it a priority at least every month, either before school or some special night – to take your daughter out – just she and You. She and You, sit and talk about your lives, and get connected by talking on a personal level.

That can pay off incredibly rich dividends. It is vital for you need to connect with your daughter, because they learn in those interactions how to interact with young men.

E. Encourage and participate in ceremonies celebrating true femininity. In the Last Session, I gave you the mile stone markers that we used for ceremonies to mark the growth of our sons into manhood. The mile stone markers at puberty, at graduation from high school; at graduation from college and at marriage. The wives, using the husbands at the critical points – can follow the same kind of ceremonial pattern.

1. At Puberty: When daughter are about to reach puberty, Let your wife take the daughter through the Adolescent Talk. At the end of that time, You (dad) take your daughter out on a date. A special date – a special evening where you dressed up in coat and tie and you went out. At the end of that evening, talk about what it means to be a real woman. Present to your daughter a gift perhaps a locket etc, with their initials on it. Then talk about purity and challenge your daughter to purity. You may say, ‘what I want you to do is keep this locket somewhere safe, you don’t have to wear it all the time. Just keep it. When it comes time for you to marry, I want you to fill in the letter of the last name of the man you’re going to marry. As you inscribe it in there, you’re doing it because you’ve saved yourself for him.’ That is a great moment between dad and daughter! Even in that moment, I remind your daughter if she ever failed in that regard, You would never, ever stop loving her.

2. Upon Leaving Home: When your daughter finishes high school, the wives can take the daughter out and present to her the definition of womanhood.

3. Graduation from College: When your daughter graduates from college/University, the wives can take her and initiate into the full sunlight of womanhood.

4. Marriage: Then at the time of her wedding, at the rehearsal dinner, her mom can stand up and simply challenge her daughter to keep the priorities of womanhood. Those are all the mile stone markers along the way. Dad participates at different points along the way, but in the process, what you’re doing in a modern age – an age that is sometimes mindless – you are helping a daughter to formulate a life that she can live so that at the end of it, she will look back and say, ‘I don’t have any regrets.’

At the core – the very root – of her life, without regrets will stand dad -- the one who initiated that successful journey.

So which is harder today -- to be a man or to be a woman? It’s a good question, because the challenges for sons and daughters to be a real man and to be a real woman are immense. But here’s what I want you to know with absolute certainty. You, dad, are critical to the success of your sons and your daughters. Dad is destiny to sons and to daughters.

In the Next Session, We’re going to talk about a man and his life journey. We’re going to take all that we talked about as far as wounds, as far as definitions, as far as challenges; as far as practicalities, and I’m going to show you how that play out in the different stages of manhood over a lifetime. Every man goes through some common life stages, so I’ll talk about how he can successfully navigate each of those life stages, and then we’re done.