Showing My Daughter What Interest Looks Like: A Dating Piece

As anyone who really knows me can attest to, I’m not one to be transparent. Bear with me:

I was sent this as a link a few days ago. I didn’t write anything Friday because all day I was looking for the words to write what I thought and felt about this. It is a post in which a father wrote a letter to his daughter with regards to self-worth. The inspiration came about by this father stumbling upon different articles about how to keep a man interested and how these articles had it all wrong. He then explained that all that mattered is someone being truly invested into his little girl in the same way he is in his wife.

To say that this man hit the nail on the head is beyond accurate. He said just about everything I would, will tell, and demonstrate to Cydney.

I’m not really a talker, I show how I feel think through actions and let them be my evidence. As a father, it is my job to lead by example. Cydney is only two but even at this age is where I begin showing her her own self-worth. At this point, that is carried out by planting seeds that will promote certain behavioral patterns because at this time in life she is a blank canvas and is the most impressionable. I show her by telling her all the time she is beautiful, gorgeous, and pretty much that the world is hers JUST because she’s mine. She doesn’t have to worry about me losing interest because even the things that she does that I don’t like I pay attention to the smallest of details. I build up her confidence so that when the world tries to tear it down they cannot. One day it will pay dividends because someone (many will try) will feel the same way and rise to the occasion of doing the same in a way that as her father I cannot.

Unfortunately, there is no mommy/daddy dynamic right now for Cydney to see in action how it should look from the outside looking in. Hopefully there will be one day, but there’s a chance that it may not happen. All I can do is my best part to show her and let her know from my own experiences and of course that I did and felt the same way about her mother. I will be honest about my own dating life to use examples of how one should go about (and sometimes not) courting her.

Since she is young, I do let her be around a lady or two so that she can see how I look at them and talk to them. It isn’t to impress someone, to get attention, or even for the young lady to get to know Cydney. It is so she can see now what it looks like for a man to show interest and this somehow be a part of the instilling process on her young mind and heart.

Cydney is a smart and very inituitive little girl. She knows who I’m on the phone with, who I am interested in, and I think when I do take her out she kinda draws attention to who she thinks I might be interested in. I’m not sure about that one all the way, but it is a theory of mine that so far seems to be true. When I take Cydney around someone who I am really into she pays attention and gravitates towards them. She can tell when I’m just biding my time as well and will be polite, but that’s about it. I know this to be true because I’ve had her in a room full of people on a few occasions and her attention be on whoever she knew I only had eyes on and for. It ain’t much, but its the least I can do. As she begins to get older I cannot do this because there will be extra attachments which may make ending relationships hurt her more than me and I can’t bear that having adverse effects on what I have begun to build. But by then, she will have enough of an idea what that level of interest looks like based on the foundation laid out for her by her father.

Moms have the most important job in the world. As a father, my job is to provide security, make and build a foundation, give confidence that when it is shaken show it is nowhere near destroyed. When it comes down to that real life shit, give that dose of real talk with no chaser, just to reinforce its done out of love. Maybe things have happened the way that they have in Cydney’s and my life so that I could do just that before someone comes around. Maybe its for me to have “practice” doing it again before I have suckered some unfortunate soul to take on hanging around me for life. It could be all the above. But now isn’t the time for me to know that. Its all about showing Cydney that she means the world and should be given just that.

Here is the http://drkellyflanagan.com/2013/04/17/a-daddys-letter-to-his-little-girl-about-her-future-husband/”>link.