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June, 2001

Here are several personal traits of young women who have received the loving and protective fatherly influence which I described last month:

• The women are strong in judgment and will power, and also completely feminine. Their father's own masculine character acts as a counterpoint and support to their growing femininity. In a sense, because they feel protected by Dad, they can afford to be feminine. It seems that a manly father produces manly sons and feminine daughters. (On the other hand, girls with a distant, uninvolved father feel far less protected; as a result, they are less sure of themselves as women and tend to take on a tough, aggressive self-protective edge. They're often naïve about men, prone to misunderstand and mistrust them; they can even grow to have a gender-identity problem.)
• They have a better relationship with their mother. Dad sometimes acts as a buffer and peacemaker in the emotional mother-daughter squabbles that occasionally flare up in family life. In a sense, he brings the women in his life together, helps them to better understand and appreciate each other. In subtle ways, too, he sometimes signals (reminds) his daughters that their mother is a model for their own lives as outstanding women - and this further reinforces his daughters' femininity.
• They have a well-formed conscience. In the teen years, their Dad gives final form to the moral judgment they take through life. In essence, their Dad teaches them this: Everything your mother imparted to you about right and wrong is true - not just here in the family but also in the outside world. We must not offend God by sin; we must deal honorably with others; we must tell the truth and keep our word, and respect the rights and feelings of others. (Young women who had weak or missing fathers tend to have a weak, overly emotional conscience - a shapeless, unstable bundle of sentiments - and fall more easily into serious moral problems, especially in relationships with men.)
• They have a more loving, personal relationship with God. Their concept of God - someone loving, affectionate, protective, setting high standards, willing to forgive, confident in them, always available - is an extension of their relationship with Dad. Moreover, Dad's own deep religious faith leads them to deepen their own life of faith and piety. They are prompted to look for religious faith and practice among their suitors for marriage - and they're chary of men who are irreligious.
• They are more competent and realistically self-confident. They are willing to take calculated risks. They take studies more seriously (because their Dad values competent performance) and they tend to choose a career at an earlier age. They are able to mix well with people and handle themselves socially. They are less shy among strangers and more shrewd in sizing up people. Because they are confident, they are less swayed by peer pressures, better able to resist temptations toward overindulgent or addictive behavior. (In college, young women with weak bonds to their fathers tend toward a life of unhealthy extremes - drudgery during the week and then debauchery on the weekends. They suffer from lower self-esteem, overwork, alcohol abuse, and sometimes pregnancy.)
• They have a healthy attitude toward rightful authority. They grew to respect their parents' rightful authority, and thus look forward, later in their own families, to exercising it themselves. They are collaborative with teachers and bosses. They obey the law and the authority of their conscience - no cheating, no speeding or reckless driving, no binge drinking or drug abuse.
• They are savvy and self-assured in their dealings with men. Unconsciously, they compare young males with their father and are most attracted to suitors who resemble him in character, attitudes, and comportment toward them. That is, all during their adolescence Dad treated them with delicate affection, respect for their womanhood, loving manly protectiveness, and willingness to sacrifice for their happiness. They look for these traits among their suitors, and in fact demand from young men the same respect they received from Dad. Their Dad remains, for life, their model of great manliness - a pattern for their choice of a spouse and, later on, the character they want to see in their sons.
• They revere their Dads all their lives. They remember Dad's lesson of right and wrong. They return to him for advice and encouragement. Dad lives in their hearts as a great man - long after they have left home, long after he has gone to his final reward.

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