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| Father To Daughter And Mother To Son
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| For all the change that’s come to North American families, fathers and daughters, and mothers and sons, still form very special bonds.
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Families today look a lot different than they did a generation ago. Single-parent households, blended families and same-sex parents have had to write their own rulebooks. Yet when a mother and father are both on the scene, it’s still usually Mom who models womanhood to the girls and Dad who models being a man to sons.
That’s a tough job that the opposite-sex parent may be lucky not to have.
“Mothers and daughters argue more with one another, they’re more competitive with one another and the daughter feels the mother is more critical of her,” says Dr. Linda Nielsen, professor of psychology and women’s studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
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Fathers and sons are often similarly at odds, with Dad more watchful that a son is excelling in traditionally male pursuits such as team sports.
Fathers and daughters, however, are a whole different ball game.
“They find each other fascinating,” remarks Nielsen, author of Embracing Your Father: How to Build the Relationship You Always Wanted with Your Dad (available at Amazon.com) and teacher of the only college course on the continent devoted exclusively to the father-daughter relationship.
“For Dad,” she continues, “it’s a chance to see how this girl-world works. He’s intrigued because he’s never seen it.”
While father may be free of guiding a daughter into womanhood, he does become an important early model of maleness, just as mother displays female traits and concerns to her sons.
“The wonderful thing for the father and the daughter is that he can introduce her to male ways of communicating, male ways of dealing with things,” says Nielsen. “She can help the father open up and communicate in more open, emotional ways.”
A big challenge, however, arrives with adolescence. That’s when relations with the opposite-sex parent usually become more distant.
In the case of mothers and sons, that’s partly because traditional thinking has held that a boy needs to emotionally separate from Mom to ensure he develops “male” toughness.
That notion is under fire these days, however. A new generation of mothers often wants sons to remain empathetic and sensitive through to adult manhood. Those qualities, many women believe, will be good both for their sons and the women in their lives.
Fathers and daughters run into different issues as she reaches her teens. Matters of puberty and sex, which often embarrass Dad in any case, are left for Mom to deal with.
What is common and delightful in all these pairings is an intense mutual adoration. Teen years do bring their storms to the father-daughter and mother-son connection. But if everyone safely reaches port on the other side, these relations can make for the love story of a lifetime.
WITH AN OPPOSITE-SEX CHILD
- Go against the traditional grain. For fathers who leave a lot of the personal communication with daughters up to Mom, make the effort to open up. Dr. Nielsen counsels daughters to do the same with their dads. Moms shouldn’t back away from sons when they start to pursue traditional male interests like cars and football.
- Encourage your opposite-sex child in strengths that are usually associated more with your own gender. Mothers should behave as if they expect sensitivity and openness from sons. Dads should show daughters they have the same ambitions for them as they have for sons.
- Don’t flee from puberty even when your kids are having the normal storm over it. Fathers should feel they can discuss matters of sexuality, alcohol and drugs with daughters and mothers can do the same with sons.
- Share your own interests and life just as you would with a same-sex child. Moms taking sons to volunteer drives and Dads going fishing with daughters is positive for everyone.
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