Fathers Day is the perfect time to reflect on how very important fathers are. We all know how much boys need their dads, but what about girls? Do they need their dads as much as boys do? Can mothers provide everything a girl needs, or is there something very special that only a father can provide?
Fathers are vital to their daughters. The way a woman feels about herself is very much dependent on how she was treated by her father as she was growing up. Without a father’s unconditional love, girls can grow up to have low self-esteem and low self-image. The lack of a father’s love can leave a girl with serious self-worth issues, especially if she perceives that her father abandoned her. Girls who’ve grown up without a father’s love can subconsciously crave male attention and seek to fill this void in unhealthy ways. Feeling ‘not good enough’ for a good loving relationship with a man, they are vulnerable to becoming involved in abusive relationships or becoming promiscuous. They are more at risk of teenage pregnancy due to going through puberty earlier and becoming sexually active at a younger age. Women who have missed out on their daddy’s love are also more at risk of developing depression.
It’s been heart-warming to witness the relationship blossom between my husband and our daughter over the past five and a half years. I remember standing at the doorway of our daughter’s bedroom one night as her father tucked her in and said goodnight. “Daddy, you’re my true love”, she said as she wrapped her tiny arms around his neck. Gracie, like most other four-year-old girls loves fairytales–stories of princes rescuing princesses, true love’s kiss, and happily ever after. Her daddy is her prince, her protector, her provider, and her true love. It brings me such joy to see how different my little girl’s experience is to my own.
Sadly, like me, there are millions of young girls growing up today without their daddy’s love. Their prince, provider and protector is not there to give his princess the special love that only a father can give. Today, up to around a half of marriages end in divorce. This means that many children are growing up in homes where they are separated from one parent, most often their father. Unfortunately, in some cases, mothers are unnecessarily preventing their daughters from maintaining vital contact with their father because of the pain and bitterness of divorce. Sadly in many homes, instead of love, some girls are being abused by their daddy. Sometimes daddy’s present in the home but he just isn’t there for his daughters. Then there are the children conceived outside of a committed relationship who are being left to be raised by their mother. There are also many children being raised by only their mothers, who choose IVF in their desire for a child. Is it possible that many mothers as well as fathers do not realise just how much their children, regardless of their gender, need both a mother and a father?
Unfortunately for me and my siblings, my father was a violent alcoholic who was ripped from my life when I was a child. We didn’t even get to say goodbye. I have very few good childhood memories of him, but I remember how much my heart ached when there was no contact after we were separated. I grew up craving my father’s love and found myself in painful relationships, feeling unworthy and starving for the love of a man. I went through two divorces, debilitating clinical depression, sexual abuse and domestic abuse.
Thirty-three years later, I had the chance to see my father as he lay in a nursing home close to death. Thoughts of him brought up some painful memories, but I had managed to finally find happiness in my life. I was remarried with a beautiful family. It was time for me to move past my pain and forgive my father. The timing was perfect. It was the best thing I could have done–for both of us. I remember seeing him for the first time after all those years. He was a frail, broken old man, nothing like the man I had known and loved as a little girl. I went there hoping to help him through his final days but I didn’t realise just how much it would do for me. It did more for me than years of therapy had. For the first time I ever remember, my father told me he loved me. Thank God we were given this opportunity as he died only weeks later. I lost him once again, but at least this time, we got to say goodbye.
Sharon Hill is the self-published author of an autobiographical novel titled ‘Back in Daddy’s Arms: an inspiring true story of lives transformed through love and forgiveness’. She is also an inspirational speaker and teacher who loves to share her own stories as well as help others to write theirs. Sharon and her husband have a blended family of 7 children. They live in Gympie, Queensland (Australia).