STRONG FATHERS, STRONG DAUGHTERS

10 Secrets Every Father Should Know

by Meg Meeker, M.D.

Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006

256 pages, $16.47

To order: 1-888-219-4747

Regnery.com

On the wall of my office is a photo of me and my and daughter on a plaque that reads, “The first man a girl falls in love with is her daddy.”

It was a gift from my mother on the occasion of my first Father’s Day. Receiving it, I chuckled politely, and thought: “Well, isn’t that a nice sentiment.” I never dreamed it was actually the truth. Having read Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, by Meg Meeker, I’ve since learned just how right it is.

It was the book’s catchy title promising fatherly gnosis that first grabbed my attention. Ever since my daughter had been born, I’d been disappointed that the hospital had never sent us home with a “Raising Daughters for Dummies” manual. I was hoping for something that would help navigate these new, uncharted waters. It seemed unfair that my television set had come home with more instructions than my child.

That’s why reading Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters was so refreshing. To fathers, Meeker promises — and delivers — the awareness we need to understand our importance in our daughters’ lives, and how best to leverage that to raise girls to be healthy, well-adjusted women. With more than 20 years’ experience in pediatric and adolescent medicine, Meeker is in a position to know. Furthermore, as a woman with a very tender heart for her own father, she in fact attributes much of the impetus for her success in medical school to the fact that he believed in her.

The book is written in an easy-to-read, conversational style, using situations mined from her years of clinical experience. But it doesn’t stop at the level of anecdotal experience.

Meeker stays true to her scientific background and peppers the book full of statistics and clinical studies that confirm her arguments — there are, in fact, over 125 footnotes to this book.

Meeker’s “secrets” include common-sense truisms that are not always emphasized in our culture today, observations stemming directly from her clinical experience, and practical tips on how to be a strong and connected father, no matter the obstacles.

Now, more than in any era prior, girls need their fathers to defend and protect them from detrimental cultural influences. They also need them to love them, be present to them and teach them virtues such as humility.

Most of all, however, daughters need their fathers to model for them the love of God, their Heavenly Father. “She wants you to be the one to show her who he is, what he is like, and what he thinks about her. ... She wants to know that there exists someone who is smarter, more capable and more loving than (even) you.”

If there’s one drawback, it’s that the emphasis on cultural dangers becomes repetitive. Yet this flaw only serves to illustrate the gravity of the situation.

As Meeker says, “If you fully understood just how profoundly you can influence your daughter’s life, you would be terrified, overwhelmed, or both. Boyfriends, brothers, even husbands can’t shape her character the way you do. You will influence her entire life because she gives you an authority she gives no other man.”

Dads, your daughter really is in love with you. Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters will help you love her back and be the father that only you can be for her.

Daniel J. Wambeke writes from

Marshall, Minnesota.