Daughters and Dads

Eight years ago in August I lost my father to cancer. One Saturday morning while waiting for my car to be finished at the tire store, I read a magazine article about a man who lost his somewhat abusive father to Alzheimer’s disease. The disease had transformed his father and so while he was lost in one way, he became connected in another.
As a child whose mother did not work outside the home until I was in my tween and teen years, my father represented the world outside to me. Every morning he left the house in a suit and tie, clean shaven and smelling of cologne until his alcoholism got the better of him and meaningful work. He was a personality, most comfortable and animated in a crowd or telling a story. He never met a stranger. He drove a company car, knew how to deal with money (to my girl self). Unlike my mother, he watched the news every evening and read the paper every day.
As a girl, he represented a world that I wondered about, a world that I wanted to be a part of and at an early age, vowed I would not have to give up just because I was a girl. He was the master of mixed messages to me. He often chided me to be the best I could be and reminded me that I “could do anything that you put your mind to.” He set the bar high for me, his oldest child and I am sure that some of his critical messages were echoes of the ones he continued to hear in his own head from his childhood. His demand of perfection pushed me out beyond the girl boundaries my mother set for me based upon her upbringing and beliefs about girls and women.
He loved to drive home a point, a skill I probably relish in myself to this day. His love of history, music and storytelling enabled me to be the public speaker I am. While he never espoused any feminist leanings, he was always proud of his daughters (I have three sisters) and never saw, as my mother did, our gender as an inhibitor of something we wanted to be or do. He was not always a nice man, conflicted as he was with his own abusive behaviors and habits, but time and forgiveness has allowed me to see all of the positive ways he influenced my life.
As women and girls, the men in our lives, particularly the fathers in our lives, often shape our perceptions of the outside world. While they may be flawed individuals, as most of us are, they often instill in us a view of the world different from the world our mothers are able to share. Their influence, may have much to bear upon our willingness as girls and women to step out of our proscribed gender roles. Happy Father's Day.