Father-daughter dances are no more.

I blame the Super Bowl.

Even though I tried my hardest to research, compose and publish this post last night, after re-reading the same sentence for the 9th time and working on this post for 4 hours without much progress, I realized it would have to be postponed. Hence the delay of this post.

And the team I was rooting for did not even win. The game was pretty boring, too…

To make it up to you, I invite you to a cupcake party! (P.S. Please remember to bring your own cupcakes, because I did not bake any.)

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Some of you might already know that I am not the biggest fan of political correctness. In fact, while it is meant for good, I believe it ends up doing a lot of harm. (My post on freedom of speech (or rather its infringement) can be found here for any of you that would like to read it.)

This time around, in the name of political correctness, a father-daughter dance got cancelled a WEEK before it was scheduled to take place. The school realized that event might be against the New York Department of Education’s guidelines, which were put in place last year and urge the schools to eliminate all “gender-based practices”. Needless to say the parents and the kids are not happy about this cancellation. Everyone was looking forward to it. The girls already bought their dresses. Hair and nail appointments were scheduled.

What is important to know, is that last year that same school hosted a mother-son bowling event and there were no gender related complaints whatsoever. For now, while the school’s administration figures out what they “can” and “can’t” do, the dance is rescheduled for March and is expected to be given more of an all inclusive name. The dance will now be for kids and any of their caretakers.

Unfortunately, I was not able to find the exact rules supposedly imposed by the DOE. However, in the age when anyone can use any reason to sue, I am not surprised that the school decided to be careful and walk on the safe side on this one.

I am aware that this is a complex issue because it is human nature to want to belong. No one wants to feel excluded. (Actually, I do not really mind, but that is besides the point.) But, where was everyone when a girl could not go to a father-daughter dance because she did know her father, because her father died, or because he was overseas on deployment? No ruckus was raised then. Those that attended had great fun, but those that did not – survived as well. Now, all of a sudden, everyone is punished and there can be no father-daughter dance because a girl might be raised in a family with two female parents? What happens when a girl is being raised by two male parents? Do they both get to come to the dance? Who gets to pick which one is the one that gets the honor? And if they both go, does it not make all the other girls with just one parent there feel less special?

In this post, I would like to show you why the relationship between a father and a daughter is so crucial to a girl’s early development as well as her future. I urge you to look up how not having a father figure affects kids. You might argue that two fathers or two mothers do a great job bringing kids up, but the truth is that the “modern family” model is still too young for any in-depth studies on how kids are affected by the non-traditional parents.

Children are very impressionable and their families are what they base their believes on. A girl looks at her father to understand how men act. She looks at how he treats her mother to find out how she will be treated later on in life by her own man. This is why even if parents divorce, it is of utmost importance that the father still acts respectfully towards the mother. This teaches boys to be respectful towards women, and it teaches girls that they are to be respected and that a man takes care of his family and his responsibilities. From the interactions between her parents, she learns how to become a successful woman and how her relationships with men are supposed to look like. When the learning process is positive, she grows up to be a confident woman, but if that learning process is turbulent, she, and her relations with men, might be troubled.

What I am trying to say is that fathers are important to their kid’s development. If a father touches his daughter inappropriately or hurts her, she will grow up thinking that is the norm, which is why it is important for the father to set boundaries and show the girl what is and what is not appropriate when it comes to physical contact. Girls that have a close-knit relationship with their fathers are less likely to become sexually active (and risk becoming pregnant) in their early teenage years. Because they are fueled to focus more on education, they start their sex life a little later in life. Such women are said to have more fulfilling and emotionally supportive relationships.

Studies suggest that women become more successful if a father is involved in their academic life, the furthering of her education and the development of her passions. Nowadays, I see a lot of self-esteem issues, and I notice it mostly in people who were not complimented by their parents. A father telling his daughter that she looks pretty can do wonders to her self-esteem. He needs to show her that he loves her unconditionally.

To continue with the mental well-being, I would like to inform you that research shows that girls who did not have good relations with their fathers during childhood, are prone to be overly sensitive, and to overreact when confronted with stress. Such girls would then use words such as “rejection” to describe their relationships with men. The girls who had a close relationship with their parents are able to express their emotions easier, handle stress better and are less prone to depression and anxiety. For more details on this study click here.

Of course we all know that girls are subconsciously attracted to men who resemble their fathers. Even women who consciously look for men who are nothing like their father still make their opposite “picks” based on their fathers. Women who had a close relationship with their fathers are more likely to be satisfied with their marriages, which you can read more about here.

This was just a summary. A reaction towards the article about the cancellation of the dance. A reaction towards something that aims to dismantle something so crucial – a father-daughter bond. Before you depart, I wanted to share a fantastic link with you, which neatly lists “10 Reasons Fathers are so Important to their Daughters”.

With all this being said, I believe that a relationship between a daughter and her father needs to be celebrated.

If you are a girl, I would like to know how was your relationship with your father and do you think it influenced you in any way?

Stay golden,

.

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Disclaimer: The picture used for this post is not my property. Source: here.