Why do women matter in a conversation about fathers?

“Will his parents be there? Who else has been invited? Will there be mischief going on?” I did my best to reassure his overprotective and, in my opinion, boring concerns and was given the green light to attend. My dad drove me to the party and dropped me off, still slightly unimpressed. 

Everything looked great on the surface and I was set to enjoy my night of adolescent fun and freedom. But once I got inside, a murky reality was unmasked. No parents were there and all kinds of substances flowed freely. There were also several older boys I didn’t know around. A wave of discomfort came over me. I did a quick life assessment and asked to use the house phone and called my dad to fetch me.

He didn’t complain that he had just driven all the way back home and wanted to settle into a peaceful evening. He didn’t question my request or give me an I-told-you-so. He simply said, “Okay, I’m on my way.” Thirty minutes later I was back home and spared from a party that I later heard turned wild and sour very quickly. 

Women learn masculinity from a father

My father was not aware at the time, but that night he indelibly marked himself to me as my protector and rescuer. The quintessential bail-out guy. It’s the label that distinguished him throughout my teens and into early adulthood. 

Several years later I dated a rather charming guy who my father considered a “brekgat” (boastful, arrogant guy); I insisted my dad was being harsh. At that time, our father-daughter bond was going through its own rocky patch and I grew more dependent on Mr Charmer Boy. Many months later, I found myself in an emotionally abusive relationship. Somewhere between my own pride and our fragmented relationship, I didn’t call my bail-out guy.  

Perhaps there was a bit of naivete on my part, thinking every man who cares for you is a protector. My dad was not, and still isn’t, perfect – he’d be the first to admit that. 

But just by the way he showed up in my life, he set the tone of what masculinity should look like. Present. Protective. Encouraging. 

A father is the first picture of masculinity a daughter will see. For some, that picture might show up as inconsistent, for others, absent, or worse, abusive. That’s a picture that urgently needs to change.    

Our father story impacts the women we become

People will always say how important a father or father figure is in a boy child’s life. And this is equally true for girls. Research shows that girls with present fathers or father figures are less likely to “look for love in all the wrong places”. One of my closest friends grew up as the archetypical “daddy’s princess”, her father simply adored her and she was well aware of it. I saw that shape the standard she set for how a guy should treat her, causing her to quickly dump anyone who even spoke disrespectfully to her. 

A line from the film Melodi sticks with me, when the lead character Melodi confronts the father who was absent throughout her life: “If you were there, I wouldn’t have found myself staring down a bottle of pills wondering if every man I ever loved would leave me.” A father sets the tone in his daughter’s life about how secure she’ll feel in relationships. 

The truth, though, is that thousands of women today have not had a caring, affirming father in their lives, and have had to “woman up” from a young age. Single moms and grandmothers have courageously taken on the mantle, trying to be both mom and dad, and ensuring their children have not lacked anything. We owe them nothing less than utter respect and gratitude. 

Coming to terms with our father story

And as women, young or old, we owe it to ourselves to begin the work of coming to terms with our own father story and how it’s impacted who we are today – and what messages we pass on to the children in our lives when it comes to fatherhood. A child who repeatedly hears, “Jou pa is ‘n papgat” (Your dad is useless) will eventually believe that. But it will never fill the hole that child feels from missing out on the love and care of their father. 

I’m grateful my dad showed up as a rescuer on the night of that party. I don’t know of any child who’d say no to a bail-out guy when they feel unsafe. I wish every young person in our country had one. And I wish more of us had alternatives to, “I can do bad all by myself”. 

I know I can confidently say that a caring father matters in a child’s life, given the example I had of a man who used his masculinity to bless rather than oppress me. It’s what makes me encourage the men who take up their responsibility to father, sometimes imperfectly, and to invite those who haven’t yet to start, no matter how late.