Equal Attention

As I’ve mentioned more than a few times here, I have two children, a boy and a girl. When we first had children, I must admit that I was hoping for two boys as I grew up with a younger brother and figured it might be easier. As we never found out what the sex of our children was going to be before they were born, the birth of each was a surprise. I was excited at the prospect of not knowing till the moment of birth, and while I always had a touch of trepidation that one of my children might be a girl, and really only because I had heard horror stories of girls as teenagers, when my daughter was born, I was just as excited as when my son was. I didn’t care what my children were, as long as they were healthy. As it turns out, our daughter for many years, wore her brother’s old clothes, played in the dirt just like he did, and eschewed pink, dresses, frills, and anything “girly”. For that, I was extremely happy, but even if she did come to love pink and wore dresses all the time, I don’t know that I would have reacted any differently. With both of my children, my son and my daughter, I try to devote equal attention to both of them. They are both quirky in their own way, unique and splendid, and are growing up to be two well rounded teenagers.

So it boggles my mind when I hear of dads who want nothing to do with their daughters, who don’t take the time to listen to them, or don’t try to understand their unique perspective. While I will never understand certain aspects of being female, I can always be there to listen, to be a shoulder to cry on, and to be a yelling board when my daughter is angry and screaming her head off about something trivial. Yes, boys and girls are different, but they both deserve equal attention from both parents. Its not about the dad taking care of the son and the mother taking care of the daughter, but playing the strengths of each parent and devoting equal attention to both son and daughter from both mom and dad. That is how you raise well rounded individuals; children who grow to adulthood understanding that there can be equality among the sexes all because their parents showed them how. It takes time, effort, patience, persistence, selflessness, shall I go on? But at the end of the day, when all is said and done, I feel that both my son and daughter will appreciate the time I spent with both of them, both in good times and when they are angry and yelling and I have to play the part of parent and disciplinarian.

In some ways, my daughter can be more trying than my son, if only because she knows which buttons of mine to push as she has a very similar personality to me. Despite that though, that fact gives me an edge up because I know how to deal with it as the tricks are the same ones I used when I was growing up. What it really takes is patience, but that can only come if we are comfortable with ourselves and who we are as parents of children who need us to help guide them, to be their parents, and carry them from childhood to adulthood. Perhaps my favorite part now of having a girl, is that she will still, at the age of 12, curl up in my lap and lay her head on my shoulder. I feel that its because I gave her the same attention that I did to our son and they both know that I love them equally, and none more than the other. Sometimes, its our actions that speak louder than words, and in dividing my attention as equally as possible, they can see quite clearly that they both hold a place in my heart. For all those fathers out there who can’t be bothered with their temperamental girls, perhaps they should consider the fact that maybe they are so temperamental because they need more attention from the father figure in their life. Its about putting in the time selflessly and reaping the rewards later on. Now, I wouldn’t change a thing, not that I ever would have, and consider myself lucky to have both a son and a daughter. I am almost at the point now where I couldn’t even imagine having 2 boys. But such is the progress of life, we get dealt a hand that we can work with, nothing more, nothing less. Father’s need to step up to the plate when it comes to their daughters and show them how equal things can really be.