Worried by the prospect of growing distant from your daughter? According to this woman, there’s one main thing you have to keep in mind.

Parenthood is daunting at the best of times. It’s no small feat to take responsibility for a tiny baby and help them grow into a hopefully self-sufficient adult.

Many parents worry about the balance to strike with their kids between punishment and praise; you want to make sure your child grows up with strong morals and life skills, but you also want them to be happy. Ideally, you want them to love you back as much as you love them… even after they grow up.

One Twitter user overheard a conversation some new fathers were having and picked up an important nugget of advice for any fathers-to-be, and kindly shared it with the Internet in this thread.

“Two fathers with young daughters were fretting over whether it’s really possible to stay on good terms with your daughter forever, and the new hire next to them, a woman, told them this:

‘My mom always treated my dad like he was really important to her. I think watching that behavior made me want to imitate her… If she had always treated him like a nuisance, I think I would have mimicked that instead.’

So, fathers of the world, I recommend putting your focus not on your daughter but on your wife!”

He then elaborated in a follow-up tweet:

“This opinion made a big impression on me when I heard it, but of course I’d like to hear more perspectives from the real, lived experiences of women. I wonder, does watching mothers praise fathers and treat them as valuable really result in that behavior spreading?”

He also acknowledged how some people took umbrage at his language in the first post, with its implication that the onus was on the man to treasure his wife rather than equal respect. He explained that his real opinion was that your child should be treated as a person under the couple’s care, thus the need for a united front between both partners.

The logic here is that if a girl’s father treats her mother kindly, and she is kind and supportive to him in return, the daughter will model her behavior on that of her mother resulting in a lasting, positive attitude towards her father.

Many women took him up on his request for more experiences in the replies, and also in quote-retweets such as this one:

“I’m still on good enough terms with my dad that the two of us go out alone together sometimes.
– My dad always managed to say ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ to my mom.
– My mom, in turn, always supported him.
– My dad was always kind to me, his daughter (he never shot down the things I wanted to do, etc.)
I always thought these three points were what mattered most. They’re ranked in order of importance to why I get on with my dad, from top to bottom.”

▼ Occasional disputes are fine, but constant marital strife can sour children’s opinions

More nuanced perspective were offered in the replies, with positive and negative examples:

“I think it depends on whether everyone in the family is being valued. My experience was that my mother went above and beyond for my father, to the level of risking her mental health, and my father just frittered it all away. So watching him I thought ‘this guy has no morals, I can’t respect someone like that.’ I think it’s impossible to create familial harmony when each member isn’t respected.”

“I hate my father. My mother always puts him first, but he never does the same for her. It’s plain to see that he’s a bully. Ever since I realized that, I just couldn’t bring myself to like my dad, because he didn’t treat my beloved mom like she mattered at all. Kids are always paying attention to the relationship between their parents.”

“I wouldn’t phrase it like ‘putting the focus on your wife.’ More like, it’s good for the parents to have mutual respect. My parents worked the same job, and I would always hear my mom say stuff like ‘this is all thanks to your dad’s work.’ My dad would talk about my mom’s work too. He’d say, ‘She’s really amazing at work!’ and stuff, haha. Anyway, it turned out with me respecting both of them.”

As with any anecdotal observation, there are sure to be cases where this doesn’t apply, but my experience aligns with the majority of these posters — the gender of the parents isn’t especially important, but if you see spitefulness or cruelty between your parents, then your opinion of them will suffer. Children tend to hold both parents in high esteem, and it’s only natural they would feel hurt or betrayed to see one treat the other badly.

Source: Twitter/@newsalaryman_21 via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert image: Pakutaso
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