Dads And Daughters

By Amy Dickinson

Bob King sits in a circle at the YMCA in Duluth, Minn., cutting out pictures of girls from teen magazines. At his side is his daughter Katie, 10. The two meet once a week with eight other pairs of fathers and daughters at a Dads and Daughters workshop, a program designed to help fathers and their daughters do something they don't do often enough: spend concentrated time together. This night, the dads and their daughters are talking about messages the media send to girls about how their bodies should look. The week before, a guest speaker talked about domestic violence. And the week before that, the group learned to swing dance. "My daughter is at a tender age. As girls get older, they can drift away a bit, and I don't want that to happen to us," says King, 48, a photo editor. Katie looks forward to leaving her younger sister and mother at home one night a week for some alone time with Dad. "Every week, we go out to dinner before the meeting, just the two of us, and I love it," she says.

The relationship between fathers and daughters is often caricatured as one in which a clueless dad is stumped by his eye-rolling offspring as she blows past him on her way to the mall. But the interaction between dads and daughters is far more complex. It not only sets an example for the kind of partner a girl may choose as she gets older but also affects the way she sees herself. Recent research, however, indicates that even fathers and daughters who are close during the early years tend to drift apart as girls hit their teens. That's partly why a growing number of dads like King, dissatisfied with being distant onlookers in their daughters' lives, are finding ways to be more involved by spending more time with their girls and trying to see the world through their eyes.

Michael Kieschnick, 49, a telecommunications executive in San Francisco, had been answering his daughter's questions about life from almost the moment she could talk. Then one day when she was 9, she startled him. "Daddy," she asked, "do you think I look fat?" "I stumbled through the answer," Kieschnick recalls. "I knew the answer wasn't the most important thing, but the question was. It really led me to realize that the influences around my daughter telling her she had to look a certain way were more powerful than her mother and I were."

Girls these days struggle with body image starting at younger and younger ages, and researchers are discovering that relationships between fathers and daughters can have a direct effect on problems like eating disorders. Dr. Margo Maine, the author of Father Hunger: Fathers, Daughters and Food (Gurze Books) has treated thousands of girls in her 20-year career. She has observed that "a high percentage of them said they felt disconnected from their fathers. They were desperate for approval and not getting it. Girls eager for attention from their fathers will diet as a way to get it. Fathers tend to pull away when their girls hit adolescence, which makes things worse. Dads have no idea how much their daughters need them at this point." Or how much what they say matters. Maine notes that even an innocuous comment from a father about baby fat can initiate a cycle of dieting and depression in young girls.

Kieschnick decided to tackle the image problem head on, and three years ago he teamed with Joe Kelly, a father of twin 21-year-old daughters, to start Dads and Daughters, a lobbying group that has since attracted 2,000 members around the country. Through letter writing, e-mail campaigns and phone calls, the organization has successfully persuaded the CEOs of eight companies such as Campbell's and Sun-In to pull ads that perpetuate negative stereotypes for girls. Says Kelly: "Since most CEOs are men, we write to them dad to dad and ask them, 'Is this the message you want to send your daughter?'"

Kelly, 47, who is also the author of Dads and Daughters: How to Inspire, Understand and Support Your Daughter When She's Growing Up So Fast (Broadway Books), is constantly on the road, meeting with fathers and their daughters, helping them find ways to stay in each other's lives. "I tell stories about the importance of the relationship and how unique it is," he says. "I've noticed a generational shift out there. Men who are younger than I am seem to want more connection with their daughters, but it's a challenge. After all, dads grew up as boys. That's a huge disadvantage."

It can be daunting for a man to figure out how to bridge the chasm between, for example, his love of pro football and his daughter's passion for 'N Sync. But, says Kelly, the main thing is to spend time together, to try to regard her interests with an open mind. Steve Emmett, 53, a psychologist in Scituate, Mass., who grew up in a family of boys and is the father of two teenage sons and a daughter Katherine, 11, decided to carve out special time with his daughter by taking daily bike rides to their favorite spot, the lighthouse near their home. "It's just the two of us going to the lighthouse, and we talk about things together," says Katherine. "He's a pretty good listener."

It can be even more unnerving for some men to engage with their daughters when the girls hit puberty and, at times, overwhelm their dads with their burgeoning sexuality. In response, many fathers simply pull away. "It can be a very confusing time for dads, but when fathers connect with their daughters, they're laying the groundwork for positive relationships with boys later on," says Kelly. "Girls who feel connected and respected by their father will look for the same healthy relationships with the boys in their life."

Dads and Daughters has come up with some practical suggestions to help fathers connect with their daughters:

--CARPOOL The more time dads spend with daughters and their friends in the car and at their school, the more insight they can have into their daughters' world.

--TAKE AN INTEREST IN HER ACTIVITIES Studies show that when fathers take an active interest in and play sports with their daughters, the girls are less likely to have unhealthy or abusive relationships.

--LISTEN WITHOUT JUDGING Fathers sometimes want to rush in and fix problems; daughters don't always need solutions but want to air their feelings without fretting that Dad will freak.

--SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCES Girls benefit from knowing that even dads have faced adolescent uncertainty.

--SPEND ONE-ON-ONE TIME Bike riding, going out for ice cream or playing board games together is great for younger girls; older girls enjoy going alone with Dad to a favorite restaurant or having a regular bowling date.

Charlie Fitzgerald, 41, the CEO of an executive-training organization in Las Vegas, has two daughters, ages 13 and 15, and a stepdaughter, 13. He carpools his daughters to school in the morning, plays ball on the lawn with them some evenings and frequently takes them out for family bowling nights. Fitzgerald, who played a year of pro football with the San Diego Chargers, says some of his fondest memories are of the old days, when his girls were little. "I've been down on the floor playing with Barbies with them," he says. "I just try to put my girls in situations where they feel good, because the greatest relationships in the world are the result of knowing how to talk and how to listen." Daughter Jamie, 13, agrees: "My dad is really on top of what's going on with us. I come to him with a lot of things, and he seems to know what to do." It's by being there for their daughters that fathers can show they really do know best.