Last week’s Time mag ran this article on fathers and their teenaged daughters and it’s online as of today. I didn’t know about the organization, Dads and Daughters, based here in Minnesota.
I’m not doing too badly with my only daughter, now 16. She’s not much into sports like her older brothers were and her scoliosis has made physical exercise more difficult for her. We played a lot of board and card games when she was younger, and still do some of that. We share a love of storms, fireworks, and puns. I’m teaching her to drive a car, now that she has her permit. We usually go out to eat, just the two of us, once a week or so, though we don’t yet have a regular ‘date night’ as some suggest. Last weekend, I chaperoned her post-prom party, working the 3 am to 6 am shift.
Still, I have this vague sense that unless I made a conscious effort each week to stay connected to her with various planned activities, we could easily drift apart. So I’ve ordered the Dads and Daughters book, and subscribed to their print and email newsletters. Just having that kind of stuff around keeps me more conscious of what I need to do to make the best of this great time in both our lives.