My dad opened up about raising two daughters in the 21st century

While having strong female role models around is crucial, having a strong male role model can also be incredibly valuable to a young woman’s personal development. In an effort to gain some insight on his experiences, I sat down with my dad and asked him a few questions on what it’s been like for him to be a father of two daughters in the 21st century.

What is your favorite thing about being a father?

A lot of things. One would be seeing the results of working with your children their whole life and raising them—what quality people they become, I think that’s a reflection on you. I think working with my kids and raising them into being good adults is what’s rewarding. Seeing your kids become what their potential is—I think it’s about achievement, on some level, for the kids to achieve who they really are and being their true self, and achieving authenticity. It’s rewarding to see them happy in life and I think even seeing them fail, to some degree, is a good thing. You see your kids learn to grow in life and learn from life’s lessons.

What scares you the most about raising two daughters in today’s world?

(laughs) So many things. I think drugs are so much more dangerous and prevalent than they were when we were their age, so I think one thing is accessibility to drugs. I fear them being emotionally damaged by how cruel the Internet can be, and how everybody lives under a microscope now, and having them be exposed to that microscope all the time—I think that can affect their confidence. They could get hooked on drugs, they could get pregnant—I think making sure we’ve provided the right foundation so they can make the right choices to not do those things, or not let those consequences affect them, is essential. That and, you know, you read about college rape on campuses all the time, and things like that with the girls getting older and on college campuses, those are the things that probably scare me the most.

If you could summarize the main lesson you want your daughters to learn from you, what would it be?

Be honest. Tell the truth. Be accountable. Be empowered to go make choices in your life, but be ready to receive the good and the bad—learning to live with the consequences, that’s important. And as a joke, but kind of in a real way, we’ve always said, “Don’t suck”—but to actually be awesome at something, and to live to your potential at something, and to really be passionate about something, and embrace something and not to be a passive participant in life, but to grab something you’re awesome at and let that be your passion. And don’t just keep doing things you’re not good at—people have different abilities, and your ability to acknowledge what you’re good at and what you’re not is a lesson that’s super important.

What are your ultimate hopes for your daughters?

First and foremost, that they’re happy. That they realize that life is short, and to take the joy from the moment, and to be an active participant in life, and to be happy. My hope, ultimately, is that they love and they’re loved in return (how very Moulin Rouge of you, Dad). I think to give and to receive love are super important things in life, and that’s my wish for them. And then to achieve something in their life, something they can look at and plant their flag in and say, “I did this.” It can take a million different forms—it can be kids, it can be a career, it can be who knows what. But those are the things that matter to me, that I wish for my kids the most.

In your opinion, what would be the ideal type of guy for me specifically to end up with?

Someone who’s funny, you need someone who’s funny. Someone who’s gonna challenge you. Someone who’s kind of your equal opposite, to some degree. Someone who probably complements you—so if you take your strengths and your weaknesses, and you find somebody who is opposite in your weaknesses and opposite in your strengths, to some degree, I think you’re gonna find some sort of zen balance there. So whoever that person is, I know it’s gotta be a person who’s gonna make you laugh, someone who—you know, I hate to say your daughters marry their father, but to some degree, girls do look for their dad in who they ultimately end up with, it’s funny when you see it as you grow up.

And you’re funny.

I am a riot.

But that’s what I wish most for you, is that you find someone who challenges  you, who loves you unconditionally— because you will definitely love them unconditionally—and someone who makes you laugh, and who loves being with you as much as you love being with them.

What traits do you think I’ve inherited from you?

Weirdness. Humor, twisted humor especially—we have very similar senses of humor. I think you’ve inherited my passion for learning, and to some degree, I think you’ve inherited the stress that comes with that. To be a perfectionist, I don’t know if that’s a gift I’ve given you or not. But I think most of them have to do with your humor, your love for being in the moment and having fun, your drive—I think you’re driven similarly to me, maybe too much, at times, although we each handle it in different ways.

And finally, do you consider yourself a feminist?

I think it’s a loaded question, to ask a man that, I really do. I think it’s a “lose-lose” answer, there’s no “win” to this answer, right? I think, in the sense that, do I believe that women are equal to men in every single way possible? Of course. Should they be provided with identical opportunities and incomes and all of the things the world presents to men? Yeah, to all those things. But do I believe in a radical form of feminism?

Like misandry? (then explains to Dad that misandry is “man-hating”, and that it’s often a characteristic of more radical forms of feminism)

Yeah, I mean, in my world, I don’t see a lot of that anymore. When I was in college, I saw a lot of that. Women losing their femininity—and I think there’s a balance to be struck there, where women become emasculated. That’s what disappoints me, because that’s what makes women so awesome, is that they’re different from men, and that they emote differently, and that they probably process thinking differently, and that the way that we attack situations provides balance, not conflict. And any time we take things out of balance, to the left or the right too far, that’s where I start to have a problem with feminism, especially to the left. Where it becomes about the misogyny of words and language interpretation—we used to get into a lot of that in college, we’d talk about how language is stacked against women and about calls for fundamental changes in language. The feminism I don’t like is where people can’t lighten up and take a joke, where women can’t be self-deprecating and be okay with making fun of themselves a little bit. That’s the stuff that bothers me, when they’re too self-serious. But I would say, generally, I am a feminist—I think in the very broad sense of believing in the equality of men and women, absolutely. Misandry, that word, I probably don’t like, as much as I detest misogyny, too.

I just think it’s an interesting question to ask people in your generation, because there’s such a stigma attached to the term “feminist”, and it’s, like, the bra-burning women that people in your generation have such a problem with.

But those women were super important for the time, just like suffragists were super important in their time. When you take things out of the historical context, like with what Gloria Steinem did for women’s rights, or giving women the right to make a choice to have an abortion, or allowing women to have a voice in business—you know, it’s still incredibly against women and more in favor of men. So those are things that I would completely support, and when I hire people, it’s not a brown-white, woman-man, Christian-Muslim split—I don’t draw those types of interpretations of people, I just want the most qualified people. If I’m stacked with a woman and a man who are equally competent, then it’s gonna come down to a personal choice of who I want to work with and who I’m more comfortable working with.

Thank you, Dad, for being such a wonderful role model and for raising me right. I love you.