Father of Daughters (or, Why I Hate Little Boys)

Hate may be too strong. I don’t hate little boys, but I’m very suspicious. I did not anticipate my ire to rise so far so quickly. My first daughter introduced a new emotion, a fresh intensity and bright clarity to my life, and my second daughter reinforces the power of daughters.

The presence of my new heart surprised me quickly. On the day my first daughter was born, I gazed down at her through the hospital nursery windows. She wriggled and slept and transitioned into the world, and she hypnotized me with love and beauty. Another family snuck up behind me with a very young boy on his grandmother’s hip. This little scalawag was less than a year old, but he had an ill look to this Daddy’s eyes. “Hayden,” exclaimed his grandmother, “look at little Elizabeth! She’s beautiful! Maybe she’ll be your girlfriend someday.”

Vitriol.

Rage.

Scandal.

Bile.

Fire.

Pride.

“Excuse me.” I cleared my throat. “I’m Elizabeth’s Dad, and I haven’t met Hayden yet.”

Perhaps my calm words did not disguise the state of my heart, because that poor family evacuated forthwith to the waiting room, leaving me to stand watch over my newborn girl, wary that someone else might assume to attain her glory.

My wife and I pray all the time for our girls’ futures, their families, their friends, their future husbands, their schools, their work, their calling, their ministries and their churches. We are devoted to preparing them for lives of joy, love and peace and for brilliant work in the Kingdom. I indeed want them to have happy homes, rich marriages, strong husbands and thrilling adventures in the world.

The men we would call to love our girls would be those boys and young men who have learned what it means to love a woman: To die to her, and for her if necessary, as Christ died for the Church. We pray for men who will love our daughters because they are children of God, because of their spirits and spiritedness, because of their brilliance, because of their faith, because our daughters’ beauty lead men to humility and worship. We pray for men who are willing to surrender all of their own ambitions, vanity, games and desires for the sake of our girls’ well being and joy. We pray that our daughters will be protected from men who would feign love for their own gain.

This is a high standard, and I have very little faith in the hearts of boys and men to live up to it. I suspect that most men are interested in women, and that most boys are interested in girls, for what the girls might give them: ego boosts, social standing and carnal sensation. I suspect that most boys and most men have been trained and nurtured, guided and taught to value women based on their availability and their potential contribution to sexual satisfaction or to their stature among other men. I am so suspicious because we can see so many women and girls who have been abused in their souls by their demeaned station.

If most men are taught these pitiful lessons, women learn them best. Too many girls are taught that their worth springs from the value that men give them, either their fathers or the boys who judge them. Since most men evaluate women as varying sources of pleasure for themselves, the girls learn to conform themselves for the pleasure of the men. This economy distorts the true source of a woman’s worth and the purpose of beauty.

An aside to churches, what effect do we render in women when we teach and encourage and empower girls in Sunday school only to relegate them to a lower class when they come of age? Do we not confuse a budding spirit when we invite a little girl down front in service to sing or read during VBS, giving her a taste of the joy of public prophecy, only to muzzle her when she turns 12? We have wrought hurt and havoc in the hearts of millions of girls with our mixed messages about their worth before Christ and their place in our church.

We pray that our daughters will grade themselves by the standards of their Creator. He has made them and has sent them on a mission: to love Him and to love others, as themselves. He has made them beautiful as He made the moon, the sea and the sky beautiful, as a testament to Himself, to awe the people and to remind men of Him. He has made them bright to learn and reason, to proclaim and profess His Word. He has made them faithful, loving and brave to serve their neighbors and to turn the world upside down.

We pray for a church who will honor and embrace their talents and callings, a church who will elevate and prepare them for ministry and the Kingdom’s missions. We pray for a church who will lay a foundation for their spirits to soar, not to buckle before an anachronistic and sinful cultural condition.

I have not witnessed many boys, fewer men and only rare churches who meet these standards, and I will demand no less for my daughters. They are mighty creations, babies who laugh and love and explore, girls who will learn and grow and decide and women who will shine. By my life and death, and by our God, to the extent of my powers and means, no one will quash the Lord’s vision for their lives. Even more, I pray and work and strive to be the man to serve as that model, to honor and love and serve my wife, their mother, so that they know what to expect and demand from the boys who would love them.