I read the line about five times before it sunk in…Dads & Daughters, an innovative and I daresay feminist national organization that focuses on the Father-Daughter relationship was closing.

I’ve known of Dads & Daughters since my husband became a dad himself. I went to the bookstore for his first Christmas as a dad to find a good book on being a dad. I wanted to help prepare him for what I thought was one of the most fragile relationships to foster and maintain. I bought him Dads and Daughters by Joe Kelly. I of course was curious about who this man was, went to my computer and did a web search and obviously found Dads & Daughters the organization.

The idea of Dads & Daughters is simple and profound. Our work promotes the power and potential of father-daughter relationships.

Strong, positive relationships between daughters and their fathers and stepfathers helps girls increase their self esteem, gives them greater opportunities for self-fulfillment, delays the onset of puberty, and provides many other benefits—including improving the father’s health.

Strong father-daughter bonds also motivate dads and daughters to speak up and act up to make the world safe and fair for every daughter.

Created by men with daughters, Dads & Daughters improves the lives of fathers, daughters, and their families with outstanding resources supporting fathers’ and stepfathers’ positive involvement in girls’ lives and advocacy for girls’ well-being. [link]

For our third Christmas as parents I bought my husband a father & daughter bond from Dads & Daughters. It was a cute way for the organization to raise money during the holidays. I sent them $30 and I got a PDF that said something about this “bond” could be redeemed for loving guidance. I was planning on doing this again for this Christmas or his birthday in October.

I’m seriously going to miss their email newsletter. What was unique about it that I really did read each one and it normally came out in conjunction of some special event such as the Super Bowl, World Series, and the start of the WNBA season with a list of hints to dads on how to include their daughters or talk to them about issues that might come up while watching said event (say, why cheerleaders are dancing in almost nothing). The newsletters was Dads & Daughters’ voice in urging dads to take any opportunity to engage their daughters in a real conversation, to get to know them, and to reveal something about themselves to their daughters.

I’m not shy in stating that I feel that 80% of what my dad & I talk about is sports-related. If it’s baseball season, it might go up to 90% - Yes even now when we’ll talk about his granddaughter. My dad’s old school, not one to show his emotions, especially when I was a crazy teenager. I want more for my daughter. I know my dad had no idea what to do with a head strong girl. I was hoping for Dads & Daughters to be there for my husband when the insanity hits our daughter. We’ll still have Joe’s book thank goodness…Because when I think about how hard it is to raise a five-year-old today, I get sick thinking about what we’ll be facing in the next 5-15 years.

But for the past ten years, I know that Dads & Daughters was there for countless fathers, dads, and daddies. I know that he’ll be helping out with his wife’s magazine, New Moon.

Joe & everyone at Dads & Daughters…Thanks so much for what you have done for fathers the past decade. Helping to start “See Jane”, now the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. For daughters who have gone through some tough times just trying to communicate with their fathers, I thank you for trying to give other dads the vocabulary and confidence they need.

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