There are not a lot of things I’ve wanted in life.
Actually, this is not true. I’m a high octane, full-tilt, passionate person with many, many longings and desires. But at the very top of the list, for as long as I’ve cared about these things, I’ve hoped for a little girl.
Like everyone else, I’ve been thinking some about what it means to be a #girldad. I’m learning here, so I offer these thoughts provisionally, as a man who is striving but coming up short.
I’m pretty convinced, actually, that Millie needs most of the same things that my boys do. She needs gentleness from me, encouragement, protection, plenty of physical affection. She needs to see that my happiness is found in hers, that I have confidence in her unique gifts, that I possess an awareness of who she is and what she is feeling moment by moment. She needs, in her bones, a deep-seated knowledge that she can neither improve upon or diminish my affection for her and to see in me a love for her so heavy that it can only be described as a hurt in my heart. It is possible to love someone so much that it hurts you, by the way. You probably know this just like I do. If you don’t, I hope you can experience it one day. It is quite a thing and I don’t want you to miss it.
It is also obvious that Millie will mature me in a unique way. She will cultivate empathy in me. I will need to work harder in this realm, not only because she is a different person than me, but the fact that she will grow into a woman means she will be different from me one degree further.
I know this will ask something extra from me—I feel it in my bones. Millie’s precious existence, in a good way, requires something special to grow in me. She will change me and has already. She has helped me in so many ways. Among other things, she has helped me better understand her mama, which has been a profound gift. Mille presents for me and new way of living and being that will change me and make me into the kind of man I want to be. It is hard to explain, but never do I want to be better than I am than when Mandy and Millie look at me.
“To any man out there who’s about to become a dad for the first time. Maybe you grew up in sports, like me. Maybe you’re thinking you want a boy. And I get it, I do. That was me. And my sons are a joy to me. But let me tell you a secret, fellas.
Root for them to tell you it’s a girl. There’s no greater love than you’ll ever know and nothing that will change your world view more than holding a little girl and imagining the world through her eyes – wanting to be, for her, the very best version of yourself in the hopes that you might be worthy of the way she looks at you. Being worth being adored by her.”
I must give effort in order to find those things in me that are in her (This is a good way to understand empathy). I will need to listen closely and lives shades more patiently so I can learn to feel what it is like to be her. I will need to ask one extra question in that conversation. Stay in the room for many minutes longer. Be silent sometimes because I shouldn’t pretend to know when I, in fact, don’t know.
Of course, this sounds is daunting. But, it also sounds like being alive.
Knowing that Jesus’ strength is made perfect in weakness helps me not be afraid (2 Corinthians 12:9). And because God created male and female in his image (Genesis 1:27), she will help me take hold of what it means to know God.
I’m learning that these are things I wanted when I wanted a little girl.