But Dad!
A Survival Guide for Single Fathers of Tween and Teen Daughters
By (author) Gretchen Gross, Patricia Livingston
Publication date:
16 April 2012Length of book:
192 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781442212671
You’re a smart guy. You read The Perfect Storm and now you find yourself living it. Your daughter, who yesterday was happy to hang out with you at Home Depot, now cries for no known reason. Last week you were her soccer coach and ‘the best dad there ever was, really,’ and today on the way home from practice she turned away and stared sadly out the window and wouldn’t say a word to you. She’s hovering around adolescence and all of a sudden you’re flopping on the daddy-deck in a panic. What the heck is about to happen and how are you going to get through this? How can you help her get through these difficult years when honestly, you don’t totally understand it yourself? If you’re a single dad, it can get all the more complicated. You might not know who or where to go to for the real deal, the inside scoop. When did her body start to change? Where the heck do you buy a training bra, and when? Do you have to take her or can you pay someone else to do it? What about dating? Or the girl clique thing you’ve heard about. Can’t you just ignore it and raise her just like you would a son, just like you were raised?
This book is for any man raising a tween or teen daughter, but particularly the single man who does or doesn’t have full-time custody. This is the definitive guide to helping dad and daughter get past ‘survive’ and onto ‘thrive.’ Written for any man raising daughters, the authors geared this book for the single dad who may not have a woman in his life with whom to confer about issues their daughters may be facing like sex, friendships, boyfriends, alcohol and drugs, and personal hygiene. This book covers it all, from what to keep stocked in the bathroom to how to talk about sex without being blown off. The authors help dads gain a better sense of what their daughters are going through, how their bodies are changing, how their relationships are changing, and how best to handle the ups and downs of these challenging years.
This book is for any man raising a tween or teen daughter, but particularly the single man who does or doesn’t have full-time custody. This is the definitive guide to helping dad and daughter get past ‘survive’ and onto ‘thrive.’ Written for any man raising daughters, the authors geared this book for the single dad who may not have a woman in his life with whom to confer about issues their daughters may be facing like sex, friendships, boyfriends, alcohol and drugs, and personal hygiene. This book covers it all, from what to keep stocked in the bathroom to how to talk about sex without being blown off. The authors help dads gain a better sense of what their daughters are going through, how their bodies are changing, how their relationships are changing, and how best to handle the ups and downs of these challenging years.
Being a father to a tween or teenage daughter is hard, but it is far more difficult if you're going it alone. Whether rendered a one-man show by divorce, death, or deployment, single fathers face a slew of unique challenges when parenting adolescent girls. They must navigate issues like menstruation, female social development (including the great, dreaded D-word: Dating), the establishment of positive male role models, and more subtle issues, like negotiating new forms of father-daughter physical contact. In addition to these dad-and-daughter topics, the book also contains useful information on general parenting areas, such as fiscal responsibility and setting boundaries. Succinct, direct, and wide-ranging, this comprehensive volume never shies away from uncomfortable topics like anorexia and suicidal ideation. Gross (a single mother and lecturer on human relationships and sexuality at the University of Vermont) and Livingston (an RN) have done an excellent job of creating a thoughtful and readable parenting guide, without getting too preachy or maudlin. However, the authors warn that even if their guide works wonders, don't anticipate an overtly grateful daughter--rather, fathers should expect something along the lines of, "That book just looks stupid, Dad…Don't think you'll find anything in that book that will work on me!" Rest assured, dads--you will.