Published: June 17, 2009 07:30 am      

GESENHUES: A lesson for Father’s Day

Last night at dinner, my husband and my 5-year-old daughter got in a tiff. She was hoarding the calamari from the appetizer plate, and he gently tapped the back of her hand with the prongs of his fork and said, “Hold up, sissy!”

The fork tap was less than a tap (Maybe even a pat? Imagine what it would feel like if a feather landed on you.); and, there were no harsh tones hidden within his “hold up.” But you would have thought just the opposite from her reaction. My daughter immediately started sobbing as if she had been backhanded across the jaw and jumped off of her restaurant chair to take solace in my lap.

“Daddy’s being mean to me,” she said between gulps of air and uncontrollable tears. My husband looked like anyone would look who had been falsely accused of a wrongdoing. His eyes got wide and there was a slight sense of confusion across his brow.

He finally got out a “Huh?” after eating the calamari he had salvaged from what our daughter had missed.

My daughter’s head was buried in my chest and getting my T-shirt even wetter than it already was from my 8-month-old’s teething slobber. “Tell him he’s being mean to me,” she sobbed again for only me to hear.

He shook his head in disbelief and kept on eating while I tried to convey to him with facial expressions that this was a quarrel he had to fix. (Why should my dinner be interrupted because daddy’s being mean?)

Finally, they worked it out and we were able to enjoy our main courses without any more fork stabbings or tears. The lesson to be learned still lingered above our table, just out of conversation’s reach. The lesson? Daddy stuff is big stuff in a little girl’s heart.

My husband never tires of hearing me tell him how important his relationship with our daughter is to her overall evolution into womanhood. Wait, I probably wrote that wrong; it’s more like, I never tire of telling my husband how important his relationship is to her overall evolution into womanhood.

Either way I write it, it still remains that the majority of our daughter’s self-image, self-worth, confidence and her relationships with other males will ultimately be shaped by her relationship with him.

I don’t deny that moms are important. And there is a fair amount of maturation practices that I will pass on to her, too. But, as a slightly Freudian, thickly Jungian believer, I say that if you’re a female then there is a very, very strong chance that whom you are has a lot to do with how your father treated you.

The psychology between fathers and daughters runs deep. Often times, how a woman manages her life-family life, love life and work life can be traced to the man who was supposed to play a significant role in her upbringing.

I say “supposed to” because an absent father can be as influential as a neglectful father or physically abusive father. It all adds up in one way or another. If you yell and scream and hit, then don’t be surprised when your daughter brings home a guy who doesn’t respect her. And if you’re never around, then don’t be surprised when she brings home a guy before any of her girlfriends start bringing home guys.

Fortunately, I think Freud and Jung would be impressed with my husband’s fathering, even after last night’s dinner episode. (Although I’m not sure how the event may have influenced our daughter — maybe she’ll bring home a guy who hates calamari.)

My husband doesn’t really need to be told any of this. He dotes on his daughter and disciplines her in equal amounts. He respects her and her mother and does all he can to keep the family happy. He supports all of us and shows affection without limits.

Keeping this in mind, I think this Sunday, for Father’s Day, I’ll do my best to go a whole month without reminding him that every little thing he says, does and doesn’t do affects his daughter.

I’ll give him the space he needs to do his job and have faith that he knows how to be a dad and can do it well even without me following behind him, wagging my finger. (Not that I really do the wagging-finger thing, but you get the picture.) I’ll give him the same respect he gives me as a parent — and maybe a nice tie.