" Fathers, be good to your daughters

Daughters will love like you do."

Father's Day has just passed and most of us spent time thanking God and the universe for the special man in our lives; I know I did. So with this being said, dad's please take a minute to listen to a daughter.

Your daughter is watching.

Everything you do, she is going to be watching. Whether it's how you wear your boots inside or laugh with her and her siblings to how she watches you respect others; she will be watching your every move. You are her first hero, please do it justice.

Her view on relationships has a lot to do with you.

Your relationship with her is always going to have a high place of importance in her life. She will most likely even hold more tightly to it than any relationship because you're her dad. But her view on relationships won't only come from your relationship with her, it will also come from your relationship with others; including her mother. So many people like myself grow up in divorced families, but just because you're divorced from her mother doesn't mean you treat your ex like trash. Again, your daughter is watching.How you treat her mother will have a major impact on how she will view future relationships.

How she believes a man should treat her comes from how she see's you treat women.

Whether it's how you treat her, her mother, your mother, or a random woman on the street, how you treat each of them will give her an idea of how she thinks women are supposed to be treated. So if you show these women respect, kindness, and loyalty, that is what she'll learn to believe and expect. It will also show her how she believes she should be treated by a future partner. Show her that she deserves to be treated with kindness, with love, and with respect. That she should never feel like she is inferior or not good enough. Give her high enough standards that she will be treated the best way possible.

Don't make her feel like property.

"I'll be sitting right here with my beer in one hand and a gun in the other waiting for you to bring my daughter home."

I can say this point because I grew up with two dads who were both quite overprotective and tried to scare off all potential love interests. My dad once even printed out a 12-page document titled "Application to Date my Daughter" and handed it to a guy I was hoping to start dating. (I wish I was joking.) I'm not at all saying that you shouldn't be protective of your daughters, heck, I'm saying the opposite. But what I am saying is that in your attempt to be protective of your daughter, don't make her feel like she is property or an object to be owned.

She views herself as you view her.

If you view her as a princess, she will feel like a princess. But at the same time, if you make her feel like she will never be good enough for you or that she needs to change something about herself in order to make you happy, that is how she will start to view herself. She will start picking herself apart trying to live up to this perfect image of how she believes she should be based on how she has felt viewed by you. Make her feel beautiful and strong.

All she wants is to make you proud.

Even if you don't have a good relationship with your daughter, there will always be a part of her that wants to make you proud. When she passes an exam, get's a new job, finds "the one", she will be both anxious and excited to tell you about it because she wants your approval and wants you to be proud of her. Make sure she knows you're proud of her, especially on the bad days.

You should be raising her to be even stronger than your son.

"We must raise our sons to be strong and brave, and our daughters to be kind and loving." This one grinds my gears. Why the hell can't you raise both your sons AND DAUGHTERS to be strong and brave, kind and loving? Quite frankly I believe that we should be working even harder to make our daughters stronger rather than our sons. The reality is, your daughter will spend most of her life being told that men are more important than her or that she will never be as successful as a man. That she needs a man to protect her and a man to be happy. Teach your daughter to be strong, how to stand up for herself and others, how to be happy on her own, that she can be EVEN MORE successful than men. That she is just as important and matters just as much as any man. Your daughter is going to face enough hardships in her life, so please start early by raising her to be strong.

You're the first man she will ever love.

Maybe this is a shock to you, but this is a huge responsibility. The first love is always the hardest and therefore can be the most painful when things either get tough or go south. I've said this before and I will keep saying it if I need to, YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HER MATTERS AND WILL HAVE A LASTING IMPACT ON HER. The love you show her will be the standard for all future love to come. If you break her heart, you'll be the first one to hurt her and you may even make her doubt what love can really be. Please take your job seriously and show her how she deserves to be loved.

Dads, you may have only one day a year entirely dedicated to you, but it's always Father's Day in my book for the dads who have taken the time to not only raise but to love their children. You are helping mold future generations and teaching them how to be better human beings. So father's, please be good to your daughters. They're going to love like you do.