The Difference in your relationship to Sons and Daughters
Why your influence on each needs to be different
Boys want to be men. Girl’s want to be princesses. You are the leader and teacher to your sons. You are your daughter’s first love and courtier.
It is intrinsic in human nature for a father to raise his sons and daughters in very different manners although less so in our modern era. They are two very different types of people and logically your approach to raising them needs to be quite contrasting.
As a father your duty is bring young girls and boys into this world but you have to play a critical role in forming them into fully-fledged women and men. You have a responsibility that no one else in their life can undertake. You need to love your sons and daughters passionately, though not the same. Boys don’t like being treated as girls, and girls don’t want to be talked to as boys.
How should I raise my sons? You as their father need to be a leader, a strong and unbending guide through the tumult of our modern world. You should teach them about the problems of a godless and sinful people, and when safely possible, teach them about a few of the trappings that await young men in our world. You must be their general, their commander, their tough love relatable teacher. To your sons you are their first example of masculinity, what it means to be tough and unflinching in the face of opposition and worldly oppression. Through you they should see not only strength but strength of character; a man who prays, provides for his family, loves his wife, lives creed, and loves the beatitudes. Your objective should not be to make it appear like you do all of these things but to do it independently for years and when they're old enough, bring them into each.
You as a man need to be the kind of person that sacrifices and serves for as St. Paul admonishes us “Do not forget to do good, and to impart; for by such sacrifices God's favour is obtained” (Heb 13:16). The Father does not sacrifice out of a selfish desire for increasing his later comfort! No, instead he does this sheerly and purely out of love for Christ, his wife, and his children. To show your sons how to sacrifice and serve you must impart all three facets. Teach them to love God with every ounce of their beings and will. Instill in them a desire to be gentlemanly, respectful, and caring for women so that when they enter into the world they will be disposed to all these things of their own accord. Lastly, show them what it means to care for those more vulnerable than themselves. This is the gentleness that fatherhood contains, the nurturing of that young baby fulfills your own masculinity. Show your sons to care for the poor, fight for the unborn, and respect the disabled and disfigured.
“Bodily exercise is profitable to little: but godliness is profitable to all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” - 1st Timothy 4:8
Take your son out shooting and fishing and show him the wonder that is the natural world. The digital age so often rips our youth away from reality and seeks to contain his inherent loutishness. This is not natural for men. The worlds solution is to, in many instances, write his problems off as ADHD and immediately put him on drugs for the rest of his life. Men have aggression and competition coded into our bones and we need to let it out in a natural and healthy way. Bring your sons into sports, teach them to box and play hockey and healthily handle their more irascible tendencies.
With a son, you can teach him how to hunt, tie a knot, ride a horse, survive in nature, wrangle a bull, survive a dangerous encounter, and other abilities natural to his manhood. Embrace these and others and make your boy tough.
Now how about the gentler sex, your daughters? Let’s first examine the roles that you are to your female children. For that young girl you are their first love, their knight in shining armor, their warrior, protector, and provider, the first true man to ever try and woo their hearts (note that this is intended in a masculine guardian manner), you are to be the standard of immense love and devotion that all other men will have to meet or surpass. Your devotion and attention to each individual daughter must be unmatched and unparalleled. This does not mean that you coddle her or keep her locked in a room and unexposed to the world. No, this is the exact opposite of a good approach. She must see the world in order to understand the necessity of a man’s love and protection. She should be able to stand on her own but still desire a true man to take care of her. Until the day of her vows before God, you are the man to fulfill this role.
To your daughter you will teach her what it means to be properly loved, to be the person who others sacrifice for and not to let it be in vain. When you sacrifice for her, teach why it is that you do. Teach her gratitude and acceptance tell her what it is that any good man will seek out within her. There is a different sort of gentleness and love and affection that only your wife can teach her to express but you, as her father, have the capacity to be gentle to her, to love her, and to show care for her.
Show your daughters what it is about genuine femininity men really want. The dignity and beauty and domesticity of women that men look for in them because there is nowhere else it can be found. Teach them, from the perspective of a fully-formed man, what your perspective on genuine holy women is.
“Strength and beauty are her clothing, and she shall laugh in the latter day.” - Proverbs 31:25
With a daughter, you can take her to dinner, dance together, ride bikes, talk about books, feed ducks at a pond, go serve the homeless, care for young children, goof off or let loose, garden together, and many other activities. Do these full-heartedly and fully present of the moment that you’re in. Do these and through them teach your little girl what it means to truly be loved.