Daddy, Save The Last Dance For Me

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – I was saddened last week when the parks and recreation department, apparently bowing to pressure from those opposed to traditional families, renamed the annual “Father Daughter Dance” as the “Snow Ball Dance.”

Spokesman for the change told Axios Des Moines that it was made because the city wants to avoid “situations where children — such as those with single, LGBTQ+ or gender nonconforming parents — are uncomfortable attending.” He also announced that next month’s “Mother/Son fun Night” would be renamed “Family Fun Night.”

Now I don’t have problems with family fun nights or anything similar, but I do have problems with recasting Daddy-Daughter nights as something other than a bonding experience between men and their daughters, something that has been under a leftist attack for over a decade.

First let me state my belief that the most important person in a girl’s life is her father. This has not only been borne out by research, but my own personal experience. Briefly said, I spent many years in juvenile and mental health courtrooms where family wreckages found themselves, and that was bolstered by nearly six years as chaplain at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center.

In nearly every case, especially in the rehabilitation center, the lack of a strong male role model was a contributing factor to a girl’s or woman’s later inability to deal with the vexations of life. Instead, they turned to substitutes: drugs, sex and prostitution, theft, and other unhealthy choices, including suicide, which gave respite from the real life that seemed too horrible to face.

Before I get off on the woke idealism that attacks daddy-daughter dances, let me provide some general information about what and why studies have shown how well girls with involved fathers have done.

First is the “why.” Simply put, the male role and perspective that girls see in their fathers balances the female role mothers and daughters share, giving the daughter a broader perspective of life than just that of her mother’s and her own.

Now, here is the “what” as found by numerous studies:

Girls with engaged fathers are more intellectually developed, from IQ to better grades in school; they are more confident and assertive, and more likely to feel better about themselves; more likely to pursue higher education and have higher career achievement; more likely to become better emotionally and have better mental health; and more likely to have healthy romantic relationships up to, and including, marriage.

And, they are less likely to develop eating disorders and a poor self-image; engage in delinquent behavior; become pregnant as a teen; experience dating violence or coerced sex; become less resilient, unable to navigate obstacles and stressful situations; be more inclined to drug and alcohol usage.

This really isn’t difficult stuff to master, but it is universally ignored by the “wokesters” who can’t see through their ideology.

“Many women underestimate the importance their father has in their lives. For the most part, a good relationship with an intimate partner is strongly tied to a woman’s relationship with her dad. A father’s presence (or lack of presence) in his daughter’s life will affect how she will relate to all men who come after him and can impact her view of herself and psychological well-being,” said clinical counselor Terry Gaspard, MSW in a 2013 article she wrote for the Huffington Post.

“Not only does a girl’s relationship with her father shape her childhood experience, but it will also influence how she interacts with men in her adult years. If a father is absent or erratic in his behavior, this sets his daughter up for feelings of low self-esteem and trouble with trusting men in general,” wrote columnist Jay Hill, citing numerous psychological journals.

“Research has shown that women who enjoy more supportive, close relationships with their fathers tend to be less stressed and to view themselves in a more positive light compared with those who have more conflicted or toxic bonds,” Hill reported.

In law we have a doctrine that some facts are so well established that it is unnecessary to prove them in court. The same could be said about the proposition that fathers play a pivotal role in their daughters’ lives; in fact, a whole library could be filled with books and research proving same.

However, giving the “woke” their due, they have their own experts who claim otherwise. For example, some schools and municipalities cite findings from legislative studies that require them to ban any activity that is characterized by a reference or preference for any gender identity.

The basis for such regulation is some people may be hurt or offended, thus eliminate the whole thing without regard for the good it might do society. Just a quick note here: If you watch closely, you’ll note that the progressive wokesters are so controlled by their ideology that they will follow that ideology even when it hurts their own people.

Anyway, schools in Staten Island did follow this logic based on a state rule prohibiting any such preference. As one local report in 2018 put it: “Such gendered events can be exclusionary — not only for those who don’t identify with their biological gender, but for families with different structures, such as families with two moms or single mom-led households.”

Get the picture? Sound anything like the Virginia schools that withheld students’ receipt of National Merit Awards?

Apparently trying to shore-up the “con” argument, Caroline Kitchener, a staff writer for something called The Lily, which is part of The Washington Post family, wrote back in 2019:

“While the origins of the father-daughter dance are hard to pin down, many of the father-daughter-centric wedding traditions emerged after World War II, when big weddings — with dancing and speeches — became popular. By that time, middle- and upper-class men and women were living in ‘separate spheres,’ said Stephanie Coontz, a professor of marriage history at Evergreen State University in Olympia, Wash. As women began taking charge of everything that went on inside the home, including relationships with children, Coontz said, ‘there was a sense that men needed to find their way back to the family.’

“The idea was, ‘Well, men aren’t in charge anymore at home, and they’re a little bumbling in the domestic sphere, so we need to give them special rituals and opportunities’. . . . The father-daughter dance and the father’s speech are good examples of this trend. . . .”

So, if the daddy-daughter dance makes some uncomfortable, what’s the big deal? Just rename it and move on, right?

No, wrong. It continues a trend to downplay all we have held as valuable. It continues the ongoing degradation of men in society as irrelevant to the “modern” family. Thus, it plays on the ultra-feminist position that men aren’t needed for anything; after all, a woman who wants can always become pregnant by artificial insemination.

The daddy-daughter dance symbolizes something that, as a society, we are forgetting: Dads function as a critical balance in the life of a family. That’s the way God created it, and that’s the way we should recognize it. While not all families, for many reasons, are perfect, that is not a reason avoid instilling to that goal in our own.

Finally, just a quick reminder I received from a Christian counselor: Moms teach little girls how to be ladies; dads teach them to demand treatment in accordance.

Now men, go stand up for your girls!

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him on the Faith on Trial podcast at https://iowacatholicradio.com/faith-on-trial.)