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“I don’t see women as sexual beings anymore. When I see a vagina, seriously all I want to do is powder it. I just don’t want them to get rashes. There is nothing arousing about it. When my wife is naked in front of me I think, ‘Should I get a diaper?’”
-Adam Sandler on having a daughter during an interview on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien

So you found out you are having a girl? What do you do now?

I don’t want to overgeneralize here for the evolved metrosexual men out there (funny side-bar: my VP who will soon be a mommy herself calls this type of guy a “SNAG” – a Sensitive New-Age Guy), but the truth is most of us spend our lives getting comfortable in our own skin. It’s natural that we spend far more time internalizing and growing into our gender and the rituals, sterotypes, stigmas and unspoken social nuances of our kind than we do even fathoming all that our anatomical counterparts do to reach the same point within their own gender.

This assumes that you want to be an involved father, and therefore want to know about your baby and help her along as much possible. The catch is that you’ve spent a lifetime thus far getting used to and understanding what comes with being a guy, and now you have approximately 4.5 months from the typical 18-week gender announcement to pack into your skull as much understanding and preparation as you can possibly get about the female existence.

I wish I could be the prophet for our kind and drop pearls of wisdom on you to successfully navigate the waters of High School Musical, Barbie & Brat dolls, Disney Princess, and Hannah Montana. The truth is, I am as much a RookieDad as you are, and the musings that I gush on an intermittent basis are as much self-discovery and record-keeping as they are advice. That said, after some conversations with new and seasoned fathers of girls, topped with a dash of soul-searching, visualization and what I hope is insight, I feel slightly more mentally prepared for the joy and anguish of being a daddy to a little princess.

I guess I’ll start with the first thing I’ve done some thinking about. Not the most P.C. place to start, but an obvious disconnect for us guys is…

1. Girl Parts

When you grow up a boy, spend your summers at Boy Scout camp, and do all things boyish, you tend to develop a mindset around girl plumbing that sticks with you. I’m trying to tiptoe around this as best as I can for delicate ears and family and friends, so without being too explicit here, the whole va-jay-jay area is a conundrum. I mean the anatomical differentiators on women tend to hold a sense of mystery and allure for most guys for the majority of our lives. So how does a guy rectify this previous and perfectly comfortable perspective with the new lord-am-I-really-supposed-to-be-wiping-and-changing-that-thing? perspective. I’m on an Adam Sandler kick, so it’s like he says in his movie Big Daddy:

Julian: “Why do I have to wear a bathing suit in the bathtub?”
Sonny: “I don’t know the rules around kids and being naked; just sit down and shut up…”

I guess I have to reference a natural adjustment you may be experiencing – I know I am. So mommies get the nesting and maternal instinct kick-started once they become preggers. But we men start evidencing our evolutionary ingraining with the demonstration of protective behaviors. As simple as keeping a more wary eye on hooligans in the grocery store parking lot (happened this evening), to throwing a shoulder when walking down a crowded street to prevent someone from bumping into your wife and her precious cargo. This (I’ve been told and imagine to be true) escalates and overrides your previous feelings about girl parts in general. If you don’t jump in there and wipe her parts front-to-back well, your baby girl will be in extreme discomfort either from sitting in a dirty diaper or developing an infection from her poo. She could develop a rash on her bum. I hear tell that when she cries, your heart breaks just a little for every whimper and tear that falls. If that’s true, I’ll bet we can get over the confusion about what to do with her girl parts pretty damn quick. And if you’re the asshole who thinks, “Hell with that, babies are the woman’s department,” then stop reading and leave – this blog is for myself and others that actually care about being a good husband and father.

Another helpful thought… I like the science behind things.  Rightly or wrongly, it helps me rectify stuff that makes me feel uncomfortable.   So scientifically speaking, those girl parts are because of you.  I’m not talking touchy-feely philosophy. It’s science. Your wife contributes the X chromosome, you contribute the sex chromosome – either a Y for boys or an X for girls. So, scientifically speaking, those girls parts are there specifically because of you. There is nothing unnatural or weird about taking care of your child’s ya-ya until they can do it themselves, and with the mindset that the little wiggle-worm is gentically ½ you, you have more than just the right, but indeed the obligation to take care of it.  That naturally means dealing with her parts when she’s a baby.

So that’s my philosophy on girl parts.  Now to #2.  When others have a less innocent interest in her girl parts…

2. Dating
OK, so now we’ve broken the anatomy barrier and made the mental shift to not be weirded out by the fact that she’s going to have plumbing that you are going to have to wipe, powder and diaper. Now, you and I have to come to terms with the fact that you and maybe your male family members are the only ones of your gender who are going to see her plumbing in such an innocent light. I’m gritting my teeth right now as my protective instincts are kicking in.

I know there will come a time when dating will enter the picture.  We will have to find the balance between maintaining our God-given right to be protective over our fold with the fact that we have to let our babies grow socially. I am no way extolling any philosophy about condoning premarital intercourse, but the dating issue speaks to a much greater mental prep that spans gender and falls into an uber category called developmental milestones. You know – rolling over, pinching, holding her head up, spacial awareness, math, writing, speech, etiquette…  For every age there are aspects of learning and social integration that help your child interact in society and grow as a human being intellectually, physically, and emotionally. Dating, though it pains me to admit it, is a milestone and marks the beginning of recognition of her social and anatomical difference from males, and attraction for the opposite (or same – not being biased here) sex that naturally comes with puberty and growing up.

Evenso, I believe you may recall locker room conversations and the rampaging hormones that you might have experienced as an adolescent, teenager, and young adult. Frankly, some of these conversations or thoughts could have made Larry Flynt blush – don’t deny it because you know it’s true.  So how do you allow your daughter to naturally embark on this developmental milestone with the knowledge and experience you had as a guy who at one point went through puberty? You’ve heard: “guys only think about one thing!”  While that’s an overgenarlization – probably — it still is a part of social and physical development and we’re going to have to cross this bridge, fellas.

So here’s where the mental preparation comes in.

Mantra’s work. Ask Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins or any other motivational speaker. Idealism through repetition is an effective form of positive visualization. So here’s what I suggest you do: devise a mantra that helps you reasonably accept the situation without relinquishing your protectiveness or your values. Base the mantra on your goal to trust that you have reared your child to be responsible and sensible, that you trust her to be smart and safe in her choices, and that you know that this dating situation is a natural part of her growing up and is something that must occur before your daughter can ever fully come into her own.

Now, I’m not saying that when her date walks in I won’t exude the persona of a pissed-off Silverback gorilla while I clean a baseball bat – hell, I’m a guy and that’s my daughter. Heck, maybe I can get in a few minutes of scaring the crap out of the boy so that his hormones take a back seat to the consequences of taking advantage of my baby girl… I’m sorry but I’m human.  That said, I think ultimately my successfulness in this arena will boil down to the life lessons and trust I build with my daughter well before dating ever comes up.  I think open-communication and trust will be key to our comfort as we find ourselves in the midst of our daughter’s dating.

So aside from what and how we’ll deal with it when she finally does date, we need to examine what lessons we want to teach our daughter about love, respect, sex and safety, and above all demonstrate what a good man is by being a really positive male figure as her father and as her mommy’s husband.  If we show her the type of guy she should look for in a partner by exhibiting love, compassion, friendship, kindness, respect, and care for her mother, then the punks that I’m scared about hopefully won’t ever receive her attention.

Being a good dad and husband are key to her successfully navigating the dating waters because by the time she’s dating, the opportunity for those types of lessons is long gone.  When all else fails, recite your mantra, cross your fingers, keep the baseball bat nearby, and hope like hell.

3. Girl Toys and Girl Hobbies

So what do you know about girl scouts other than Thin Mints? Ever had a tea party with stuffed animals, or played dress-up replete with all the accoutrements? How about cheerleading? Dance? What about shopping – you aren’t a fish out water in the girl’s section at Macy’s right? No?

Guess what? Me neither. I spent my childhood with Transformers, G.I. Joe, building forts, playing in the creek, fighting with other boys, playing baseball, etc.  I don’t know anything about this stuff.  She wants to talk about the Yankees line-up this year? I can do that.  She wants to talk about the Panther’s prospects for ever making it back to the Super Bowl?  I can do that too.  She wants to bait a hook or use a mitre saw?  I can do that no problem.  But, if she wants to have me paint her toes or play Barbie?  That’s not as easy.

I can’t expect to build a relationship of trust and love with my daughter and not jump right in with playing with her.  I think this is where we put on our creative hats.  As in the previous section, I think visualization is helpful.  So what I’m doing in preparation is trying to visualize the joy my daughter will have in daddy sipping tea with her Fiona stuffed animal.  Or trying to mimic mall gossip while play-walking a Barbie doll across the carpet.  Or clapping exuberantly as she sings, dances, or cheerleads.

As a side note, please don’t think I’m relegating my daughter to stereotypical girlie things. If she wanted to hit the garage and learn about power tools, I’m am sooo game.  But, assuming her favorite activities are not quite as familiar to you, I try to keep in mind that her happiness and growth, relationships with the opposite sex, and her overall well-adjustedness will stem a great deal from her relationship with her father.  So damnit, game face, bro.  Even if that game face is shrowded by a bonnet while sipping imaginary tea.

4.  Other Stuff

Now, I realize dating, girl parts, and girlie toys and hobbies are just the tip of the iceburg.  Somewhere in there will come her first heartbreak.  Makeup.  Her first period.  Boobs and training bras.  And frankly stuff I haven’t or won’t even think about.  The truth is I’m not sure we can ever be prepared for this.  But, I’m counting on my dad’s principles of openness, honesty, and love for my mom and my sisters to work for me as well with my daughter.  I’ve never doubted my father as a good man, a great husband, and a model father.  My sisters and I turned out just fine.  So I leave you with what I’m banking on: openness, honesty and love.  And for everything else?  Go with the hope-like-hell-and-baseball-bat technique.

-RookieDad Sean