Written by Series Guest Blogger, Brooks Weatherspoon, a father of twin 12 year old girls that will give us insight into A Day in Fatherhood!
I have dreaded it for years. I knew that one day my daughters would have to talk to me about the woman things. The “woman things” are what my mother affectionately referred to as as anything related to the private areas. For my own sanity, I adopted the same genius method of communication and strategy with my daughters.
Don’t get me wrong… I could easily talk to them about the birds and the bees, what boys will try to do and things of that nature. I can prepare them for the ills of the world when talking about others. I am speaking from experience when I am dealing with what boys might do.
Why then, do I fall apart at the seams when it comes to training bras, menstrual cycles and….well….woman things?
Fortunately I rarely have to go there. My wife handles most of the woman things and that is perfectly fine by me. She is far better equipped than I.
Even though I knew this, I still made sure to inform them that they could come to me as well. As fathers, we have to keep those lines of communication available. I never want to limit the things my daughters will come to me about. That can lead to disaster. That doesn’t, however, mean that I am not terrified of the thought of woman things.
I am terrified.
Both of my daughters are approaching those formative years and they have started to wear training bras. My wife intercepted this fact and handled the training bra thing. I felt like a fool browsing through the electronics in Walmart while my wife and daughters picked out bras. I tried standing there while they excitedly picked out one example of the first steps towards womanhood but my heart was sinking.
That was months ago and I have since watched them begin to like boys, fill their walls with posters from the teen magazines they incessantly ask for and grow a foot per day. Their conversations have turned from My Little Pony to which boy smiled at them in school that day. The teen train is moving and there is nothing I can do about it.
Then, it happened.
My wife was at work and my daughters and I were eating supper at the table. As I sat there forcing my way through my brilliant, Daddy-made supper of Beefaroni’s and toast, I noticed that they were fidgeting with their chest area. It was clear that they were in some discomfort, so I asked the dreaded question…”What is wrong, honey?”
“My stupid bra is hurting me. It’s too tight.”
Instinctively I turned to my left hand side to look at my wife.
No wife.
For a moment my heart sank to my feet at the thought of having to talk about….woman things..but then my natural daddy instincts kicked in.
“Well, honey I guess we need to go get you a new one.”
Inside my brain, my little voice was saying to shut up. Don’t say that. That means you have to go buy woman things! That is against the rules. Avoid! Avoid! Abort! Abort!
Just like that, I was off on a Walmart trip to buy my daughters new training bras. Despite my nervousness, I pushed on and strolled into the bra section. (Is that what you call it?)
I was shocked at how easy I handled it. Thanks to a very kind lady at Walmart and some well educated daughters, the bra buying experience went over without a hitch. I was not even really needed other than to pull out my wallet.
My point, to all you fathers out there, is that woman things are not all that bad. Once you dive in, your natural parenting skills will come to the surface. Avoiding it is going to only make it worse and push your daughters away in the process.
Open up to the woman things. Be sentimental. Love your daughters wholeheartedly and let no subject be taboo.
Just don’t ever ask me to buy Tampons.
What Daddy Survival Guides do you wish you had when you became a father? Have you got questions about fatherhood that you simply can’t answer? If so, shoot us a note!
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