Read the full transcript of Sam Beckworth’s talk titled “What A Girl Needs From Her Dad” at TEDxWoodinville 2024 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
A Lesson in Humility
When I was in the seventh grade, I was riding my bike home after tearing up my best friend playing basketball after school, so I had a bit of an attitude approaching one of the busiest intersections of the city. I looked to my left and saw a kid glaring at me as he slowly rode in the passenger seat of some funky Impala. Taking the bait, I said, “Yeah, you better keep driving.” Just then, my right foot slipped in between the forks in the front tire.
It stopped on a dime. The back of the bike immediately flipped over the top of me. I flew into the air and rolled a few times. My backpack pulled a Michael Jordan into the intersection, and then my bike landed on top of me.
As I lay there with the pedals of my bike flossing my teeth, cars flying by, Impala Punk laughing hysterically, I took a deep breath, looked up to the heavens and said, “This was good for me.” Well, that wasn’t the last time that I’ve dealt with pride or bit the dust on the outside because of a struggle with ego on the inside.
Family Background and Personal Struggles
You see, I grew up with three sisters. And with our dad being raised in a severely abusive home, he didn’t have a healthy model to follow in emotionally connecting with his daughters.
My dad is my hero. And despite the amazing job he did, I saw how his vulnerability without the right tools challenged their relationship. So when my two daughters grew into their teenage years, I became aware of this inherent impulse to control their decisions. I found myself expecting a lot from them with my head way more than I was connecting with them through my words and with my heart.
They could feel unspoken disappointment from me if they were dating who I would judge as the wrong guy or posting things on social media I thought was not a good look for them. “You know better. You know the right thing to do. I know the right thing for you to do.”
Scoot over. I will help you do the right thing. And it came to a head when my oldest daughter told me, “You make me doubt myself. And I want to do the right thing.”
The Wake-Up Call
What’s extra hypocritical is that for 25 years, my world has largely been in a nonprofit space working with families and seeing the same pattern with other girl dads. I’ve been around it a long time as a primary leader, and yet here I am stuck and ill-equipped. I was not protecting my daughters. I was protecting myself.
I wasn’t building their confidence. I became a primary source of their insecurity. This was pretty much the bottom of the barrel for me as a dad because I realized that a lack of consistent and healthy communication speaks. It speaks neglect.
The Path to Change
And like me, too many dads share a passive love language called silence. Dr. Michelle Watson founded the ABBA Project in 2010, a nine-month educational process to equip dads with daughters ages 13 to 30. And drawing from decades of clinical counseling practice, she shares her primary key observation when dealing with dads of daughters.
“Men would rather do nothing than do it wrong. But doing nothing,” she says, “is doing it wrong.” So I began to start talking. First, psychologists, friends, dads of daughters who were older and wiser than me.
I also talked with dads who were more jacked up than me. “Sam, how did you get better?” Simple. I talked and listened to other dads share their story and found out they were way worse than me.
When I began talking out loud, my strange ways of thinking started sounding pretty ridiculous. There were things I would share with mentors about my approach with my daughters. And before I could speak the fourth sentence, even I couldn’t agree with myself. I experienced this transparency as light that brought power.
The Impact of Father-Daughter Relationships
But I realize it demands a lot of humility. I still have a ways to go. As a man, it’s hard to face my own hypocrisy. The lost time, things I cannot go back and change with my daughters, these are by far the most painful things I deal with.
And it’s so fun to stretch emotionally. But pushing through is creating results with my daughters. Dads, it’s worth it because the influence we have with them is unparalleled. Dr. Watson cites in her book, “Let’s Talk,” that research consistently supports that every area of girls’ lives is better when they feel connected to their fathers, including better grades, higher likelihood of continuing high school and college, less body dissatisfaction, less depression, less likely to attempt suicide, more apt to find steady employment, even delaying premarital sex.
I can hear dads downloading that book right now. Having healthier relationships with men and displaying more pro-social empathy, dads, we are empowered. When we model to our daughters how they should be treated with kindness, respect, acceptance, owning up when we make mistakes, we are adding a measure of safety to them as they face their own vulnerabilities in life.
Moving Forward
As we occupy that special place in our daughters’ hearts, their expectations are raised for a great future in life and relationships. Now as we talk with others for accountability’s sake, it softens our voice to engage with our daughters in healthier conversation.
Recently, both of my girls told me how much they’ve enjoyed our times together, our talking and laughing, my listening and learning to ask more intelligent questions about their world. But most of all, they thanked me for continuing to stretch to get better at this.
There’s a lot of progress to be made, but I’ll count that as a win.