My favourite quotes from the book Strong fathers strong daughters by Meg Meeker:
Believe it or not, the most important factor for girls growing up into competent, well-adjusted woman is a strong father would conservative values.
Don’t let your daughter have a TV or computer in her room. Safe TV for family time – when you or your wife can decide what to watch.
Your daughter doesn’t want to see you as equal, she wants you to be her hero. Someone who is wiser and steadier and stronger than she is.
Authority is not a threat to your relationship with your daughter – it is what will get you closer with your daughter and what will make her respect you even more.
Lead by example and don’t back down from your principles!
Women in magazines aren’t the best role models. People who judge everyone on their looks probably have terrible self-esteem issues. It’s not important how thin someone is but what her character is.
Don’t comment frequently on how she looks. Don’t comment on your own needs the diet. Appearance is not a high-priority – what matters is her, and not what she wears. Give her attention naturally. If you talk about something often she will follow.
Be confident. Defend her and be supportive. And don’t back away from hugging her. Don’t allow fashion trends mold your daughter – seven-year-old learns from commercials that being sexy is good – you have to intervene.
Teach her to wait!
Teach self-respect early. At every age tell her her body is special and that she needs to keep it special.
Don’t let your daughter grow up to be a victim of life. Too much of our popular culture teaches us to love victims. So, we create people who are helpless, incapable and terribly needy. But you, as a father, can prevent that. You can teach your daughter to do, not just want. Action engages the will and gives energy and momentum. Action means that your daughter will know that she, not others, will determine her fate.
Constant pursuit of more leads to dissatisfaction. When we realize that we don’t need more, then we can be happy. Contempt comes from who we are and what we have today.
It is a great strength knowing that if you lost every material possesion that you would still have life worth living for by sharing it with your loved ones.
To be a good father is to be a good instructor about God.
My dad has a really strong faith. That’s why he got up every morning to pray and read the Bible. Sometimes he would talk about God, but mostly he would like to just live what he read in the Bible. I was happy because I knew he prayed for me.
There is a void in every man’s heart that only God can fill.
Don’t leave your teenage daughter shopping alone because it only makes it easier for the pop-culture to sell them shit.Search for that something, but the more we search for it the more distant it becomes. Because what you’re searching for sits right there. It’s not your job, or more money, your hobbies or more sex – it’s your family, your children, your spouse and God.