Daily Links 2-26-14

In today's post: a father's advice to his daughter, Opening Day should be a national holiday, how to choose a college major, and more.

************

A dad of three has some wise words for his daughters about truth and beauty. (Hat tip: Acculturated)

************

14 fun facts you may not know about The Brady Bunch.

************

Dave Barry has launched a campaign for men to reclaim their manly skills. While this is funny it's a little serious at the same time.

************

Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith has launched an online petition to have Opening Day declared a national holiday. That is a brilliant idea.

************

Reflections on the Gettysburg Address:

Lincoln made three great points. He reminded us who we had resolved to be at our founding, invoking the ideals that fostered our revolution. He then mourned with all Americans that the cost of preserving the union that cherished these ideals had been so great. He concluded it was the task of the living to honor the dead by a renewed and continuing devotion to “the new birth of freedom” they had given their lives for. It was as though he was saying, “We must get it right, and never cease trying. What has happened here must never be repeated.”

And so we must keep faith with the compact that Lincoln invoked on a battlefield in Pennsylvania. We must keep the memory of that event and what emerged from it alive and ever present to our minds.

“In the midst of the continual movement that agitates a democratic community,” Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote, “the tie that unites one generation to another is relaxed or broken. . . .” This is a great danger, and surely one that Lincoln recognized in the context of the lessons of Gettysburg.

How do we strengthen the ties that bind? We can do it by reading Lincoln’s words. Sometimes, we can also do it by acting on them.

************

Is it worth the money to go to college? Part of the answer to that question lies in what a student decides upon as a major. Here's a handy cost benefit guide to help a student select their major.

Time with Dad

I used to think that spending time with my kids meant doing soemthing elaborate or special with them. I’d take each of my daughters on “dates” which were special evenings out that we would go and do something they liked. While thse were good times (and I still occassionally try to have those dates with my duaghters), I was reminded this past week that sometimes that time with my kids doesn’t have to be anything elaborate at all.

Take my oldest daughter, for example. If I’m running errands (such as going to the grocery store) she willl invariably want to tag along not because she finds what I am doing so exciting but because she just wants to hang out with me. In fact, I asked her on one of these recent excursions why she wanted to go with me and she said that she just enjoyed hanging out with Dad. I also have discovered that these are her opportunities to ask tough questions of me. She likes to use these times together to ask me about things that she has been thinking about. It’s in these moments that I get glimpses into what’s going on in her world.

Although my youngest daughter prefers to hang out at home, she will also desire that one-on-one time with me. Like my older daugther, she’ll use the opportunities when we are together to talk to me about difficult things that she may not want to share in front of anyone else.

We have so little time to make an impact on our kids as fathers. By being intentional about simply spending time with them we are allowing for those teachable moments to be created and the door opened to the hearts of our children. For me, spending time with my kids is no longer just about doing something special. It’s about just doing something with them.

Note: This post originally appeared in 2006.

Rules for Dating My Daughter

It's only fair that any young man who wants to date my daughters know what he's getting in to before he considers asking them out:

This also makes me think of one of my favorite Chuck quotes (via John Casey)

Or you can always take the Willie Robertson approach to dealing with your daughter's boyfriend.

Related: Application to Date My Daughter.

UPDATE: Thanks to Adam Baldwin for the retweet!

RT @Daddypundit “Rules for Dating My Daughters - with a nod to ‘John Casey’.” - http://t.co/zWzpOYANDd
— Adam Baldwin (@adamsbaldwin) June 18, 2013

Advice to Dads of Daughters

Here is a list of fifty rules for dads of daughters. It's a terrific list. I only wish I had thought of it.

Hat tip: Joe Carter

Meeting My "Other" Daughter

Have you ever decided to Google your own name just for the fun of it?

I've always been afraid to do it for fear of what I would discover.

But my oldest daughter, Annie, did it last fall.

Turns out there was another girl named Annie Parsons. She has a wonderful blog. They started trading e-mails. The other Annie wrote a beautiful letter to my Annie. They became good friends online.

But the best part is that the other Annie lives in Nashville. Last week we got to meet her.

A.P. (which is the nickname we gave to the other Annie to keep track of who's who - she calls our daugher Little A. P.) calls our Annie her Muppet Baby.

A.P. is one of the sweetest young women I have ever met. As we were saying good-bye after a lovely dinner, I told her that I felt like I had met my "other" daughter.

I hope my girls grow up to be as sweet and caring as A.P.

It was a real joy to finally get to meet her. We'll get to hang out again when we go back to Nashville in the fall. It will be a blast.



A.P. (center) flanked by my daughters Katie and Annie (otherwise known as Little A.P.)

A Date With Dad

This past Sunday was a special day for our family. I had the opportunity to take my two daughters to a Father/Daughter dance in honor of Valentine's Day. They were very excited because they got to dress up in their formal dresses, put on makeup, and even wear the corsages that I had bought for them. But most important for them was that they got to do something special with Dad. The whole experience made a real impact on them because several times since then they've remarked about how much they enjoyed the experience.

It made an impact on me, too, in that it reminded me of the importance of giving my girls a "date" from time to time with Dad. In other words, it's important to offer them the chance to just hang out with Dad doing something that they enjoy.

When my girls were younger and I worked outside the home, I made a point to schedule times that I could go out with each one of my girls doing all sorts of different stuff. Sometimes we'd go out for dinner or ice cream. Sometimes it was something simpler like just allowing one of them to tag along as I run errands.

The purpose of such times is twofold. First, spending time with my girls deepens the relationship that I have with each of them. As they have grown older, they have become more willing to share with me things that they are dealing with as they are maturing into young women. The time that I invested in my relationship with them when they were younger will pay huge dividends as they become teenagers.

Second, time that I spend with them offers me an opportunity to demonstrate to them how a gentleman behaves towards a lady. My daughters' conception of how they should be treated by men will be in large part shaped by how I treat them. Dads can be the best example for their daughters of what to expect from men. A healthly relationship between a daughter and her dad will go a long way towards her having healthy relationships with men as an adult especially when she is married.

A date with your daughter doesn't have to be elaborate or expensive. The only thing it requires is time that you're willing to devote to her. As men we have all sorts of things demanding our attention. Our daughters, like our wives, should be a priority. A little time alone with our daughters will be a small sacrifice today that will reap huge rewards in the future.

This post originally appeared at DadBloggers.