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When my father began to tell me about sex, I was a teenager ready to go out and have fun with the boys. 

“They only want one thing from you,” he said.  “Never forget that.”

My first relationships with the opposite sex focused on sports.  I was a tomboy who loved playing baseball, basketball and tetherball.  Later I learned weight training with my dad in our basement and modern dance at a dance studio nearby.  I loved being on teams with girlfriends and with the guys.  Maybe, I thought, the one thing all the boys wanted was to be on the winning team.

It was when I wanted to start dating that my father’s fears seemed to surface with ferocity and he laid out the rules:

• You cannot date until you are sixteen.
  
• You must double date; no single dating.
  
• You can’t drive until you are 18 so someone else will have to drive when you go out.
  

This was tough for a girl who was asked out at fourteen by a boy who was seventeen and driving.  The night ended badly, as I had disobeyed my parents by going on this date and found myself grounded for a month because of it.

Finally I was 16 and double-dating when my father walked in the house to find me kissing my date.  Enraged, he sent me to my room and prohibited my date from taking me out again.  You can’t kiss your date was not on the list of rules handed down to me.  This fine young man, I later discovered, was just as embarrassed as I was, and never again had anything to do with me. 

Another one bites the dust.

At the ripe old age of 18, I was dating, driving and working in the apparel mart, selling and modeling fashions in the showroom and the runway.  My boss asked me out to lunch and, over his drink, explained that his wife didn’t understand him or what he did when he was out of town.  Neither did I, but I began to wonder if this is what my father was referring to. 

Just what did this boss of mine want from me?  I was afraid to share this with my father, but I was too naïve to figure it out for myself.

My college roommate’s boyfriend asked me to have a beer and give him some advice.  Seems he too felt misunderstood.   He and my roommate married after college, so maybe my advice was worthwhile.  I was not, however, invited to the wedding.

I often wondered why my father was so strict and what he was so horribly afraid of.  I resented being so restricted and having to follow so many rules.  What I really needed was to talk to and share these new experiences with him.  I wanted him to give me advice and support my success as I navigated the world of dating. 

I wished that I had stood up and faced both my father’s fears and my own.  Instead of more rules, sometimes what daughters need from their fathers is communication and courage.

Susanne Katz is a divorce coach with Mt Vernon Counseling, coauthor of A Woman's Guide to Managing a Mid-Life Divorce, an arts and living columnist for Atlanta Jewish News.com.  She is also a regular on ShareWIK.com.

More Susanne Katz here. 

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