An Open Letter to Daughters Everywhere (Guest Blog by Don Blackwell)

Don is a long-time friend of mine and I’m honored he’s joining us today as he puts into writing what I believe all of you GirlDads want to say to your daughters.
~ Michelle

Dads are notoriously poor communicators when it comes to feelings, especially with their daughters.

Too often, our silence, awkwardness, or inability to find right words is interpreted as disinterest, insensitivity, or a lack of empathy.

Truth is many fathers silently long for a closer relationship with their daughters, even when they aren't sure how to build one.

So, if my fellow dads will permit, I'd like to share an open letter to daughters everywhere who may still be wondering about us. [And Dad, if my message expresses your heart, feel free to share it with your daughter from you].

To Our Daughters –

It seems like only yesterday that we held you in our arms for the first time.

It was love at first sight.

From that moment on, you’ve held a very special place in our hearts – a place reserved only for you.

When you were little, it was “easy” to let you know that. We could hold you tight, comfort you when you were sad, tell you bedtime stories and tuck you in – and we did. You probably don’t remember those moments, but we do.

But, as you grew older, things got more complicated for us where you were concerned.

You were becoming young women, perhaps before both of us were ready – and we weren’t sure how to respond, how we fit in to your emerging womanhood.

We wondered if it was still “okay” to hold you as tightly as we once did (or hold you at all), to kiss you, to tuck you into bed – to dry your tears and comfort you.

We looked for other ways to stay connected with you, ways to stay engaged in your life, to discern the role you wanted us to play as you entered your teenage years, but we struggled with that – a lot.

We assumed, without asking, that your mom was the person you wanted for all those "girl things" and that you'd let us know if and when you needed us.

Between your mom and your friends, it seemed like you were doing “just fine” and growing more independent with each passing day.

Part of us was content to watch you grow, but we missed you – we missed “us”.

We realize now, however, that we may have missed the most important thing of all – the realization that you were missing us too and maybe even misconstruing our distance and seeming “absence” as indifference.

If only we had known then what we know now.

If only, rather than guess at what each other was thinking or hoping one of us “would get it” from the unspoken “bread crumbs” we were leaving in each other’s lives, we had simply talked, allowed ourselves to be more vulnerable with one another.

Maybe we could both be a little better about that going forward?

In the meantime, lest there be any doubt in your mind, know this . . .

• there has never been a day since you were born when we haven’t loved you,

• a moment that has passed when we haven’t thought of you, or

• a time that we wanted anything but what was best for you –

• today is no exception, nor will tomorrow be.

Because, while we may not always be great at showing, let alone expressing it, we love you and we value you beyond measure.

Your Dad

Don Blackwell is a trial attorney is Miami and the dad of two now adult children. He is also a tireless mental health advocate within and outside the legal profession. Don is the author of “Dear Ashley ...” - A Father's Reflections and Letters to His Daughter on Life, Love and Hope (2013), and, more recently, of Retune Your Heart – Finding the ‘”Extra” in the Ordinariness of Everyday Life, The Playbook of Your Childhood Heart (2025), and hashtag#todolistfridays - Small Weekly Steps to Building a Big-Hearted Life (2026). 

Out of Love for My Father

With Father’s Day being this past Sunday, I’m still in celebration mode for you dads! I love that we have this day every year to focus on telling you how grateful we are for you. 

This leads me to share a funny story from this past week since it celebrates my dad in a unique way. 

I was going through some old files and came across a flimsy piece of notebook paper that’s now worn, tattered and faded. And on it I immediately recognized my handwriting from back when I was about 12 or 13 years old. But this, in and of itself, isn’t the reason I’m sharing this story with you. 

This piece of paper is significant because it’s actually a poem I wrote as a young girl about my dad. And I have literally remembered the first stanza all these years! I can’t believe this sacred piece of memorabilia somehow miraculously emerged from the archives.

I can still picture where I was standing when I wrote these words.

I was positioned next to the ironing board in our basement as the steam from the iron was shooting up onto my face, adding to my irritation at the job I was tasked to do. I was sweating bullets on that hot summer day and was not happy about any of it. It was then that this hilarious expose emerged from within me. 

Somehow it helped to decrease my misery by putting my feelings and thoughts to paper!

That said, I share this with you today as a reminder, dads, that we as your daughters may not always enjoy following your directives or investing in the tasks required to keep our households running, but in the end we do what we do out of love for you. So I’m sharing my poem with you to encourage you in your fathering role and to remind you how much you’re loved, even when we don’t always respond in the best of ways and push back or complain.

The title of my poem is: Out of Love for My Father.

It’s dumb to iron hankies,
especially on hot days.
Then you stick it in your pocket
and it’s wrinkled anyways!
…even though it is a bother, I do it out of love for my father!

I don’t like to fold your t-shirts
‘cause I always do it wrong.
I fold them every which way
and I stretch them tall and long!
…even though it is a bother, I do it out of love for my father!

I hate to practice my piano
on each school day,
but I know that it’s my duty
to keep quiet and obey!
…even though it is a bother, I do it out of love for my father!

Sometimes I feel it’s unfair
the age you say that I’m to date,
but in your mind it’s very clear,
in mine, it’s a debate!
…even though it is a bother, I do it out of love for my father!

I get tired when running errands
to the store or to the mart,
but I need this to develop
what we call a “servant’s heart.”
…even though it is a bother, I do it out of love for my father!

So there it is: the simple thoughts of an adolescent daughter who had a bad attitude on a random summer day, yet in the end, she loved her dad. 

Thanks for walking with me down memory lane today! I trust my poem brought a smile to your face.

Finding Hope When You Just Want Father’s Day to Be Over

If this blog title intrigues you, it may be because Father’s Day is one of the hardest days of the year for you. According to research that was commissioned by the National Center for Fathering in cooperation with Gallup polling, the majority of Americans are right there with you. In fact, over half of them agreed with this statement:

“Most adults have unresolved issues with their fathers."

I want to be a catalyst in facilitating healing for those with unresolved father issues so we can be healthier people regardless of the hand we were dealt.

As I’ve pondered what some of your histories could be that make today extra hard, here are some examples that come to mind. Maybe your story has played out in some way like this:

• Your father wasn’t in the picture much—or at all—and like the approximately 18.3 million fatherless kids in America, this day reminds you of what you didn’t (or still don’t) have.

• Your dad preferred one of your siblings over you, and the result of that favoritism is that you’ve lacked confidence your whole life, never believing you measure up no matter how hard you try.

• Your parents divorced and you felt caught in the middle, feeling the pull to ally with your mom because you believed she needed you more… but now you realize what you didn’t get and you’re angry that you lost time with your dad that you’ll never get back.

• Your dad remarried after the divorce and chose his new family over you, leaving a hole in your heart that has never really healed no matter how much therapy you’ve done.

• Your father was there but not there. He provided for you and came home after work but didn’t really tune into you or communicate that you had value to him.

• Your dad has had his own unhealed issues with his father, and though he did the best he could, you keep coming back to the fact that there have been significant deficits in your relationship as a result of his lack of pursuing a closer relationship with you.

• You’re a dad yourself and when your kids were born you purposed to be the dad you never had, but your personal choices—i.e. an addiction, affair, career, hobbies, or even ministry—came before them and now you’re reaping the painful consequences of those decisions.

• You know God is a loving and good Father, but struggle to really believe it because your earthly father didn’t model those qualities to you.

• Your dad has died and you loved him more than your words can convey, and as you see everyone else celebrating their fathers today, your heart aches because you didn’t have enough time with yours.

As discouraging as these examples may be, I share them to validate the wounds that many of you are carrying, wounds that are often unseen and unacknowledged, wounds that are extra tender on this holiday.

Yet let’s not stay there.

Let’s be people who pursue healing and wholeness so we don’t pass the unhealed pain of our past on to the next generation.

As a way to counter heaviness you may be feeling today, I want to share a powerful truth I’ve learned about HOPE.

A couple of years ago I was preparing to speak at a national conference on hope-filled fathering and I was reading studies on the impact of hope in motivating us to action. I was also conducting my own qualitative research on how dads gain or lose hope based on their current relationships with their daughters. 

One night I got a download for a way to understand HOPE in a fresh way. Here’s the acrostic that made the concept of HOPE come alive for me:

H—Heavenward

O—Orientation

P—Powers

E—Everything

What this means to me is that even when there’s been relational pain (directed horizontally from human to human), we can find hope by looking through a different lens, a heavenward one (a vertically-directed position). This orientation to connect with our Heavenly Father is the pathway for healing even if our earthly relationships with our dads are still broken.

If Father's Day is really hard for you, rest assured that you’re not alone and there are others who are struggling in similar ways. You can take comfort in knowing that another Father is watching over you, a Dad who has written your name on the palm of His hand (Isaiah 49:16). 

I want to leave you with one of my favorite verses. I pray this fills you with HOPE today so that no matter where you’re at on this Father’s Day, you’ll be uplifted and encouraged:

May the God of HOPE fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him (this is the key to a heavenward orientation) so you may overflow with HOPE by the power of the Holy Spirit. 
(Romans 15:13)

[You may have read a blog I wrote titled, “How to Survive Father’s Day When You Hate the Day,” but if not, I encourage you to read it here. In it I share a four-step process called HEAL to begin working through your father wounds towards healing and breakthrough. Be encouraged that it’s possible to move to forgiveness, then release and freedom. 

And if you need extra support, I offer online coaching and would be happy to walk alongside you on your healing journey.]

Closing the Dream Gap

Over the past few years a new term has emerged called the ‘Dream Gap.’ You may have already heard of it, but for me this is something I just learned about recently. And because it’s rocking my world, I wanted to bring it to your attention, Dads.

Let’s start with the historical context:

In 2017 researchers from NYU, Princeton, and the University of Illinois collaborated to present findings from their ground-breaking research, revealing that by the age of five, girls quit dreaming and stop believing they can be anything they want to be or do anything they set their minds to. By contrast, boys in this age range are not experiencing the same things.

They also reported that by the age of six, girls stop associating brilliance with their gender and start avoiding activities that require what they perceive to be high levels of intelligence. Further, the more heart-breaking reality is that when these gender stereotypes regarding a lack of intellectual ability in females take root early, they are believed to have life-long negative impacts on their interests, choices, and career paths.

In other words, when girls decline involvement in activities they believe are reserved only for those who are “really, really smart,” they tend to make choices not to engage in activities where they might have otherwise flourished had they tried. And these restrictive beliefs block young girls and women from pursuing their aspirations, which researchers believe correlates to women being underrepresented in fields that value genius, such as philosophy or physics.

One Mom’s Story:

In her blog, “Life with my Littles,” Chelsea Johnson shares her personal story around this theme: 

“I first heard about the Dream Gap back in May at Barbie headquarters, and it hit me hard. My daughter just turned four, and right now, she is such a bright, shining light in our family. She loves imagining who she can become and her dream is to become a worker (a construction worker) and a veterinarian (we’re lucky Barbie makes a vet doll and a builder doll!). One day she wants to build her own veterinary clinic. To her, anything is possible, and I want her to always believe that she can be or do anything she wants.

When I heard about the Dream Gap and what research has shown, I was terrified for her. I have friends with daughters between five and seven, and they’ve casually said things to me that have shown me that this gap is real in their daughter’s lives. I don’t want my daughter, or any other girl, to doubt her potential or to think that just because she’s a girl she can’t become who she wants to. Even if you don’t have a daughter, I’m sure you can relate to this feeling.”

Yes, I can relate to this feeling because this is my story:

Sometimes people assume that I’m intelligent simply because I have letters after my name. Yet regardless of what people tell me, here is my standard response every single time someone makes a comment about my academic accomplishments: “I’m not that smart…I just work hard.”

Until reading this research, I hadn’t considered that I’m actually perfectly positioned inside this stereotypical norm group, mostly because of my own self-deprecating beliefs. Even more, I assumed that I would be convinced I was smart enough after graduating with my doctorate, which included doing my own research, then writing and defending my dissertation.

But unfortunately, I wouldn’t say that there has been a positive shift in this area in the last decade. So here I am as an educated woman who still doesn’t fully believe that I have enough intellect to be considered truly intelligent.

The crazy thing is that I don’t even know what enough would look like if I had it. I just know that I don’t believe I have as much as I possibly could have.

Did you notice how many times I used the word enough? I assure you that I don’t believe I’m dumb. In fact, I know I have smarts. It’s more that I don’t think I’m smart enough.

You’re probably a step ahead of me and can see that this statement elicits a follow-up question: Smart enough for what or smart enough in comparison to whom? Do you see how relative all of this is and how nebulous these concepts are? What does ‘enough’ even mean in practical terms?

I have an answer.

I was never as smart as Stephanie Weirson, a girl who was in my class from grade school through high school. And it seemed that every time we had a test, she finished long before I was even to the half way point. Solidifying her elevated position in my mind, she was always at the top of the leader board when our grades came out. So Ms. Weirson became my internalized standard against which I measured myself and she was always ahead of me because somehow I linked speed of responses to IQ. Yet now that I say it out loud, I realize how absurd that is!

I have honestly never said any of this out loud quite like this…until now. So here I am admitting that somewhere along the way I adopted a skewed “grid for smartness” and it has gone unchallenged and uncontested…until now.

I’m reluctant to admit this, but the reality is that I self-deprecate as much as the next woman even though, on the outside, no one would guess that I do.

As a result, I’ve been believing a lie that hasn’t been broken because it’s never been spoken.

Defining the ‘Dream Gap’ in more detail:

In response to the study I mentioned at the start of this blog, Mattel launched a global campaign just three months ago called the ‘Dream Gap Project.’ Their goal is to close the gap that stands between girls and their full potential through raising awareness of gender biases and stereotypes that are placed on them at a young age, reinforced primarily by the media and from subtle messages by adults. Thus, they are encouraging girls to counter their self-limiting beliefs by dreaming for more while reaching for the stars.

On their website, Mattel boldly states their motivation behind this initiative:

“The Dream Gap is a crisis not only because it robs girls of the ability to value themselves in an essential context. Dreaming is the key to a future in which more than 80 percent of jobs are STEM-related [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math], and so we are all robbed. Simply put, dreaming, if we define that term as imagining new possibilities, exploring new worlds and thinking new thoughts, is what makes innovation and new breakthroughs possible.”

In this short video, a group of adorable young girls collectively use their voices to define the ‘Dream Gap’ in this way:

“Starting at age five, girls stop believing they can be presidents, scientists, astronauts, big thinkers, engineers, CEOs, and the list goes on. Why? Because what else are we going to believe when we are three times less likely to be given a science-related toy…and when our parents are twice as likely to Google ‘Is my son gifted?’ than ‘Is my daughter gifted?’ That’s not cool.”

Keeping true to their word to increase purposeful dreaming in girls through imaginative play, Mattel created Luciana Vega for their 2018 Girl of the Year doll, whom they describe as “a creative, confident 11-year old girl and aspiring astronaut who dreams of being the first person to go to Mars!”

I am excited that empowered role models are being shown to young girls that invite them to think outside of a stereotypical box as they hold dolls that embody intelligence and strength. This sentiment is reinforced by the little girls in the above-mentioned video as they say:

“We need to see brilliant women being brilliant. And see how they got to where they there. To imagine ourselves doing what they do. But we can’t do it alone. Mom, dads, brothers, bosses, we need all of you to help. We need to close the dream gap. It’s up to all of us.”

How a dad can help close the ‘Dream Gap’:

You may feel like there’s very little you can do to override the powerful undertow of our cultural tide that comes against your daughter with negative messages that attack the very qualities that you seek to see displayed in her. You may believe your efforts are futile to successfully celebrate your daughter’s creativity, brilliance, optimism, vision, and passion when she isn’t always met with the same enthusiasm and support outside of your home.

As a dad you have the privilege of standing in the gap for your daughter so she can hear your affirming voice above the rest. You get to speak life into her spirit and applaud her uniqueness by supporting her dreams and goals (even if they’re different than the dreams and goals you have for her.)

This is where we as girls and women need YOU, our dads, to:

1. Challenge us to face our fears

2. Let us know that it’s okay to be afraid through this process of honing our vision

3. Remind us that in your eyes we’re a winner when we give our best, even if we don’t win first prize

4. Believe that we’re enough when we don’t believe that we are

5. Run alongside us while we’re learning to dream beyond our natural limitations

6. Coach us with wisdom about the fact that character is proven when we get back up after we fall

7. Cheer us on with your unwavering support as you speak life-breathing words into us

8. Repeat the truth that success is in the journey, not just in the outcome

9. Tell us that you’re proud of us and love us no matter what

And, Dad, if you want one more idea to help your daughter close the dream gap, I encourage you to invite her to write a list of TEN OUTRAGEOUS THINGS SHE WISHES SHE HAD THE NERVE TO DO. Then have her date and sign it.

A decade ago I wrote out my list of ten outrageous things and one of them was “to write a book.” It seemed like a crazy impossibility at the time, but then in 2014 my first book was released. So I speak from personal experience when I say: Dream it and do it!

For extra dad points, you can create your own list, modeling to your daughter that you’re never too old to set new goals and think forward in expanding normal limits. This list can also serve as a prayer guide as you agree with God to support your daughter to live beyond her natural limits as she is released into his supernatural calling on her life!

Dad, you can help to close the dream gap today by standing in the gap with your daughter.

Dad, Your Presence IS the Present

Hi Dad…

With the Christmas season in full throttle, I’m guessing you’re like me in running a bit too much, spending a bit too much, eating a bit too much, and finding it challenging to keep up with all the “too muchness” that tends to accompany this season. Yet even with our intended desire to focus on Jesus being the “reason for the season” and enjoying all the merriment, we can still feel overwhelmed with all the demands and needs.

As a dad, you probably have even more expectations of yourself in this season----like you need to keep everyone happy and meet all the needs and cover all the bases. Yet the reality is this is more than anyone can possibly be.

So here’s my way of countering all of the unrealistic expectations you might be putting on yourself by making today’s blog short and straight forward.

Here’s my best suggestion for you as a dad this month: Stay present.

Yes, your presence is the best present you can give your daughter this Christmas season.

To make sure this doesn’t sound like a quick fix or pat answer, here’s what this means in real time:

1. Slow down. Make a decision to stop what you’re doing to notice what’s happening with your daughter when she’s with you. Your ability to stay calm and grounded (even if she’s not) is a gift beyond any tangible present you could give her. This is your gift to her!

2. Eye contact. By looking at your daughter in her eyes as she communicates with you, you’re giving her the message that she’s more important than words can say. This is your gift to her!

3. Listen intentionally. You’ve heard me say this before yet it bears repeating: When you listen twice as much as you talk (The “Two Ears: One Mouth” Principle), your daughter will internalize your validation of her and believe she’s worthy of your time and attention. This is your gift to her!

4. Ask questions. As you ask your daughter how you can help her or what she needs from you, you’re attending to her heart in that very minute. She will feel your love and care. This is your gift to her!

5. Hug often. Safe physical touch is often just what she needs when she’s overwhelmed. So when you reach out to your daughter to wipe her tears, hold her hand, and hug her, she will walk away knowing she’s not alone and you’re in her corner. This is your gift to her!

All this to say, never underestimate the profound power that your presence has when you show up in real time for your daughter.

Remember, YOU are the gift that keeps on giving as you give YOUR presence as THE present this year.