Being Physical (Healthy Touch and Affection)
The incidence of sexual abuse and the objectification of girls
generates strong anger, revulsion and fear in a responsible
father. It is foolish and unproductive to ignore that fear and
anger. However, we do great harm if, for example, we let the
prevalence of sexual abuse make us afraid to touch our
daughters, or afraid of how our healthy physical affection
will be interpreted. If good touch is absent from our
relationships with our daughters, then we cut off part of our
humanity and our daughters’ humanity. We are tactile beings
who need physical expressions of affection, comfort,
reassurance and playfulness. Words are not enough to convey
the depth and importance of our love for our daughters. Yet
fear of being sexual--or perceived as being sexual—can stop a
father’s hug in its tracks.
As a father, I am consistently affectionate, but never sexual,
with my daughters. I take great comfort from hugs and enjoy
physical play with little kids – a wonderful legacy taught by
my father. Not every father relates to his or other children
this way; my experience is neither universal nor unique. But no
matter what our style of fathering, our kids need physical
acknowledgement of our love for them. That’s sometimes not
simple or easy to do.
What is good touch? Touch is good when it does the following
for its recipient:
- Comforts her
- Affirms her as a person
- Supports her
- Respects and is sensitive to her person and her boundaries
- Is given with her permission
- Is given freely, with no quid pro quo
- Helps her feel strong, lovable and able to delight in herself
- Is not sexual.
Good touch is not confined to fatherly hugs and kisses. Good
touch can happen when, together with our daughters, we
garden, play handball, do carpentry, take dance lessons,
train the dog, wrestle, shoot baskets, go for a walk, or do
any number of things. One great example of fathers' creative
good touch comes from a Philadelphia ballet school. The most
advanced class at the school was made up entirely of teen
girls. By this age, the few boys who'd taken lessons had
stopped and that left the advanced girls unable to learn an
essential skill of advanced ballet -- doing lifts and other
moves with a partner. The solution? Several of the girls'
fathers volunteered to come in and be lifters and partners in
pirouettes. They were unskilled, but still useful to the
daughters by literally providing physical support.
Still, it's not easy for fathers (or anyone else) to talk
about good touch/bad touch issues. It feels awkward, odd, and
even risky for me to write or say publicly that I am
physically affectionate with my daughters. Part of me feels
as if, by admitting that I touch my daughters, I’m confessing
to some crime I didn’t commit. Have you hesitated to touch
your daughter or other girls you love because of how they, or
other people, might interpret that touch? Most fathers feel
that the joy and comfort they get from hugging and kissing a
daughter must remain hidden and unacknowledged lest others be
suspicious or mortified.
We must cut through this thick cloud of suspicion if we want
to begin having healthy, useful conversations about healthy
and essential father-daughter touch. The true crime of
abusive touch rightly sparks loathing because it is so
deeply harmful. But we fathers need the courage to
acknowledge that abuse exists and that its existence can get
in the way of fathering a daughter in healthy, non-abusive
ways. We need to talk with each other and with our parenting
partners about how to provide our daughters with good
fatherly touch.
Adapted from
Dads and Daughters: How to Inspire, Understand, and
Support Your Daughter by Joe Kelly and used by permission