Create Account said:
Thanks, but I'm looking for distinctions. Christianity promotes the ideal, right? What role does a husband play that makes him distinct from a wife? Why can't the woman be the husband and vice/versa? Why can't the woman be the father instead of the mother?
Because, no matter how much people want to deny it, the brain of a male is biologically different than the brain of a female, and we process emotions differently.
As for directly what role to play, it is mostly affirmation. Make your daughter feel safe, valuable, important. How to do that is going to be different from person to person. But, a father figure can do this in a way that no one else can. The fact that a maturing female girl will seek out the affirmation and admiration of a male is just that, a fact, proven by science. There is a lot more to this than just cultural acceptance: there are millennia of hardwired tendencies, gallons of hormones and tons of subconscious processing that goes into it.
Believing that a male father figure can be easily replaced by something else, or is not important in the healthy emotional development of girls, is simply wishful thinking, and contrary to reams of psychological and sociological study on this topic.
Again, kids can be resilient, and parents are never, ever perfect, but, if you really want to prioritize your relationship with Christ first, your role as a father needs to take precedence over your desires to have other people consider you to be a girl.