Book review: "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters" by Meg Meeker, M. D.
Meg Meeker is a medical doctor and pediatrician who has spent the last 20 years practicing pediatric and adolescent medicine and counseling teens and parents in America. Partly because of her experiences as a doctor and pediatrician she is convinced of the importance - the centrality in fact - of the relationship between girls and their fathers. Not just in terms of support and guidance but as protection for them from future harm, especially in relationships that become sexual, too much too soon.
Dr. Meeker has written a well-researched manual for fathers who want to find ways of re-connecting with their daughters in the teenage years or who need encouragement that their sense of protectiveness is not un-natural and stifling for their daughters but life-giving and healthy. Dr. Meeker demonstrates using personal experience and scientific data how a strong bond between father and daughter is the best protection against eating disorders, failure in school, unwed pregnancy and drug or alcohol abuse. It is also the best predictor of academic achievement, successful marriage and a satisfying emotional life.
Through the course of this easy-to-read but hard-hitting book, the author shows how strong fathers influence their daughters who take cues about their behaviour directly from them. It also contains useful advice about relating to girls as a father and about passing on your faith to them. Particularly important are the chapters and sections that deal with girls' sexual health and how to protect daughters against early sexual activity and the risks this entails.
Recounting trends she began to notice in her medical practice among teenagers and children, Dr. Meeker comments:
"Of the fifteen to eighteen million new cases of STDs that occur every year, two-thirds occur in kids under the age of twenty-five. This is not okay with me, and as a father it should not be okay with you...I saw the pressure to have sex rise among kids - all kinds...In the 1970s most kids - teenagers - were not sexually active. Today, most kids are." (101-103)
One of the most devastating consequences of this, according to Dr. Meeker, has been on girls' mental health - a fact that isn't often mentioned or reported:
"I noticed another trend in my practice. The early onset of sexual activity meant not only rising cases of STDs, but also meant that many of my young patients had had multiple sexual partners at young ages. And I saw something else: a rapidly increasing number of girls suffering from depression." (103)
Over time, Meeker found a correlation between girls who were sexually active at a young age and who were also depressed. So much so that she has"come to consider depression another sexually transmitted disease". In her medical practice she found herself meeting more and more girls "ravaged by depression and sexually transmitted diseases" while the culture at large continued to seduce girls into sexual activity through
"brilliant marketing programs" using sex to sell clothes, shampoo, CDs and even pencils (104).
What is striking about her presentation of what is now a known correlation between depression and early sexual activity is what comes next for fathers:
"The only person who can protect your daughter from the pimp culture of modern marketing is you...And the best news is: you are a far more effective protector of your daughter than any condom, any sex-ed teacher, any school nurse, and any doctor. That's what kids tell us every day. They want to hear from their parents. They want their parents to tell them what's right, what's wrong, and what they should do. If you want your daughter to refrain from being sexually active as a teenager, you need to tell her why and how." (113)
How different is this advice from an experienced clinician who deals every day with children and young people who talk to her about their sexual health from our government's recent insistence that parents do not give their teenage children moral guidance about sexual activity. Instead, our government advises 'being open' and taking children to 'family planning' centres to ensure they purchase condoms.
Dr. Meeker's timely and challenging advice is very important for fathers today. She has no illusions about how difficult being a father can be, nor about the culture in which our children are now growing up. But she offers new and experienced fathers fighting talk about the special relationship that fathers can have with their daughters. In particular, her book is a call to fathers to realise their potential to positively influence the outcomes of their daughters' lives - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Timely reading from a parent and doctor who understands why the stakes have never been higher in helping our children learn how to live with dignity and purpose in a world that seems to have forgotten the meaning of both.
Dr. Meeker is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a fellow of the National Advisory Board of The Medical Institute. She is a popular speaker on teen issues and is frequently heard on nationally syndicated radio and television programs in the USA including Dateline with Katie Couric. Dr. Meeker lives and works in Traverse City, Michigan, where she shares a medical practice with her husband, Walter. They have four children.