I Wince Every Time I Get Called Girl Dad

A man raising a daughter isn’t an ordeal, it is a privilege.

I get to teach her how to swim, filet a fish, and tie the eight essential sailing knots (after I learn them myself).

By Rocky Rakovic

“Hey buddy, we just found out from the doctor that we’re going to have a little baby girl, just like you.”

Me: “Amazing!”

“Yeah, we’re going to be Girl Dads together!”

Me: “Aw fuck, don’t say things like that.”

I have been called some pretty terrible names — and a few I definitely deserved — but none of them make me wince quite like Girl Dad.

Girl Dad isn’t cute, it is cringe and scornful.

It insults girls and mothers, pedestals boys, and exalts fathers. The patriarchy remains undefeated! USA! USA!

And there’s not a whole lot of exertion needed to claim the accolade of Girl Dad. Remember my friend was calling himself one before becoming a father, to, I’m guessing, the delight of many. Girl Dad is a participation trophy.

How, in the Danny Tanner, did our generation let the term proliferate?

From doing my own research (searching on Google and clicking like three links) the term “Girl Dad” was coined by Kobe Bryant. Upon his and his daughter Gigi’s tragic passing, ESPN anchor Elle Duncan recounted a time when Bryant, who was on the cusp of having four daughters said, “Girls are amazing…. I would have five more girls if I could. I’m a girl dad.”

Kobe just was a natural father to his girls. While basketball stars like Lebron James want to copyright marketable terms like Taco Tuesday (which is in no fucking way his creation), Bryant solely shared that term in a private setting, he didn’t try to make it part of his very public persona. So first off, to be a true girl dad, it is not something you advertise.

Speaking of advertising, when you type “girl dad” into Google the top autofill options are:

girl dad hat

girl dad shirt

I used to spend a lot of my time in bars, now being a dad, happy hour coincides with peak playground time. The lifestyle shift means I might as well make friends with other caretakers tethered to the teeter totters. I look for the ones wearing some sort of sports team apparel (“Do you think the Mets will land Juan Soto? Also does your child bite?”), non-child hoverers (it is hard to carry a convo when they run up the slide mid-sentence), and then there’s the group of moms almost certainly sipping wine from Stanley cups. The major red flags for me are the thousand-yard-starers (they’ve seen some shit — and probably some pee on their new couch), the kid-leashers, and any guy rocking Girl Dad gear. He’s not just “wearing the band’s T-shirt to the concert,” the dude thinks he’s the band we all came here to see.

Does the blame for the fashion faux pas land squarely on his shoulders? Even though he made the decision to put on that shirt, probably not. He’s a goober and it was likely a gift. I don’t have access to the demographic stats of those who purchase Girl Dad gear, but I would venture to say that almost half of Girl Dad shirts you see were purchased by the mother. Women buy 40% of the overall men’s clothing purchased in the U.S. Moms deserve all the adoration in the world and then some, and I’ll get to it, but some are fueling the Girl Dad problem plaguing our playgrounds.

While some have tried the other combos none of them have hit. Let’s quickly address them and why not use general societal stereotypes:

Boy Dad - Alike experience and interests

Girl Mom - Alike experience and interests

Boy Mom - Well, you are a mom, that’s your job

It is unbelievable in our current culture, where we strive for gender equality, that we glorify men for doing what we expect women to do.

The masculinity is toxic up in this piece.

Overall this is a 2/10 pony tail, apply the dad grading curve and we’re up to a 7.3/10.

As the father of a daughter, I have been the beneficiary of Girl Dadism. Early morning trip to the grocery store with the kid and I didn’t have the coffee to find a matching top and bottom? Female cashier, “Oh daddy dressed you this morning and I’m sure he tried real hard.” Her mom’s away on business and I send her to daycare with, is there such a thing as messy pigtails? “Cute. Don’t worry dad, we’ll fix it.” Having to remember her birthdate (was it in 2022 or….), or any other basic information about my daughter that my brain lost in favor of remembering the names of decent, but not great, 1990s baseball players like Gregg Jefferies, Ron Gant, etc., Me: “One moment, I have to text my wife.” “No problem!”

Now flip those all.

Imagine the front desk person witnessing a mother forgetting her child’s birthday.
Picture the daycare worker’s face if my wife handed off the kid with a messy pony.

And I saw it with my own eyes. My wife met up with me and our daughter on a morning I had dressed her in a clashing shirt and shorts combo, the disdainful glares from other mothers at the park toward my wife were some real Mean Girl Moms shit.

I am an involved co-parent but my wife is so much better at almost all of it than me. While my partner is special, if you are a dad, chances are the same is true for you. My wife has depths of emotional intelligence that I marvel at. My wife has a stronger wealth of caring, patience, and diplomacy that I didn’t know was possible in a human. Some may generalize that those are feminine traits, and we’re not going to get into that, but those people may think of the dad as the protector. Y’all, my wife is also the Secretary of Defense in the Rakovic household.

Yet men get flowers for helping to raise girls.

I wasn’t the one who lost some agency to my own body during pregnancy.
I wasn’t the one who had to carry the child for nine months.
I wasn’t the one who couldn’t drink for most of 2022 (that was the year!) — save a slipper of prosecco on occasion.
I wasn’t the one whose body changed.
I wasn’t the one who had to undergo a C-section during which so many internal organs were taken out and put on a table.
I just had to hold her hand.

I wasn’t the one who was spent from the procedure and the necessary drugs that I passed out shortly after giving birth.
I just was the one who got to hold the baby.

I wasn’t the one who had to recover for weeks, months, maybe still is recovering.
I’m not the real hero.

My girl’s mom is. All moms are.

At one of our first doctor visits with our then-infant, the doctor saw our long-ass list of questions for her and said, “I just want you to know that you are already good parents. I like to reassure people I see striving to be good parents that the only ones who aren’t good parents are the ones who don’t worry if they are being good parents.” While I am incredibly involved in the parenting of our child, taking the lead on as many aspects as I assume the co-pilot chair for, I think I’ll always feel like an imposter. I try to remember what that doctor said but like a mental ouroboros it eats itself. I will never drink from a #1 Dad mug.

I have so much to teach this little girl, including never order a seafood dish at a diner.

Alright, let’s talk about a boy (me: mentally 12, according to my driver’s license three times that) raising a girl. Boy Dad doesn’t come with decoration because fathers and sons can do man shit like fishing, playing catch, and smashing trucks together*¹. While a man having to sit at a tea party? Such sacrifice, let’s give him the key to the city!

I learned how to correctly wipe a baby girl, I’m working on the hair thing, and I’m ready to embrace what’s coming. Not because I’m a martyr but because I genuinely care about this little person and want to help them live their best life. Rewind back to the third date with my now-wife, I asked her to pick an activity and she was thrilled to bring me to the Macy’s Flower Show. Did I want to go? Fuck no on the surface level, but I didn’t let on so I could share one of her favorite experiences. And I did it without printing a shirt that reads Girl Boyfriend.

Fuck you participation trophy Girl Dad shirts.

I am excited for my daughter to paint my nails, want to talk to me about Judy Blume books, and need me to sing the male parts of “A Whole New World” into a hairbrush. But I am also going to teach her how to change a tire, beat a Cover 2 defense, and to never get involved in a land war in Asia.

A man raising a daughter isn’t an ordeal, it is a privilege.

Together, for the first time for both of us, we will navigate the impossibilities of womanhood. Or if one day she feels her identity is different, we’ll handle that. I’ll make sure she can be anything she wants to be — be it the girliest girl who ever girled or a professional truck smasher. The only thing I refuse to let her become is a Girl Dad.

Rocky Rakovic has been an editor at Time Out, Inked, and Playboy (when people definitely read it for the articles).

1. *My daughter picks out her own toys and we have yet to see her want to play with dolls, but she is very into trains, drawing snakes (~glorified lines), and smashing trucks together.