Dad Wrote Sweetest Letter To Daughter About Her Future Husband, I’m In Tears!

Dr. Kelly Flanagan is one of those parents we all look at and think, “this guy’s got it down.” The father of 3 is a brilliant psychologist whose writing revolve around themes of redemption, affirmation and relationship. Some time ago, Flanagan started writing letters to his daughter, “Cutie Pie.” The most recent letter to his young daughter was born out of a disturbing google search, that reminded him the importance of showing his daughter how she should be loved.

While the message was meant for his little girl, Flanagan realized it’s words held true for every woman feeling “of little worth” and every man that would take advantage of it. It’s a call to quality relationships and self-worth,  based on love and not desire.

Flanagan wrote:

Dear Cutie-Pie,

Recently, your mother and I were searching for an answer on Google. Halfway through entering the question, Google returned a list of the most popular searches in the world. Perched at the top of the list was “How to keep him interested.”

It startled me. I scanned several of the countless articles about how to be sexy and sexual, when to bring him a beer versus a sandwich, and the ways to make him feel smart and superior.

And I got angry.

Little One, it is not, has never been, and never will be your job to “keep him interested.”

Little One, your only task is to know deeply in your soul–in that unshakeable place that isn’t rattled by rejection and loss and ego–that you are worthy of interest. (If you can remember that everyone else is worthy of interest also, the battle of your life will be mostly won. But that is a letter for another day.)

If you can trust your worth in this way, you will be attractive in the most important sense of the word: you will attract a boy who is both capable of interest and who wants to spend his one life investing all of his interest in you.

Little One, I want to tell you about the boy who doesn’t need to be kept interested, because he knows you are interesting:

I don’t care if he puts his elbows on the dinner table–as long as he puts his eyes on the way your nose scrunches when you smile. And then can’t stop looking.

I don’t care if he can’t play a bit of golf with me–as long as he can play with the children you give him and revel in all the glorious and frustrating ways they are just like you.

I don’t care if he doesn’t follow his wallet–as long as he follows his heart and it always leads him back to you.

I don’t care if he is strong–as long as he gives you the space to exercise the strength that is in your heart.

I don’t care about the color of his skin–as long as he paints the canvas of your lives with brushstrokes of patience, and sacrifice, and vulnerability, and tenderness

In the end, Little One, if you stumble across a man like that and he and I have nothing else in common, we will have the most important thing in common: You.

Because in the end, Little One, the only thing you should have to do to “keep him interested” is to be you.

Your eternally interested guy,

Daddy.

We all deserve to be loved for who we are, and not for what others expect of us.  Spread that truth today.

See more from clinical psychologist and author, Dr. Kelly Flanagan, on his blog.