How and why I raised athletic daughters

Picking up where I left off in yesterday's e-mail, turning my three daughters into athletes was really important to me because of two studies I read long ago...

The first asked young girls a simple yet fundamental question: "Do you like yourself?" Eighty percent of 12-year-old girls said yes. But only two years later, this number crashed to 30%, I suspect due to advertising, social pressure to be super skinny, and an idealized version of beauty.

The other study revealed that girls who played varsity sports in high school fared far better than those who didn't: They got better grades, had higher self-esteem, and were far less likely to get into various types of trouble like eating disorders, self-harm, drug use, and promiscuity.

During the "Daddy Olympics" that I ran in Central Park with my daughters every weekend, I tried to build their courage, resilience, coordination, and strength.

At every playground, I put them in my lap and we went down the tallest slides, swung on the highest swings, and rode the biggest horses on the merry-go-round. Then, at a ridiculously young age, I made them do it by themselves.

I remember one time when my middle daughter, Emily, was maybe 18 months old...

We went to the Central Park merry-go-round, but rather than sitting on the big horse with her, I plunked her on, wrapped the big leather belt twice around her tiny waist, and stood next to her. As the ride started to move and the horse began to go up and down, she was scared and started crying and clutching for me. But I put her hands back on the pole and told her to hang on. She howled – but soon saw that she could do it by herself. The next time, she was happy to ride alone while I rode the horse next to her.

My wife Susan took her riding on a real horse when we visited my parents in Ethiopia:

Another one of my favorite games was climbing with my little girls to the top of the slide, but then putting them on it by themselves, with me standing on the ladder behind them. The first time, they were super scared and wanted to climb back down, but I wouldn't let them and told them that if they didn't go on their own, I was going to push them. They knew I wasn't kidding, so down they went.

They quickly realized that they could do all of these things by themselves – and it was fun!

Here's my youngest, Katharine, learning to water ski:

And balancing on my shoulders (in the pool, so that she wouldn't get hurt if she fell):

Lastly, our favorite game was when I would toss or spin them – here are my three favorite "flying girl" pictures of Alison, Emily, and Katharine:

Of course, there were plenty of falls and scraped knees, but when they came crying to me, I wouldn't coddle them. One time Emily came crying to me with a boo-boo on her finger. I examined it and, seeing that it wasn't serious, announced in a loud voice, "Alison, get a knife!" And, as all of the other parents gasped, I continued, "We're going to amputate!" I started sawing at Emily's finger with my hand. She started giggling and was soon back to playing.

Another time, as she was pushing a little stroller, she hit a hose and fell on top of it. She probably expected me to rush over and help her up, but I could see she wasn't hurt and was perfectly capable of getting up without help, so I told her to do so. She wasn't very happy about what I'm sure she viewed as my gross dereliction of my fatherly duties and started to cry, so I whipped out my camera to take a picture, which caused her to cry harder:

While this may strike some as mean, I was teaching independence and resilience. My message has always been clear and consistent: "I love you and will always be there for you if you really need it, but if you have a problem, your first instinct should be to fix it yourself rather than crying, having a pity party, and running to mommy and daddy."

I'm proud to say that our girls – now 27, 24, and 21 – all played multiple varsity sports, navigated their teenage years well, and are thriving!

Best regards,

Whitney

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