I have a daughter on the way. She should be here in July. I’m looking for fictional inspiration. Every time I try to search for this I get To Kill a Mockingbird and a bunch of examples of fathers that “did their best” or are good “despite their shortcomings”. I get that a lot of people have complicated relationships with their dads, but I’ve read Fun Home, and I’m not looking to read stuff like that right now. I don’t want to be the kind of Dad that my kid only comes to appreciate later when I die and they go through my old letters or something.
Not required, but bonus points if
\+ The father is the protagonist
\+ The father is not stoic
\+ The daughter is very young
by ZephyrFireblood
4 Comments
I highly recommend the manga series Yotsuba&, if you can get your hands on it. The daughter is preschool age, adopted by a single dad. Incredibly wholesome and sweet.
The middle grade graphic novel Sheets trilogy by Brenna Thummler has one of my favorite dad and teacher characters. You meet him first as Marjorie’s goofy and kind teacher and swim coach, but his daughter Eliza is introduced in the second book, Delicates, where she becomes one of the main characters. Eliza’s dad has such wonderful scenes in both Delicates and Lights where he is clued in and connected when he communicates with his daughter.
No UNcomplicated relationships will really be shown bc a) those rarely exist in humans and b) they don’t tend to be written about. This is true of literary moms, too. But goodish dads in literature…
Mr. Bennett w Lizzie (NOT to Lydia tho)
Jean Valjean w Cosette
The dad figure from Anne of Green Gables
.
Less highly literary, “the last thing he told me” is sort of obliquely about a very good dad to a teen girl.
The dads in Celeste Ng’s novels are flawed humans but good fathers.
Generally I feel like if there is a perfect dad in a book, he’s died, not just to generate conflict but bc parents can only be perfect in memory. I (a grown woman) have WONDERFUL parents who worked hard at parenting and also being their daughter could be hard when I was young, bc being young is hard and being human is hard and they are also humans.
Oh and sad AF but I feel like Otto was a great dad to Ann, doing his best in the worst possible circumstances.