With my son I thought, this is someone I can play catch with, someone who will change my tires when I get older. But when both girls were born, there was a real sense of fatherly responsibility to take care of these new lives. Besides, with a sense of responsibility and protectiveness, dads can feel like a duck out of water at the thought of raising a daughter. Being males themselves, fathers have a more natural understanding of what a baby boy needs. But females, whether women or infants, can be a bit mysterious to men.
Some fathers can feel awkward or even left out as the mother-daughter bond develops.
Cutting the cord was more than just a medical procedure for me. There was a mystical side of it. I stood between her and her mother and cut her from her mother. In a real sense I said to my daughter, 'Okay kid, I'm separating you. It's you and me and her.