When my daughter Nia was 13, she announced that she was going to dye her hair orange. In the following split second, a volcano of emotions and objections exploded in my gut. If, at the last possible instant, I hadn’t bitten my tongue, here’s what I would have blurted out:

1. Oh no, you don’t! No daughter of mine is going to look like a freak or a punk!
2. What is wrong with you?
3. You’re so pretty; don’t mess it up.
4. For years I’ve been working so hard to instill in you that your appearance doesn’t matter as much as what’s inside. And this is how you repay me? First, you start wearing a little makeup (without telling me) and now you want to dye your hair? And dye it ORANGE?!?
5. I’m a failure as a father. You have completely caved in to seventh grade peer pressure.
6. How dare you dye your hair without asking my permission first?
7. What’s happening to my little girl?

Fortunately for me (and both of my daughters), another, louder voice caught my internal ear just before I opened my mouth to let her have it. That voice cried: Pick your battles!

I thought to myself, It’s only her hair. How much energy did my father and I waste arguing about the length of my hair at 13? What real difference does it make? At least she told me and didn’t just show up with an orange fait accompli.

And then, finally, my teeth freed my tongue and out came a sparkling, insightful response.

“Oh,” I said, “When?”

“We’re gonna do it tomorrow night after school.”

“Oh,” I said (repeating my eloquence while scrambling for what to say next), “What are you using?”

“Stuff from Walgreen’s. It washes out after 21 showers or something.”

“Oh,” I replied (Tip #1: Once you discover a good fathering phrase, keep using it), “Okay.”

I still wasn’t happy about the idea of orange hair, but decided not to raise a stink. I also decided not to be terrifically supportive—or even hang around the house—when the deed was done. The next day after school, though, my curiosity won out.

I went to the bathroom to watch as Nia sat on the edge on the tub with a plastic sheet draped over her shoulders. Her sister Mavis donned clear plastic gloves, squeezed some garish goo out of a tube and started working it into Nia’s wet hair. The whole scene looked a bit wild and ridiculous. Again I had to bite my tongue; this time to keep from giggling.

The girls were having fun, but also taking the task quite seriously. In addition, they kept their antennae up for objections or snide comments from Mom or Dad. Since it was their first time mounting such an elaborate home beauty salon, there were false starts and several “ Oops! Gotta try it again” moments. Soon, all four of us were giggling and I goofily stuck my head over to see if they’d put some dye in my thinning hair. That’s the moment when Mom snapped a photograph that I now have framed on my bookshelf.

In the years since, this photo has accompanied numerous media stories about my work and me. Magazine and newspapers choose it because it’s a funny, animated image. But it’s important to me because it captures a significant moment in my development as the father of daughters.

In 24 hours, I'd journeyed from wanting to angrily reject Nia’s decision to accepting—and even enjoying—her choice. Dyeing hair in the bathroom may not seem like a major turning point in anyone’s life, but in that minor moment, I discovered a major capacity to accept how Nia’s journey is different than mine—because she is a girl.

My daughters’ concern with their appearance was not as intense as many of their peers, but it was real and important to them. Even though I didn’t really understand why they cared so much about how they looked—and passionately wished that they would care not at all—I needed to accept that they cared in order to accept them.

Even better, while participating in the silly bathroom scene, I began to celebrate how my daughters and their journeys are their own, not mine. Freed from my initial, enraged knee-jerk reaction, I saw that Nia’s orange dye decision sprang less from peer pressure than from experimenting with who she wants to be. I was proud of how womanly the girls acted by doing all the dyeing themselves—and was also secretly happy when Nia’s dark brown hair so overpowered the orange dye that it required a little white lie to say, “ Oh, of course I can see it!”

Today I treasure this snapshot because it shows my girls’ independence, my faith in their judgment, and how much I enjoy being their father. I also treasure it because it reminds me how different it is to be a girl.

(This entry is an excerpt from my book Dads & Daughters: How to Inspire, Understand, and Support Your Daughter)

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