How to Deal with Dad

Bittersweet lessons, tough love, dealing with expectations... a daughter's relationship with her dad can be complicated, just like mine was. Yet I have become who I am mostly because of him

- Marina Mahathir

I once mused on the idea of setting up an Eldest Daughters' Convention. Its purpose was to gather all first-born women to not only talk about that unique position where you are your parents' first experiment in child-rearing but also to discuss the many expectations heaped on your shoulders if you are a girl. One of the key breakout sessions, I thought, would be one on 'How to Deal with Dad.'

I am an eldest daughter as well as an eldest child. It may seem sexist to only organise a special conference for my brethren (well, sistren!), but I do think that eldest daughters have a unique status in the family-especially when it comes to our relationship with our fathers.

A lot of Asian fathers wish for a son as their firstborn. But when they get a daughter, they react in three ways: they could be disappointed and just hope the next one will be a boy; they could totally fall in love and spoil her like a princess, or they could decide not to fuss and treat this daughter the same as he would a son.

My father was the third type: he never thought I should be treated differently just because I was a girl. Of course, he was influenced by the woman he married, who was a medical doctor just like him. But I also think that he grew up thinking it was unfair that his beloved older sisters were never given the opportunity to study like his brothers and him. As a result, he brooked no slackness in our studies; nobody, neither daughters nor sons, were allowed red marks.