What Atticus Finch Taught Me About Raising My Daughter

To Kill A Mockingbird is my favorite novel. My wife and I love it so much, we named our daughter after Harper Lee, the author. There's nothing special about Harper Lee, the person that made us name our daughter after her. Rather, it was what she created that inspired the name. To Kill A Mockingbird is a classic coming-of-age tale framed in the theme of childhood innocence. While the narrator is a matured Scout, the protagonist of this novel is her father, Atticus Finch.

Atticus is a man of character and grit. A lawyer, he is a principled man of moral fortitude, humble virtue, and consistency. To anyone who has read the book, you understand when I say that Atticus Finch reminds you of the best that your own dad had to offer. A hero of mine, I want to be Atticus Finch for my daughter. And that means teaching her principles of right vs. wrong, instilling humility in her heart, and being consistently commited to her education and well-being.

Rules based on principle are a defining point when examining Atticus' character. As a new father, I sat my wife down at the dinner table and laid out a plan for establishing principle-based guidelines and rules for Harper's well-being as well. Rather than declare what I wanted for our daughter and coerce my wife into accepting my desires, we both wrote down our ultimate goal for Harper in life, and then we compared what eachother wrote. Surprisingly, we both almost wrote the same thing. In a nutshell, we want to help our daughter to be a faithful servant of Jesus Christ; a self-aware, conscientious woman with high standards of morality, a heightened sense of love for her family, and a strong sense of self-worth and respect.

From there, we worked backwards. We listed guidelines and rules that we felt would aid in our efforts to guide our daughter to this "end point" that we envision for her. Surprisingly again, we agreed on the value of eachother's ideas and established a foundation for behavior for Harper, just like Atticus had for Scout and Gem, his two kids.

While some items on our list are generic for the culture that we live in, others seem to be quite unique in contemporary society. However, they are based on principles that lead to our goal for our daughter. Here are three that we agreed on: 

1. Our daughter will not be allowed to date until she is 16, and will not be allowed to have a boyfriend until she is in college.
• This rule is based on our desire for Harper to develop a sense of who she is, what she wants from life, and where she wants to go without the distraction and heartbreak of serious relationships.We want her to focus on developing friendships rather than a sense of ownership over or by another person.
2. Our daughter will be expected to come directly home after school, and she will be expected to outline her social plans to us before being allowed to leave home.
• In a time where stay-at-home moms are becoming a novelty, children, especially tweeners and teenagers, are being "trusted" to take care of themselves and decide what is right, wrong, safe, and dangerous while their brain is still in the process of developing the capability to make these decisions. Our focus is on our family, not a percieved sense of trust. Our expectation is that our daughter will touch base with one of us before she goes out to socialize. This will ensure that she is engaged in approved activities with reputable people at a location that we are aware of and can contact her if we need to do so.
3. Our daughter will not be allowed a personal television or computer in her bedroom.
• While pornography is ubiquitous on the internet, the principle at work here is developing interpersonal communication skills and avoiding e-bullying. Girls are social creatures. That is biological. "Socializing" over Facebook chat, IM, and e-mail is not. Emoticons fail to develop the ability to read nonverbal cues in others. Actual face time with physical human beings doesn't.

While Atticus Finch didn't have to worry about Scout or Gem learning about love in the back of a car, wondering where each child was when they failed to come home at curfew, or try to reason with an 8-year old girl who was plugged-in to her social circle, he did have expectations relevant to his era. They were based on principles. If you don't believe me, consider the parental philosophy of To Kill A Mockingbird's antagonist, Bob Ewell. In essence, he killed his children by failing to lead by principle. My daughter is my mockingbird. And Atticus always said, "Remember, it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."