We throw around the word "traditional" like it means something. In truth, traditional shouldn’t apply to anything but the ways of the past and our memories of them. Traditions are lovely, especially when they’re kept alive in families who cherish their history. They have no place dictating our roles as individuals. Tradition, while sometimes based on a proven success rate, doesn’t necessarily dictate who we are anymore. Rather, what we are. Our roles are no longer labeled traditional, especially when it comes to certain kinds of jobs. There is no way we classify women scientists as traditional! Women have their own brand of traditional role: in the home. And men? There is no way a stay-at-home Dad is traditional.

But hey, if women can take the lead role of provider, why can’t men be the primary nurturing role? Maybe that isn’t the right terminology, but the point is the same. Maybe this is the point where I say how fortunate I am to have experienced something so far from traditional. Or maybe it’s the point where I say how fantastic my mother is for working long hours to provide for her family. In any case, this is where I bring up that my father was the stay-at-home parent. He passed this nontraditional role with flying colors, entrenching lessons and ideas into me that so many other young women would never learn because their fathers weren’t ever present in their lives like mine. So here’s a quick thank you to a man who proved his masculinity with a gentle hand, kind eyes and an offering of some of the best years of his life to child care.

It never struck me as strange growing up, having my father home instead of my mother. When I was years younger, the thing most notable about having him home versus her home was in how he made us wash our face using a washcloth, brush our teeth, say our prayers while we were doing this, and then he would read to us each. While that doesn’t sound like much, both my brother and I knew a difference in it. These differences evolved as my parents’ roles developed alongside my brother and me. Instead of my mother dropping my brother off at Boy Scouts, my father became a scout master. Instead of my mom carting me to my horseback riding lessons, my father learned how to teach and brought me instead.

Much of who I am developed from summers stuck in the front seat of my father’s beloved Dodge Dakota, stuffed between him and my brother as we went on summer school field trips to tidal pools and for ice cream. We learned discipline, autonomy and strong senses of selves under his guidance. It never struck me as strange whenever I saw his face in the crowd of a student performance or a recital. It never struck me as odd when I saw his truck come through the carpool line.

In a world where women are rapidly finding equality or some semblance of the thing in society, I think it is more important than ever for fathers to be teaching their daughters. It’s no secret that in our society women don’t always value themselves or see their abilities. Fortunately for me, this was never a problem—my father, the man who us girls see as our everlasting white knight, taught me that I was never alone, that I was never inferior, and I was always worth someone’s while.

We’re not all so lucky to get along with our parents the way I get along with mine, I know this. But what I also know is that our fathers teach us girls something that we might not learn without them. Regardless of the man my father might be, I have learned how to speak to, handle and exist around a member of the opposite sex. Never once has a man made me nervous because of his authority—no. My father stands with square shoulders and a gaze that makes other men uncomfortable in a way that they want to turn and run. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen. It might be some ironic part of his personality, I don’t know. His absolutism has taught me that without a doubt, where there is a will, there is a way.

There is something special about the way I grew up. The relationship I get to have with my father. It was him I looked to for advice about boys. It was he who picked me up from school when I was sick, lying in the nurse's office, just hoping for the tank-like sound of the exhaust of his Dakota to echo in from the parking lot. It was he who braided my hair in the mornings before school, and he who would have to mask his irritation when I came home with leaves in my unbraided, matted hair. It is he who sat beside me as I delivered my final speech of college. This isn’t to say my mother wasn’t ever around… no, that’s far from the truth. By working during the days, she gave me a gift that not everyone gets: their father.

When I cried, my tears were treated with kindness for as long as he deemed appropriate before I was encouraged to find my ground and stand up. When I was an irrational girl, he gave me space for mere moments before letting me know I was absurd (okay, I probably was). He taught me the burden-shedding lesson of how to let go, forgive and begin again. By having my father home, I learned about the world with a different perspective than a girl with only her mother. Than a girl with a stay at home mother. Than a girl in a traditional home.

See what I mean? No offense, Mom, but Dad does a better braid than you and I liked his meatloaf better than yours. There is no reason that traditional familial roles need to be honored, not when the alternative presents a new perspective that the world just might need. Having my father at home taught me to be a strong woman with self-respect and a different kind of feminine dignity. I wish that for the next generation of girls, too—and not just because my dad was pretty cool. But because I think we’re on to something.

Thanks, Dad.