The big dance

Robert Vaughn, worried that being away from home so much -- he works about 80 hours a week -- is causing him and his only daughter to slip away from each other, invited her to a dance.

"I wasn't sure how she would react," confided Vaughn, a 38-year-old Detroiter. Their conversations had become short and unproductive. He felt out of touch. Even when he picked her up from school, she'd sit in the back seat of the car, not up front with him.

So he was relieved when Kyra Flowers, 13, said yes to the formal event. She got a new dress, a pretty blue gown; he wore a matching blue tie with his black suit.

Toward the end of the evening, Kyra smiled and told her father he was an "OK" dancer. Later, she said the dance made her feel special.

Setting a good example

It is so difficult, the relationship between a father and a daughter.

How does he provide and protect while allowing her to grow and explore and become her own woman? How does he make sure she is listening when he tells her that she needs to treat her mind and her body with respect and not fall for guys who do otherwise?

Dads Club Inc., a Detroit group, says the first step to building a solid relationship is for men to spend time with their daughters and set a good example. Which is why the group hosted the First Annual City Wide Father/Daughter Dance last Saturday at the Renaissance Center in Detroit.

About 400 fathers and daughters, most under 14 and almost all African Americans, attended the gala. Some of the men were father figures, volunteers who escorted girls -- many of them fatherless -- from Barat House in Detroit, a residential treatment center for at-risk girls. "I didn't have a father in my life," said Corey Gilchrist, 27, of Detroit, explaining why he signed up to be an escort.

Together, they sipped pink punch out of plastic glasses, feasted on pasta and salmon and then cake for dessert before showing off their moves on the dance floor.

"We normally dance at home," said Joseph Kimbrough, 31, an engineer and part-time pastor from Wayne, as he mopped the sweat off his face between songs. Before he could catch his breath, his daughter, 10-year-old Jasmine Kimbrough, was bopping to the next song.

For the girls, the occasion was about getting dressed up -- the younger ones in white tights, patent-leather shoes and, in some cases, tiaras; the older girls in evening gowns and heels.

For the dads, it was about something more important than fashion -- though they looked handsome, too, and a few, including a man in a mint-green suit accompanied by a girl in a mint-green dress, coordinated their outfits with their daughters.

For the dads, it was about showing their girls how a gentleman treats a lady. How he holds doors, helps her with her chair.

It was about sharing an experience, a kind of first date, a rite of sorts -- before the girls grow beyond their fathers' reach, before hanging out with dad becomes too uncool.

"When we say father-daughter dance, we look at it as more than a dance," says Joe Coleman, of Detroit, Dads Club president and father of 11-year-old Taylor Coleman. "We want them to know, 'You are the highest level of a queen; if you see yourself as such, others will treat you as such.' "

'Time to step up'

That this dance took place in a city where about 55% of households with children are headed by single moms -- and where dads have a reputation for not being involved with their kids -- made it even more noteworthy.

"I know it's not every day a child can spend time with their father like I do," said Sherria Hamilton, 14, of Detroit, who was sitting at a bistro-style table with her dad, Sherwin Hamilton, 37, because her silver wedge-style shoes were killing her feet. "A lot of my friends don't even know their dads."

Coleman wants that to change. "For so long, the moms have done a fabulous job of raising the kids, both male and female. We realize as men we ... have a significant role," he said. "It's time to step up."

Added Fred Gilmore, a 32-year-old Detroiter who teaches special education: "Even though in today's society there are a lot of single-parent homes, predominantly moms and kids, there are men out there who care. ... Not only men, but black men. Black men are the ones who are looked upon as the deadbeats, as the ones who are not there, as having babies all over town. It's important to show a positive light."

My daughter "is not going to be able to say, 'Well, my daddy wasn't there.' She's not going to have the opportunity to say that."

He and his ex-wife have joint custody of their daughter, Taylor Gilmore, 6, who had a lavender evening bag and wore a lavender dress, lavender shoes, lavender ponytail holders and lavender gloves that went all the way up to her elbows.

Daddy still loves you

As the evening wore on, some of the dads carried their young daughters on the dance floor.

Others, including Robert Vaughn, who had taken the night off work -- without pay -- to attend the dance, stood nearby, holding purses and wraps and watching their daughters dance.

"They never get to see me anymore," Vaughn, who took the second job after his wife was diagnosed last year with multiple sclerosis, said of his children.

"I want to show my daughter that ... daddy still loves her."

A few days later, Vaughn picked his daughter up from school.

She sat up front with him.