I'll say anything

Wikipedia doesn't give any backstory for the scene linked below with Susan and it's been a while since I've seen the movie, but my recollection is that Susan is the youngest child of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson) who is a widower. So her mother died while she was very young, she's traumatized and her father has never heard her speak.

He abstains from voting for revolutionary war against Great Britain because he has children and doesn't intend to join the military due to being a father. He changes his mind after the war comes to his doorstep and his house is burned down and one of his underaged sons is murdered by a British officer.

So ultimately there's no way to prevent the war from impacting his family, thus he takes up the role of soldier for the second time -- something he strongly wished to avoid -- and leaves his younger children in the care of their Aunt Charlotte, his late wife's sister.

While he is away at war to try to keep his enlisted eldest son Gabriel alive and do his best to safeguard his remaining children, Susan finally begins speaking though she's a late talker. But she won't speak to him when he comes to visit.

And when it's time for him to leave again, he asks her for just one word and she pulls away from him while glaring at him and clearly blaming him for whatever is eating her, then ultimately runs after him and begs him not to go in this clip.

My father was a soldier and he served in Vietnam when I was a toddler. I never felt close to him and spent my childhood feeling like he clearly loved my older sister but didn't really love me, so I really can identify with this relatively minor subplot in the movie.

I spent my childhood hearing tales of how my parents got married because my mom got pregnant with my sister and father had two previous wives and no children and desperately wanted kids and when she was little and got stranded due to being unable to climb a snowy hill and ended up chilled, he rescued her and then personally warmed her feet under his armpits.

And the stories about me and my father were about him returning from Vietnam, me not knowing him and telling him to get his head off my pillow because I had been sleeping in his place in my mom's bed and when he dutifully complied and moved over, I told him to get his head off my mother's pillow.

And I think my parents meant well but I wish they had told me other stories. I remember my father holding me while we were on a ship returning to the US from Germany and me seeing a whale while he held me and being overwhelmed and impressed with how huge the whale and the ocean were. 

But the only story I got told about that cruise ship was me adamantly insisting on peeing standing up like my older brother and me sleeping in my brother's T-shirts and refusing girly sleepwear. Which is probably me latching onto my brother while traveling the way I later latched onto my sister for the only family vacation we ever took.

I apparently never liked traveling.

So it's not that there weren't sweet father-daughter moments to talk about, but for whatever reason, the ones that got repeated a great deal painted a picture of my father doting on my sister but he and I failing to click or something like that.

Men are expected to fulfill certain duties like military service and it's not as cut and dried as "This conflicts with fatherhood." If war comes to your country, serving in the military may be the best thing you can do to try to protect your children and other relatives, like Benjamin Martin ultimately concludes though he initially was adamant he would not serve again.

And those duties and obligations typically come at a personal cost that isn't usually born by women.

The time I spent on the overwhelmingly male forum Hacker News made me aware that higher male incomes are associated with putting in more hours than women typically put in for their careers and that means less time for a personal life and luxuries like spending time with their children which most of the world takes for granted women will do a lot of as their adult parental obligation and societal obligation.

Women tend to look at male salaries with envy and to decry the discrepancy between male income and female income as sexism and frame arguments as if that discrepancy is entirely about prejudice and there's no other underlying factors with legitimate consequences in that regard.

I very much wanted to remain home with my children when they were little. My parents raised me with the idea that children need a full-time parent or caregiver until at least age five and someone should make that a priority if at all possible. 

My father learned to change diapers as a grandfather and he was the primary caregiver for my nephew when my brother got divorced and moved home with an infant son he had custody of. So my parents were unusually unsexist and ungendered in their expectation that family puts care of children above other things.

But in a young couple, typically it's just easier to have mom be home and dad be the primary breadwinner. That's just pragmatic and places priority on the welfare of the children.

I don't really see the world grappling with questions about things like "How do we look out for the children while women enter the paid workforce?" and "How do we resolve conflicts of interest that don't exist if you assume Mom stays home and dad goes to work or off to war?"

I don't see enough discussion about getting women's income up to an adequate level without gutting society of critical social connections and emotional development and basics like nutrition. I don't see enough articles about how men get pressured to work long hours and then lambasted for not being there in person for the children.

The movie Hook touches on that last point some but it's an uncommon theme and trends towards blaming the father as if he isn't in a double bind.

I don't expect to see significant "progress" on so-called women's rights unless and until society starts more neutrally addressing such questions.