Archive feature, first published 2018-01-06.
Who drew these fathers and daughters?
These drawings are the work of Snezhana Soosh, a Ukrainian illustrator who signs her pictures simply "Soosh" and posts them on Instagram as @vskafandre. Her series about dads and their little girls went viral around 2016, reportedly first through the Russian-language site AdMe.ru and then across English-language blogs and social feeds, and it is still one of her best-known sets.
Every picture follows the same quiet formula. A huge, soft father figure shares an ordinary moment with a very small daughter: a plait, a pretend tea party, a dance, a goodbye. The difference in size carries most of the feeling. Someone big enough to fill a doorway is shown kneeling, folding himself up and fitting into a child's world.
People looking up this series usually want two things: to see all of the drawings together, and to know who made them so they can share them with proper credit. Both are here, with a short note on each illustration and, further down, a look at what research actually says about involved fathers. There are many kinds of love worth drawing, from romantic partnerships to close friendships; Soosh chose the one between a parent and a small child.
Protection, comfort and a view from the top
The guardian against monsters
The set opens with the oldest part of the job: standing between a child and whatever scares her. Soosh puts a schoolyard bully and the monster under the bed in the same idea, which is how young children often feel them, as equally real. The father's size, so often a joke in cartoons, becomes pure reassurance.
Learning to braid
Plaiting hair is a skill plenty of men never needed until a daughter asked for it. The drawing celebrates the patient, slightly clumsy attempt rather than a perfect result. Picking up a fiddly task only because it matters to someone you love is a very practical kind of affection.
On top of the world
Being lifted up high by a parent is one of the most common early childhood memories: for a moment, the smallest person in the room becomes the tallest. Soosh uses height literally here and lets the girl see over everything. For a very different story about a father and a toy, see this short film about a dad, a doll and a rear-view mirror.
A warm place to rest
Some of the strongest pictures in the series have almost no action. The father is simply a large, warm shape a child can curl up against. Attachment researchers such as Mary Ainsworth used the term "secure base" for this: a trusted adult a child returns to before setting off to explore again.
Making himself small
Get down to a child's eye level is advice given to new parents and teachers everywhere, and this image turns it into a gentle visual gag. The giant shrinks, crouches or squeezes in so the two can meet in the middle. It also sums up the method of the whole series: strength shown through restraint.
Tea parties, favourite things and hard goodbyes
Time for the tea party
Pretend tea parties come with tiny cups, invisible drinks and rules invented on the spot. The father here plays along properly, even though the caption admits he is a busy man. Child-development specialists often point out that letting a child lead a game like this builds language, imagination and confidence.
Knowing what she loves
Remembering a child's favourite snack, story or game is a sign of attention paid day after day. It sounds small, yet children notice who knows these details. The drawing treats that knowledge as a gift in its own right.
The hardest part: letting go
This is the picture many readers find the most bittersweet. Goodbyes at a nursery door, a school gate or the end of a visit can be hard on both sides, and Soosh lets the adult's reluctance show as clearly as the child's. It hints at the much bigger letting go that comes as daughters grow up.
Play, lessons, big ideas and a dance
Playing together
What matters in this scene is not which game they chose but that both are fully in it. Shared play is where many children first practise taking turns, losing gracefully and making up stories. A parent who joins in, instead of watching from the sofa, sends a clear message about whose company he enjoys.
Learning from Dad
Tying shoelaces, riding a bike, catching a ball: much of childhood learning arrives through someone patient enough to show it twice, or ten times. The drawing frames teaching as closeness, with the two figures working side by side. Skills learned this way often stay tied to the memory of the person who taught them.
The best ideas
Every family has a parent known for unexpected plans: the blanket fort, the cardboard rocket, the detour that turns an errand into an adventure. Soosh gives the father the role of chief inventor. The joke underneath is that grown-ups get to be children again too.
Help with everything
Scraped knees, broken toys and first disappointments look small to adults and enormous to a child. This picture shows the father taking those troubles seriously. Feeling that a problem is shared is often more comforting than having it solved.
Dancing
A father dancing with his daughter is a familiar family ritual, whether it happens at a wedding, a birthday or in the kitchen. Size difference becomes part of the charm again. Few things in the set look as purely joyful.
A lifetime of care
The last drawing steps back from single moments to the whole arc of a relationship. It closes the series on the idea that care is not one big gesture but years of small ones. That is why the set works as a gift for Father's Day and as a reminder for new parents.
Do dads really act differently with daughters?
A popular claim says men simply "become sweeter" when they have a girl. Research gives a more careful picture. A small 2017 study led by Jennifer Mascaro at Emory University, published in Behavioral Neuroscience, recorded the everyday behaviour and speech of several dozen fathers of toddlers. Fathers of daughters were more attentively engaged, sang more and used more analytical language and more words about sadness and the body, while fathers of sons engaged in more rough-and-tumble play.
That finding concerns style, not how much a father loves his child, and the sample was small. It also does not mean sons need less tenderness. The broader evidence points the same way for boys and girls: a systematic review of long-term studies by Anna Sarkadi and colleagues in Acta Paediatrica (2008) linked active, regular involvement by fathers with better social and behavioural outcomes for children.
The practical takeaway matches Soosh's drawings. It is not grand declarations that count, but showing up for the small, repeated things: bedtime, play, homework, a hard goodbye.
Seeing and sharing more of Soosh's work
Soosh has drawn other series in the same gentle style, including couples and family life at home, and her Instagram account is the best place to see new work. If you share these pictures, credit the artist by name and link back to her page; illustrators rely on that visibility to find commissions.
The drawings show one imagined, very affectionate version of fatherhood. Not every family looks like this, and many children are raised lovingly by mothers, grandparents or other carers. The scenes still land with a wide audience because almost everyone recognises at least one of them from their own childhood.
Sources: Illustrations by Snezhana Soosh, Instagram @vskafandre; artist profile at The Calvert Journal; Mascaro et al., "Child gender influences paternal behavior, language, and brain function", Behavioral Neuroscience, 2017; Sarkadi et al., "Fathers' involvement and children's developmental outcomes", Acta Paediatrica, 2008; background on the secure base in attachment theory.
More from the archive:
- Frans Hofmeester’s Time-Lapse Portrait of His Daughter
- CARE’s Dear Daddy Film About Violence Against Women
- Stone House's Evolving Portrait of a Woman's Life
- Lauren Wade's Retouched Paintings Question Beauty Standards
- A Retouching Video Questions Advertising’s Beauty Standards
- Syrian Girl "Surrenders" In Front Of The Camera Mistaking It For A Gun!
Related reading: Soosh's Illustrations of Care and Comfort at Home.
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