The good-enough father does not have to be perfect.  Rather, he has to be good enough as a father to help his daughter to become a woman who is reasonably self-confident, self-sufficient, and free of crippling self-doubt, and to feel at ease in the company of men.

Good parenting is sometimes the ability to "borrow" certain qualities from the opposite sex.  The good-enough father often identifies with the nurturing mother.  He is not obsessed with his masculinity; rather, he is at ease with his "feminine" side.

Since good-enough fathers are not insecure about their sexuality, they aren't preoccupied with dividing parenting tasks by sex.  They are involved with their babies from the start, smiling, holding, and talking to them more than fathers who characterize themselves as traditionally "masculine".

As his daughters get older, a good-enough father is authoritative without being authoritarian.  He can adjust to his daughter's different temperament without feeling betrayed or becoming childlike himself.  He knows he is the adult and can respect the generational differences between them, while at the same time maintaining his authority.  While monitoring his daughter's expression of feelings and ideas - that is, by not tolerating rudeness - the good-enough father does not insist that his opinions prevail.

But there are definitely some challenges ahead for the good-enough father as his daughter begins growing up.

One of the tasks of adolescence is to pull your parents down from off their pedestals, to de-idealize them so that the child can begin preparing psychologically for eventually taking their leave.  Dethroning Mom and Dad can pave the way for a realistic parent-child relationship - depending on how the parents respond.  

I have seen some fathers fall from their children's esteem with less grace than others.  Some middle-aged fathers, thrashing around with all their midlife doubts, suddenly begin lashing out: first, at their wife, who already knows about their physical and psychic flaws, and then at their children for discovering them.  A father like this may angrily put his son in his generational place, punishing him for misdemeanors the father perceives as crimes.  He may pick fights with his daughter or with her boyfriends, who he feels are threatening his place in her heart.

In the best kind of dethronement of Dad, his flaws can be gradually discovered, instead of violently imposed.  

There are those fathers who are able to keep their inner, loving capacities alive, in spite of cultural and psychological temptations to deny them.  There are those fathers who get help in resolving their conflicts so that they do not destroy their relationship with their kids.  These fathers may from time to time be unhinged by misfortune or psychic turmoil, but as parents they do not bail out.