Channing Tatum Writes Powerful and Touching Letter to His Daughter

Channing Tatum just wants his little girl to be the person she is — without worrying about what men think.

The Magic Mike star, 37, recently wrote an essay for Cosmopolitan in which he recounted first meeting wife Jenna Dewan Tatum, and how the spark he felt from her spirit is something he hopes their daughter Everly, 4 this month, inherits from her mother.

“That radical authenticity of hers was what made me fall head over heels in love. Before I experienced it, I wouldn’t have known how to ask for it. Now I know it’s what I was always craving,” Tatum wrote of his wife, 36.

“And that’s what I want for my daughter — to be expectation-less with her love and not allow preconceived standards to affect her, to ask herself what she wants and feel empowered enough to act on it.”

Want all the latest pregnancy and birth announcements, plus celebrity mom blogs? Click here to get those and more in the PEOPLE Babies newsletter.

The father of one touched on the importance of ensuring Everly follows her own path, sharing that when he starting writing the essay, he pictured her reading it “in her late teens or early 20s, hoping to explore and discover her sexuality and dreaming about finding true love.”

“I tried to imagine the things I’d want her to read that would help her understand men and sex and partnership better, and at that moment, I realized a strange thing,” he wrote. “I don’t want her looking to the outside world for answers. My highest hope for her is just that she has the fearlessness to always be her authentic self, no matter what she thinks men want her to be.”

Tatum explained how he believes “every one of us is different and has a unique road map to our heart” and that “we learn how to navigate it by leaping into love with both feet and giving our full selves without expecting anything in return.”

“So I guess if there’s one thing that I think men wish women knew, it’s just that they alone are enough,” he addede. “When more women start to truly feel this power in themselves, the world will become so magical, it makes my head hurt.”

The actor also wrote about how societal roles have begun to shift in terms of gender expectations, expressing his support for the change and encouraging the idea for continued evolution.

“We live in a society that has trained men and women to play certain kinds of roles for a long time, and the beauty of this amazing moment we’re living in is that we’re finally starting to break free from those roles,” he continued.

“Women, especially, are realizing that they no longer have to conform to certain standards of social and sexual behavior, and this changes what they need from men and the role of men in general.”

Magic Mike Live is currently playing in Las Vegas.