So, I was chatting with my bro (in the normal, non-NZ sense) today, who is recently the father of a baby girl, and has a son a fair bit older. We were watching my daughter play, and I was talking about the relative lack of weight of expectation on father/ daughter relationships. When I'd raised the same theme at other times - prior to his daughters birth - it didn't seem to ring any bells for him - but today it did.
Of the four parent/ child combos, it really is the one least dwelt on by popular culture, psychology, home spun theory and general folk wisdom of the ages. And in my experience, that's been the great thing about it. Makes it a lot easier.
Of course, it's a relationship that can be majorly screwed up, like any other, sometimes in utterly horrific ways - but aside from those awful cases, there aren't a lot of negative stereotypes attached to it. 'Daddy's girl', for example, is fairly neutral where 'Mummy's boy' most certainly isn't. Then there's the inherent role-modelling pressure of of father-son, mother-daughter relationships; so frequently subject to the 'individualise-via-conflict' vibe, sooner or later. And no offence, Mums, but in my experience there's virtually no limit to the matters affecting a boy's life that his mother won't feel absolutely entitled to dip her oar in the water about. Even well into his 30s*. Bless 'em.
Whereas there's just no point even asking Dad about tricky girl-to-woman stuff. He won't have a clue. And most importantly: that's understood - by both parties.
Nothing to offer but love.
I hope no one gets offended by the above. But I write here in defence of father-daughter relationship. Against its broad cultural neglect. It rules.
* There is a some possibility the author generalises unduly from personal experience here.
16 comments:
Hm, I suppose all of that is true. However, from the daughter's point of view there are some cultural pressures you don't mention -- since if you aprtner with a man, he is automatically assumed to have either a total opposite or total clone relationship with your father. People *will* feel entitled to comment on this.
And if you show heterosexual romantic interest in anyone older than yourself, naturally it is becase of an unresolved daddy complex. People will also feel entitled to psychostickybeak out loud about this.
Oh yes, Amanda, none of that is to suggest it isn't tedious & difficult to be a woman in our society at times. I hadnt thought of those examples (no doubt since I write from the Dad side) - but I can see that would be quite a bore, and is in exactly the sort of thing I was referring to in terms of 'weight'. I'll bear those in mind!
Even so, I do think the mother-son relationship suffers from an intensity that is rarely laid upon girls and their Dads. e.g. its taken as de rigeur pop-psychology that a boy must 'displace' his mother at some point to 'mature' properly. No one lays that particular trip on Dads and girls.
Very much a Western cultural thing too. It's not shameful to have a daughter, nor do you have to rely on her good reputation for your family's honour.
Although I think that you are supposed to disapprove of the first boyfriend she brings home.
yes, that's quite true Mindy. In some societies its the parental relationship most laden with bullshit.
On the boyf, yersss, I guess that's how things will likely run. I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to it. Seeing it from the other side (almost) now, I do see the benefits of putting a dash of scare in the welcome cocktail.
'Although I think that you are supposed to disapprove of the first boyfriend she brings home.'
My father got round this one by saying that the first BF I brought home was 'too good to be true'. Mind out for that one, LE. Some daughters react quite badly to being told they can't win.
heh - what a sneaky Dad you had Pav. I love it. No teenage girl wants a boyf her folks approve of!
After my father died, my sister turned to me and said: 'I didn't have any real relationship with him'. And I said: 'I'm glad you said that because it's absolutely true.' Shades of the Germaine Greer title, 'Daddy We Hardly Knew You'. Not a bad man, but one who could barely communicate with adult women--in that very typical of older Australian men.
Thanks for sharing that, Anon. I suspect that's a lot of people's experience, particularly of a certain generation.
Further to Anon's comment,
[Quote]
Whereas there's just no point even asking Dad about tricky girl-to-woman stuff. He won't have a clue. And most importantly: that's understood - by both parties.
[End quote]
That's part of the syndrome, and rather than finding it hlrs, maybe it should be dragged out and examined and turned over in the light. I don't mean Dads have to give advice about menstruation and such; I mean they need not to treat their daughters as some kind of different species who are all about shopping! etc.
Im agree with that Helen - Im more pointing to a lack of weight of expectation being a good thing, rather than celebrating some sort of emotionally retarded paternal indifference. Which does exist, of course, in many quarters.
I would wager this though: a large % of those fathers who have no real relationship with their daughters are probably having the same problems with their sons.
Lefty E, you may have been generalising from a single data point in your aside, but I think you're on the money. My late mother felt quite entitled to complain about my ear studs just about up to the day she died. (At the time, I was 55.)
Its a Mum thing, David. I do generalise, its true, but from several data points. And I did add the rider "bless 'em". Deity of your choice (DOYC) invented fathers to intervene in this equation - problem is they die off early, and often piss off ever earlier - cos DOYC also made em a bit hopeless.
Still... in my even more limited experience, there's nothing quite like the hostility and bad blood than can be generated between a mother and her daughter!
Dear Bite My Latte:
'a son is a son till he takes him a wife, a daughter's your daughter, for all of her life' - is the axiom for most happy families.
re
"there's nothing quite like the hostility and bad blood than can be generated between a mother and her daughter!"
Very True in my case, and is history repeating my terrible mother relationship. Glad she is dead, and I can ignore sick aged father because he did not protect child-me from her.
My alienated dtr has a sublime relationship with her father and he with his son-in-law.
History does tend to repeat, Marhsall Stacks. Even when we're aware of what we're doing!
'Whereas there's just no point even asking Dad about tricky girl-to-woman stuff. He won't have a clue. And most importantly: that's understood - by both parties.'
I think you'll discover that you'll become an expert on these, so called, tricky questions too. There's nothing a modern father can't do.
Well, I'd like to try, Tatyana! I dont want to get too nosey in the process though.
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