It has been said that the father-daughter relationship is the most important relationship within the family structure. I am no expert on the dynamics of the family structure and do not claim to be. But I do know that the impact of having an unavailable father for a girl can have grave consequences on her life as she approaches adulthood. When this happens, it can and does affect her own family dynamics because she now becomes nurturer and care giver for that family.
I define a fatherless daughter as a woman who grew up with an unavailable father. An unavailable father could mean that he was absent due to divorce, death or abandonment or he could have been unavailable due to being a work alcoholic, alcohol and drug addiction, or he simply lacked the ability to form any close emotional bond and could not show love. Whatever the reason, the life of that daughter will be impacted on many levels.
Every day, I speak to women from diverse backgrounds, from different places in the world who are now recognizing that their father-daughter relationship impacted their lives. Most of them had never really discussed this topic with anyone in detail until now. Why? Well I have my own theory, especially for the women in my generation.
Most of the women of my generation grew up in an era when daddy went to work and many moms stayed at home. Except for those who had single moms like me and I will come back to this point later. But on the most part, it was acceptable that daddy be gone for long hours to work and provide for the family. During these times, when daddy was around, it was normal for the father to be much more involved with their sons than with their daughters. They normally left the task of providing the daughter's role model to the moms. They didn't talk to the daughters as much as they did their sons. They didn't get to know their daughters as much as they did their sons. They did not tend to view themselves as primarily responsible for their daughters primary needs, successes or accomplishments.
Many women of my generation did not see themselves as having issues with their fathers, because this scenario was the norm in the family dynamic and structure. They never expected to be close to their fathers. Now back to those of us who never had our fathers around, many of our child hood friends were in the same boat. Most of my mother's friends were single moms and their daughters were my play mates. So when your immediate surroundings are similar to yours, this becomes normal. Therefore, having a father or not having one was never up for discussion or an issue, so we thought.
Fast forward to today's generation where social change has allowed for young girls to be involved in sports and activities in which their fathers can now identify, we are now seeing more and more fathers becoming very involved with their daughters. These changes are allowing dads to be more involved with the day to day nurturing towards their daughters. And also because of the increase in the numbers of children being born outside of marriage and the shame factor being (regretfully) removed from this, more and more baby daddies are getting involved in their daughters' lives.
But what about the women of my generation? The notion that fathers are not normally very close to their daughters explains why so many females described their father-daughter relationship having been okay and they didn't think they had any fatherless daughters issues. But now that we are having this collective conversation, these women are now beginning to understand that it was not "normal" to have a distant or unavailable father.
I believe no matter the reason a father is unavailable and did not form a close, loving relationship with his daughter, this failure to do so has predictable consequences on that daughter's life as an adult. There are two distinct things that a girl must receive from her dad when growing up: unconditional love and security. When a father makes it clear to his daughter the he loves her unconditionally, just for who she is, he lays the foundation for her healthy self perception. When he shows his approval for how she looks and what she does, he validates her existence. The second thing he must do is make her feel secure. She must feel that the world is safe and that those who love her are dependable and that her needs can be met. When this doesn't happen, her trust factor becomes an issue throughout her life.
As adults, we fatherless daughters begin to judge our success in life based on the money we earn and the love we find. When neither exist at all in our lives or only for just a short spans, we begin to feel unwanted unsafe, insecure and rejected. There begins the making of a fatherless daughter.
We want to hear from you, please leave your comment below!
