Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Supports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline. And this episode is part two, uh
Speaker 1: weird Parental Psychology Week because in the last episode we
Speaker 1: talked all about the Mama's Boy trope, and today we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about daddy's girls and daddy issues, right
Speaker 1: because you know, we we started off our Mama's Boy,
Speaker 1: which I know you listen to. We started off our
Speaker 1: Mom's Boy episode talking about kind of the darker side
Speaker 1: of not only being a mom's boy, but what people
Speaker 1: assumed about you and what that meant. Hitler, Yeah, We're talked.
Speaker 1: We talked a lot about Hitler, a lot about Hitler. Um.
Speaker 1: We're not going to talk about Hitler this time that
Speaker 1: I know of, Kristen Um, but we are going to
Speaker 1: talk about daddy issues because us that is never meant
Speaker 1: as a positive thing. No, it's not. And it hadn't
Speaker 1: occurred to me until I don't know what I was reading,
Speaker 1: but I was on the internet and someone made some
Speaker 1: quip about, you know, insulting a woman by calling by
Speaker 1: saying that she must have daddy issues and a little
Speaker 1: stuff I've never told you. Bell went on off in
Speaker 1: my brain, thinking why is that a thing? Why is that?
Speaker 1: I mean not not why our daddy issues a thing,
Speaker 1: although we will talk about that, but why is that
Speaker 1: this pop cultural knee jerk insult directed at women and
Speaker 1: a lot directed at feminists. Now, for our international listeners
Speaker 1: who might not be so familiar with this term, daddy issues,
Speaker 1: for a little bit of a very casual definition of
Speaker 1: what it is. According to the Urban Dictionary, it's whenever
Speaker 1: a female has a screwed up, for the podcast relationship
Speaker 1: with her father or absence of a father figure during
Speaker 1: her childhood, so it tends to spill into any adult
Speaker 1: relationship they embark on, usually to the chagrin of any
Speaker 1: poor male in her life. So stereotypically, women with daddy
Speaker 1: issues are needy, obsessive, dramatic, insecure and looking for love
Speaker 1: and all the wrong places. Well that'll be in my
Speaker 1: head for the rest of the day. Um. But it's
Speaker 1: also tacked onto women and girls who are specifically attracted
Speaker 1: to older men, and just people assume that something's got
Speaker 1: to be wrong with you if you're attracted to somebody
Speaker 1: who's even a little bit older. Yeah, you must be
Speaker 1: secretly wanting to have sex with your father. And then
Speaker 1: there's a whole idea that vocal feminists must certainly have
Speaker 1: toxic relationships or Harbard hatred toward their dad's because why
Speaker 1: else would they have and expressed distaste with a patriarchal
Speaker 1: status quo feminists be heaven daddy issues that that is
Speaker 1: one of the most like just the hallmark of a
Speaker 1: trollish criticism that you will get on the internet if
Speaker 1: you talk about gender equality long enough. Not that it's
Speaker 1: ever happened to me. And for the record, I love
Speaker 1: my dad. I have a perfectly healthy relationship with him.
Speaker 1: But why am I even having to defend that? I
Speaker 1: don't know, Kristen, I don't know, because we're about to
Speaker 1: talk about why that's so good that you have a
Speaker 1: relationship with your dad. Yeah. So there is a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of research on the dynamics and effects and impacts
Speaker 1: of the father daughter relationship. I would say even more
Speaker 1: so comparing it to what we read about for our
Speaker 1: Mama's Boy episode. It seems like this father daughter relationship
Speaker 1: has been put even more so under the academic microscope
Speaker 1: than the mother's son relationship. Yeah, Whereas it seems like
Speaker 1: a lot of the mama's boy research, you know, if
Speaker 1: there was any academic psychological research, was all really early,
Speaker 1: and it was all super negative and awful, and it
Speaker 1: was all sort of justifying why being a mama's boy
Speaker 1: is so terrible. It was very homophobic, very homophobic. Whereas
Speaker 1: the studies into being a daddy's girl or having quote
Speaker 1: daddy issues or whatever, it's much more um encouraging of
Speaker 1: that relationship, Yeah, encouraging if you have an active paternal presence,
Speaker 1: it's very pro dad being involved with her daughter. Whereas
Speaker 1: on the flip side, there's a lot of panic where
Speaker 1: if you have a negative relationship or non existent relationship
Speaker 1: with a father figure, then you will have a lot
Speaker 1: of premarital sex, which we will get into more. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of sex panic surrounding this whole daddy issues
Speaker 1: and daddy's girl things. So there was a two thousand
Speaker 1: fourteen study published in the Men's Studies Press called Father's
Speaker 1: in the Dorm Room The Unique Influence of Fathers and
Speaker 1: Mothers on Young Adult Functioning, And it was really fascinating
Speaker 1: because it wasn't so much focused on the father daughter relationship,
Speaker 1: but rather just the paternal influence on kids, sons and
Speaker 1: daughters alike, and how they developed psychologically, their self esteem,
Speaker 1: rates of depression, and previous studies cited in this two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen study note how dad's in particular have a
Speaker 1: very strong influence, even stronger some would say, than moms
Speaker 1: on young kids. Yeah, so they cited a twelve study,
Speaker 1: for instance, that found that father's acceptance might correlate stronger
Speaker 1: to children's psychological adjustment versus mother's acceptance. And similarly, a
Speaker 1: two thousand eight study found that a father's indifference was
Speaker 1: more related to children's scores on measures of depression. And
Speaker 1: a two thousand to study looked at father's sensitivity during
Speaker 1: toddler play and tied it to predicted attachment representations and
Speaker 1: adolescents versus the mothers and influence. So all of these
Speaker 1: studies are pointing to dad having a super strong influence
Speaker 1: on all all number of things. Yeah, and this isn't
Speaker 1: just within American culture. A lot of these study findings
Speaker 1: do apply across culturally as well. And in this study,
Speaker 1: sample the kids that they looked at for the father's
Speaker 1: in the dorm room, which is such a creepy image study,
Speaker 1: they found that father's acceptance was substantially more variable than
Speaker 1: mother's acceptance levels. And this is a theme that you
Speaker 1: see come up a lot when it comes to the
Speaker 1: father daughter relationship. This idea that we sometimes as children
Speaker 1: take our mother's love for granted, whereas a father's love
Speaker 1: and acceptance of us. I think that acceptance party is
Speaker 1: really important, is something that we feel like we have
Speaker 1: to earn. Yeah. And so I had like like a real,
Speaker 1: like real talk moment with myself when I was reading
Speaker 1: these studies in the yeah, real talking, real talking to
Speaker 1: my of like, hey, you you're all right, You're right,
Speaker 1: But no, I I can feel this, uh from my
Speaker 1: own experience because my mother I'm an only raised an
Speaker 1: only child, uh, and my mother was like we were
Speaker 1: super close. I was more of a mama's girl than
Speaker 1: a daddy's girl. Even though my dad and I were
Speaker 1: always close and had a good relationship, but it always
Speaker 1: felt like, oh, well, I'm always perfect in my mother's eyes,
Speaker 1: Like she's always going to think I'm perfect, and then
Speaker 1: I'm the prettiest and the best and the smartest, um,
Speaker 1: whereas my dad is a little more on the stoic side.
Speaker 1: And so It's like I knew he was proud of me,
Speaker 1: but I really felt like I had to work harder
Speaker 1: to earn that pride and that acceptance and that attention.
Speaker 1: I can completely empathize with it. And and that seems
Speaker 1: too like a common theme that you see in in
Speaker 1: this studying fact from two thousand and fourteen about how
Speaker 1: we as kids are really attuned to and sensitive to
Speaker 1: um our father's levels of acceptance and also rejection. And
Speaker 1: one key quote that jumped out to me in the
Speaker 1: study discussion was that parental acceptance and rejection may be
Speaker 1: perceived as a reflection of the self social worth. Thus,
Speaker 1: low acceptance and high rejection by fathers compared to mothers
Speaker 1: may carry more negative psychological consequences. Dad's beware interesting well.
Speaker 1: Psychologist Peggy Drexler, who's the author of Our Fathers, Ourselves UM,
Speaker 1: talks about the fact that many daughters this is a quote,
Speaker 1: many daughters idolized their fathers because they don't know them
Speaker 1: well enough to see their flaws and therefore desire his approval.
Speaker 1: She talks a lot about how stereotypically, uh culturally, the
Speaker 1: father's working outside the home more, maybe he travels more
Speaker 1: than mom, does maybe mom's home more being the primary caregiver,
Speaker 1: and it's that whole like allure of this powerful man
Speaker 1: outside the house. And if he's oh if, well, if
Speaker 1: he's so powerful and needed out there, then obviously he's
Speaker 1: like a big shot. And there's that whole idea that
Speaker 1: dad is this sort of other figure. He's a little
Speaker 1: bit more distant from us than Mom, who is, you know,
Speaker 1: very close in terms of being a caregiver. So we've
Speaker 1: got to work harder and try to impress him more.
Speaker 1: Although I do have a feeling that narrative is rapidly changing,
Speaker 1: and you do have more stay at home dads for instance,
Speaker 1: or moms who are the breadwinners, and and dad's in
Speaker 1: general just being more invested in childcare, and I think
Speaker 1: that would be a good way, for a positive way
Speaker 1: for it to be evolving. Um, but if we look
Speaker 1: a little more closely to at that father daughter relationship,
Speaker 1: not just looking at kids in general, looking now at
Speaker 1: dad's and daughters, what kind of dynamics tend to emerge.
Speaker 1: So there's also this common refrain that fathers are the
Speaker 1: first men whose love girls seek out, and a lot
Speaker 1: of us too. You have to keep been mind is
Speaker 1: coming from a very heteronormative framework. Um, there's this important
Speaker 1: importance of the father figure in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: being that that first guy that whose love and affection
Speaker 1: girls want to win over is based on the assumption
Speaker 1: that you know, in in the future she will be
Speaker 1: seeking the love and affection of other men. And so
Speaker 1: Dad's thus established our earliest models of what we expect
Speaker 1: relationships with men to be like. And then our relationship
Speaker 1: attachment styles, which we've talked a lot before on the podcast,
Speaker 1: anxious attachment, secure attachment, et cetera. Then flow from there,
Speaker 1: thanks or no thanks dead, Yeah, I mean I can
Speaker 1: I can totally see how this this goes beyond just
Speaker 1: like being a stereotype and something that people assume. I
Speaker 1: can totally see how Dad would be a model and
Speaker 1: psychologist Jennifer Cronberg basically says, yeah, yeah, basically, that's that's
Speaker 1: how that works. She says, in my years of psychology practice,
Speaker 1: I've met very few women who didn't unconsciously or consciously
Speaker 1: pick a romantic partner based on her dad. Talking about
Speaker 1: it's true for whether she a woman dates a man
Speaker 1: because he's like her father or because he's nothing like
Speaker 1: her dad somehow it's all based one way or another
Speaker 1: on her relationship with her father. Yeah, and we actually
Speaker 1: did a podcast a while back now called do We
Speaker 1: Marry Our Parents? Which if you want, you want to
Speaker 1: dig more into this kind of psychology, you can head
Speaker 1: over to Stuff Mom Never Told You dot com and
Speaker 1: look in our podcast archive, which you can get to
Speaker 1: by clicking on the podcast tab and throlling all the
Speaker 1: way down and you'll see a button browse all of
Speaker 1: our podcasts, and the episode title is do We Marry
Speaker 1: Our Parents? But back to dad's and daughters. What daughters
Speaker 1: say they want more from their dad's and perhaps to
Speaker 1: divert these so called daddy issues, that negative baggage that
Speaker 1: we you know, hear about so often in a very
Speaker 1: flip kind of way. Um. According to a two thousand
Speaker 1: even in contemporary sexuality, what daughters in the in this case,
Speaker 1: college aged daughters wanted more from their dads was quote
Speaker 1: understanding men, suggesting ways to deal with pressure to have sex,
Speaker 1: sharing their own experiences about adolescence, dating insects when they,
Speaker 1: as in dads, were adolescents, communicating values, providing more information
Speaker 1: on sexual risk topics, and being more open and comfortable
Speaker 1: when talking to their daughters, because this entire study was
Speaker 1: looking at how dad's talked to their daughters about sex,
Speaker 1: and the answer is not very much, because that's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: As a lot of the male psychologists they talked to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: it can be uncomfortable if you are a dad to
Speaker 1: talk to your daughter about sex, because then it gets
Speaker 1: into questions of well, what did you do, dad, and
Speaker 1: then having to stay out loud, well, I was young
Speaker 1: and horny once, and then the awkward silence that ensues. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole idea about dad being all like, hey, kiddo
Speaker 1: and poling around with you before puberty, and then puberty
Speaker 1: hits and suddenly dad feels like he's in an awkward
Speaker 1: like just talk to your mother face. Yeah, because I'm
Speaker 1: sure for a lot of dad's there's you know, a
Speaker 1: line that they want to respect and don't want to cross.
Speaker 1: But also to you hear from these these older daughters
Speaker 1: saying that they, you know, wish that there had been
Speaker 1: more recognition of the fact that, yeah, they were growing
Speaker 1: up and that's not a scary thing, and it would
Speaker 1: have been nice from that primary model of what men
Speaker 1: are like in relationships to have one that's open and
Speaker 1: honest and able to talk about things like sex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but to be fair, neither of my parents talked to
Speaker 1: me about sex, so that one that one wasn't all
Speaker 1: on dad. Yeah, this is true, and I mean my
Speaker 1: mom definitely talked to me more about it, and the
Speaker 1: messages that I got from my dad about sex for
Speaker 1: more in the sense of no, you don't want to
Speaker 1: know what happens in a boy's mind, which, for the record, people,
Speaker 1: not a good message to give to your daughter. Well, Kristen,
Speaker 1: we have a lot more to talk about, but first
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break and now back
Speaker 1: to the show. Speaking of messages that dads are giving
Speaker 1: their daughters, what happens when daughters don't have those ideal, strong,
Speaker 1: warm relationships with dad. Study looked at stress responses that
Speaker 1: women experience and found that those who had reported relationships
Speaker 1: with their dad characterized by rejection, chaos, and coercion ended
Speaker 1: up having basically higher stress hormone levels, so cortisol levels,
Speaker 1: and but before a task that they anticipated to be
Speaker 1: stressful and had higher cortisol in response to a problem
Speaker 1: discussion with a friend. They were also more likely to
Speaker 1: self disclose about psychosocial stressors. Yeah, that disclosure thing is
Speaker 1: something that comes up a lot in terms of core.
Speaker 1: It's behavioral corelates. For women who have dysfunctional relationships with
Speaker 1: their dads, there is a lot more disclosure going on.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure why, but that was just something
Speaker 1: that I noticed from the research. Um. But in that
Speaker 1: particular instance, the opposite was true. For the women who
Speaker 1: you know, had self reported father daughter relationships characterized by warmth, autonomy,
Speaker 1: support and structure, they actually on a physiological level, managed
Speaker 1: stressful situations better. And Caroline, you know, what is incredible
Speaker 1: to me is the fact that this relationship has been
Speaker 1: studied down to a physiological level. Did you see any
Speaker 1: physiological biological studies about the influence of mother's relationships on
Speaker 1: their sons and how they managed stressed Definitely not. There
Speaker 1: were just a handful that talked about aggression versus emotional literacy.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating when you compare what we what we focus on, uh,
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, studies and all that. When
Speaker 1: it comes to a risky behavior, risky business comes up
Speaker 1: a lot in father daughters studies. There was a two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen study which found that female participants who reported
Speaker 1: low psychological presence from their dads were likelier to engage
Speaker 1: in risky behavior like drug use and hookups. And there's
Speaker 1: also a two thousand six study in the Journal of
Speaker 1: Black Psychology which found that girls with involved dads were
Speaker 1: less likely to use illegal drugs. And that's a pattern
Speaker 1: that comes up over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: And all of these studies is that you know, absent
Speaker 1: or dysfunctional relationships with dads are usually correlated to risk
Speaker 1: here behavior, which usually just is a catch all for
Speaker 1: drug use, alcohol use, tobacco use, and pre marital sex
Speaker 1: and teen pregnancy. Interesting not sliding down a long hallway
Speaker 1: within just a button up and socks listening to Bob Seger.
Speaker 1: Yes so, And of course this all ties into relationship
Speaker 1: habits as all. This is what we talk a lot
Speaker 1: about when you think about women with quote unquote daddy issues.
Speaker 1: But other studies have shown associations between negative relationships with
Speaker 1: dad's and relationship self esteem, overall self disclosure, and overall
Speaker 1: self silencing in romantic relationships. And then when it comes
Speaker 1: to sex, this is kind of echoing when I just
Speaker 1: said a minute ago, there's a two thousand three study
Speaker 1: in child development which found that girls with absent fathers
Speaker 1: were likelier to become pregnant, and I'm assuming that means
Speaker 1: team pregnancy. And other studies have also correlated again, absent
Speaker 1: or dysfunctional dads with not just uh, sexual promiscuity, but
Speaker 1: lower sexual confidence in daughters, which psychologists would say would
Speaker 1: then lead to that quote unquote risky behavior. So there
Speaker 1: is a lot of concern echoed over and over again
Speaker 1: about will a bad dad lead to essentially a promiscuous daughter. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of focus just on that sex behavior
Speaker 1: of the daughter, right, and Uh. Catherine Hutchinson and Julie
Speaker 1: Cedar bomb in a study looked at women who talked
Speaker 1: about their father's kind of encapsulating them and in this
Speaker 1: whole daddy's girl role, and found that these according to
Speaker 1: these women, in their perspective, their father's inability to see
Speaker 1: them as anything but little girls was actually a barrier
Speaker 1: to father daughter sexual communication. The father refusing to see
Speaker 1: his daughter as either a grown up woman or as
Speaker 1: a developing adolescent, refusing to accept it that she's anything
Speaker 1: other than daddy's princess. Well, and in that situation too,
Speaker 1: I think those those relationships weren't necessarily seen as negative ones.
Speaker 1: These were dads who were involved in their daughters lives
Speaker 1: and were very present and loving towards their daughters. But
Speaker 1: like you said, just crystallize them in this you know,
Speaker 1: prepubescent phase and kind of can't move beyond that. I
Speaker 1: can't think about sex, doesn't want to talk about sex, noope,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Yeah, and so let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: though about daddy issues and daddy's little girls in pop culture,
Speaker 1: because that was a large focus of the Mama's Boy
Speaker 1: episode because it became so deeply ingrained in mid century
Speaker 1: American culture. So what about when it comes to Daddy's girls?
Speaker 1: And we'll talk more about that when we come right
Speaker 1: back from a quick break. So it's about time we
Speaker 1: got around to talking about Freud because we mentioned him
Speaker 1: so much in our Mama's Boy episode, and we also
Speaker 1: mentioned the whole post World War two period when a
Speaker 1: lot of societal fears and anxieties cropped up, not only
Speaker 1: around mothers in their children, but also homosexuality and what
Speaker 1: that meant as a changing society. Yeah, and there was
Speaker 1: just this really intense focus on psychoanalysis and particularly psychoanalysis
Speaker 1: through that edible framework kind of the placing perhaps too
Speaker 1: much importance and fear on the child's relationship, particularly with
Speaker 1: the opposite sex parents and two Lane history professor Rachel
Speaker 1: Devlin actually wrote an entire book about this in two
Speaker 1: thousand five called Relative Intimacy, Father's Adolescent Daughters and Postwar
Speaker 1: American Culture, and she argues in it that the whole
Speaker 1: Daddy Issues Daddy's Girls thing was a combination of two forces,
Speaker 1: one being the popularity of Freudian psychoanalysis, and then also
Speaker 1: the rise of female delinquency because you have in post
Speaker 1: World War two America for the very first time, teenage
Speaker 1: culture really being this big thing. I mean, even if
Speaker 1: you look back at Life magazine at the time, they
Speaker 1: have feature stories on like what being a teenager is
Speaker 1: because it's this sort of new phase in life and
Speaker 1: it has this whole culture and consumer culture around it.
Speaker 1: After the war, and with that, you also see the
Speaker 1: rise of female delinquency, and you can see it on
Speaker 1: screen through classic films such as Rebel Without a Cause.
Speaker 1: And there was a fear about these these female delinquents,
Speaker 1: these girl gangs, what's going on? Well, blame their dads.
Speaker 1: I know, well, it's so funny to see those anxieties
Speaker 1: blown up like that. It's just like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you mean women are women, and young girls are developing
Speaker 1: their own sort of like personalities outside of the home,
Speaker 1: and they're they're becoming teenagers and that is so scary.
Speaker 1: She's wearing lipstick. Oh no, what does that mean? Can
Speaker 1: you imagine what they would have done if they had
Speaker 1: seen spring Breakers clutched their pearls of For sure, Broyd
Speaker 1: would have been like, oh, I got a lot to say.
Speaker 1: But Devline talks about how during this time, girls perceived
Speaker 1: misbehavior was explained as a paternal failing. She says that
Speaker 1: girls were seen as being not sufficiently edible connected to
Speaker 1: their fathers, and this whole edible framework that Kristen mentioned
Speaker 1: was a way to try to control and reintegrate girls
Speaker 1: into the family. But what surprised me, considering the way
Speaker 1: we talked about Freud on this podcast, what surprised me
Speaker 1: is that Freud thought this whole perception was warped. He
Speaker 1: himself thought that these urges needed to be overcome, not maintained.
Speaker 1: Freud thought that sure, girls and young women have to
Speaker 1: go through this pass through this phase of like having
Speaker 1: this relationship with their dad, but they the key is
Speaker 1: that they have to then pass through it right well.
Speaker 1: And one example that she calls out in terms of
Speaker 1: maintaining rather than overcoming, was through the use of lipstick.
Speaker 1: This is an act cruel thing. She said that it
Speaker 1: was thought at the time that girls who were allowed
Speaker 1: to wear bright lipstick, which was in vogue with their
Speaker 1: father's blessing, would be sexually well developed. Whereas dads who
Speaker 1: forbade their daughters to wear lipstick, we're arresting their daughters
Speaker 1: sexual development. So yeah, I mean, talk about some loaded lipstick,
Speaker 1: interesting band, new band name? Well, I mean because two
Speaker 1: in this is in the what fourias and fifties, and
Speaker 1: only a few decades prior, wearing wearing rouge on your
Speaker 1: lips would have been something only a stage actresses would do.
Speaker 1: And you know what stage actresses do? They act and
Speaker 1: they and they for in a kate. But she then
Speaker 1: ties that to this idea of a new fatherhood that
Speaker 1: began emerging in the nineteen twenties. This is when we
Speaker 1: slowly see the development of dad's roles starting to change,
Speaker 1: gradually becoming more involved and becoming more of an expected
Speaker 1: part of the paternal role, not just to go out
Speaker 1: and bring home the bacon and be the provider, but
Speaker 1: also provide emotional security as well. And when the depression hit,
Speaker 1: he had an interesting influence on the father daughter relationship.
Speaker 1: And this is coming from the book American Sweethearts Teenage
Speaker 1: Girls in twenties Century Popular Culture and Alana Nashy, author
Speaker 1: says that the trophy daughter idea thrived in the depression
Speaker 1: when the proliferation of sub deb as in debutante images
Speaker 1: in popular culture address the perceived crisis of masculinity, suggesting
Speaker 1: that Daddy was still a real man and that his
Speaker 1: masculinity was not lost entirely in the crisis as long
Speaker 1: as he could protect his angelic little girl. So Daddy's
Speaker 1: little girl is going to be showered with gifts. He
Speaker 1: is going to, you know, buy all these things for
Speaker 1: her to protect her and also in the process assert
Speaker 1: his own masculinity which is being threatened by this economic
Speaker 1: crisis of the Great Depression. That is interesting the layers
Speaker 1: on that one. It's probably not the same thing as
Speaker 1: when my father a couple of years ago asked if
Speaker 1: if I wanted him to take me find China shopping.
Speaker 1: I was like, do you really do you think I'm
Speaker 1: never gonna get married. You're just gonna step up to
Speaker 1: the plate and buy me some some plates. Maybe he
Speaker 1: wanted to assert his masculinity or something. Maybe he has
Speaker 1: a secret love for ceramics, Caroline, he could I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, we don't know everything about
Speaker 1: our fathers. This is true. But that's interesting because I mean,
Speaker 1: you're talking in a in a time frame of the depression,
Speaker 1: or a lot of Nash is talking about a time
Speaker 1: frame of the depression. But I mean, now we have
Speaker 1: something similar if you look at things like moving on
Speaker 1: from debutant's up to the popularity these days of like
Speaker 1: purity balls and stuff. Oh yeah, the purity balls being uh,
Speaker 1: events that are more typically associated with evangelical Christianity and
Speaker 1: the whole virginity pledge thing. There are these events called
Speaker 1: purity balls where fathers will escort their daughters to a
Speaker 1: prom like event where or and it's sort of a
Speaker 1: prom and also a coming out kind of event where
Speaker 1: dads will pledge publicly to protect their daughters sexual purity,
Speaker 1: and then the daughters sort of pledge themselves to their
Speaker 1: dads as well. There's definitely a lot of interaction between
Speaker 1: what we've been talking about and that phenomenon. But in
Speaker 1: all of this, I mean, you could argue that all
Speaker 1: of that sounds pretty weird, but overall, I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot more social acceptance for daddy's little girl, daddy's princess,
Speaker 1: things like that, even like grown women saying it versus
Speaker 1: mama's boy, which is definitely pathologized. Yeah, because what have
Speaker 1: we seen in all of this research. There's this, you know,
Speaker 1: hammering home over and over again, this idea that if
Speaker 1: you have a solid relationship with your dad as a female,
Speaker 1: then you are well adjusted, you know, and there it
Speaker 1: kind of like can't and and the only way that
Speaker 1: it starts to get so close that people start turning
Speaker 1: their noses up at it is when it becomes almost
Speaker 1: two financially involved, where she becomes the spoiled little princess
Speaker 1: rather than just daddy's little girl, but a woman who
Speaker 1: is codependent on her father in the same way that
Speaker 1: a guy might be codependent on his mother that we
Speaker 1: call him a mom's boy. Those are perceived very differently.
Speaker 1: It seems like even even today, and speaking of Peggy Drexler,
Speaker 1: the author of Our Fathers, Ourselves, and Psychologists. The one
Speaker 1: big type of father that she calls out in her
Speaker 1: book that she sort of has no patience for is
Speaker 1: the dad who really fosters the whole daddy's little girl image.
Speaker 1: Not in the sense of like wanting to you have
Speaker 1: a close relationship with her, his daughter, but dads who
Speaker 1: sort of want to almost over put put their daughters
Speaker 1: in a bell jar in a way to protect them
Speaker 1: from everything, because she says that it might render them
Speaker 1: incapable of self actualizing as adult women, because these dads
Speaker 1: want to hold onto them because maybe it's a need
Speaker 1: to assert masculinity. Maybe it's a fear, you know, the
Speaker 1: of knowing themselves as younger horney men and not wanting
Speaker 1: to think about that in the context of their sexually
Speaker 1: maturing daughters. Um, but yeah, she's she's not look kindly
Speaker 1: upon that. That's funny, Like, I don't, I don't. I
Speaker 1: never got the impression that my dad wanted to keep
Speaker 1: me his little girl forever. I got the impression more
Speaker 1: that he was off to the side, like, uh, she's
Speaker 1: growing up and I'm just I'll just be over here.
Speaker 1: I don't I can't watch. Not that he was like
Speaker 1: super comfortable with me, like dating or anything. It was
Speaker 1: more that he's like, I don't want to know. I
Speaker 1: don't want to know, don't tell me. But Rachel Devlin,
Speaker 1: who we mentioned earlier, also looks at these contemporary father
Speaker 1: daughter relationships from an interesting perspective. She says that they're
Speaker 1: more commercially oriented, as evidenced by things like MTV show
Speaker 1: My Super Sweet Sixteen. Yeah, in case you haven't seen
Speaker 1: this reality show, and I don't know that it's still
Speaker 1: on the air, it showcases a lavish, over the top
Speaker 1: sweet sixteen party for a kid. A lot of times,
Speaker 1: it's a girl who is usually pretty spoiled, gets everything
Speaker 1: that she wants and usually ends with someone getting a
Speaker 1: new car. And it's always interesting in the show too,
Speaker 1: or thinking back on the show, it's not like I'm
Speaker 1: sitting at I'm still watching it these days, but I
Speaker 1: watched it off in my youth to know that every
Speaker 1: now and then, the mom always played a larger role
Speaker 1: in the show because the dad was off doing whatever,
Speaker 1: making these bookoo bucks to pay for this party. And
Speaker 1: when he would show up, though, he would always be
Speaker 1: the one handing over the keys of the car and
Speaker 1: like looking proud as a peacock to be showing off
Speaker 1: how well he was providing for his lovely daughter coming
Speaker 1: of age. Look at look at what he's doing. It's
Speaker 1: that trophy daughter idea, which is, uh, which is really
Speaker 1: fascinating to think about. Right, But I mean, I think
Speaker 1: what you just said illustrates what Devlin is talking about.
Speaker 1: As far as the monetary exchange being used as a
Speaker 1: way for fathers to distance themselves from their daughters sexual development, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because it probably feels more appropriate to make a purchase
Speaker 1: to demonstrate your love because, as dad's can probably attest,
Speaker 1: when you know, girls start to their daughters start to mature,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, they get boobs. When you hug them,
Speaker 1: it feels different than when you hug them as little girls,
Speaker 1: and showing them physical affection could get uncomfortable maybe for
Speaker 1: them and for their daughters. And so yeah, I could
Speaker 1: totally see the consumer side of it being a distancing
Speaker 1: factor or a strategy, I should say. But one thing
Speaker 1: that we've touched on but haven't really gotten into is
Speaker 1: the fact and we we talked about this a little
Speaker 1: bit with Mama's Boys, and that they're just different dynamics
Speaker 1: going on if it's the same sex couple raising kids
Speaker 1: than it is with our stereotypical mother father household that
Speaker 1: has been studied to death. Yeah. I mean the thing
Speaker 1: for both of these episodes, Mama's Boys and Daddy's Girls
Speaker 1: is can goodness, this raises just burnt holes in my brain. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to talk about both of them at this
Speaker 1: time when I feel like the role of mother and
Speaker 1: father is very much in flux and almost it's starting
Speaker 1: to meld together into this broader role of just being
Speaker 1: a good parent and it not being so gender specific. Um,
Speaker 1: because you know, like you said, there now plenty of
Speaker 1: two parent households with kids who are doing perfectly well
Speaker 1: where there is neither a father or neither a mother,
Speaker 1: depending on which kind of same sex couple it is.
Speaker 1: And there was actually an article in The Advocate called
Speaker 1: the Lesbian Dad and talking about how there are some
Speaker 1: gender nonconforming lesbians who are more comfortable with their kids
Speaker 1: calling them dad or a derivative thereof, Like they profiled
Speaker 1: one woman who preferred to be called Baba rather than
Speaker 1: being called mom or mommy, because particularly with the mommy,
Speaker 1: there's just there's just no identification with that label whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And I can understand that. I mean, I thinking myself
Speaker 1: being called mommy. Nope, well, I mean you know, this
Speaker 1: also goes back to an episode that Christen and I
Speaker 1: did a while ago on the division of household labor.
Speaker 1: Basically that even the most like progressive, forward thinking man
Speaker 1: woman feminist couple, even those couples can tend to fall
Speaker 1: back to gender norms when it comes to the division
Speaker 1: of household labor, whereas if you have same sex couple,
Speaker 1: the traditional household duties are more equally distributed. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: there was a study among Swedish children and lesbian households
Speaker 1: that came out in and it concluded based on interviews
Speaker 1: with these kids that they quote described daddy's as the
Speaker 1: same as mummies. And that's mummies with you because it's
Speaker 1: from Sweden and I really enjoy that. Um So, in
Speaker 1: other words, in these kids minds who were being raised
Speaker 1: in these lesbian households with very egalitarian setups, the both
Speaker 1: parents had sort of similar functions, you know, like daddy's mummy,
Speaker 1: mummies daddy and everybody's happy. Yeah. I think we are
Speaker 1: at an interesting tipping point socially and culturally as far as,
Speaker 1: like you said, people realizing the importance of just being
Speaker 1: a good parent, whether you are male or female, whether
Speaker 1: your mom or dad or Bobba, whoever you are, and
Speaker 1: the importance of you know, being loving and caring to
Speaker 1: your child, regardless of what role you feel. Well. And
Speaker 1: I also know of some straight couples as well, where
Speaker 1: the father tends to engage in more stereotypical maternal activities
Speaker 1: with the child and vice versa with the mom. Maybe
Speaker 1: the mom is a little more outdoorsy and tends to
Speaker 1: have a little more rough and tumble play with the kids.
Speaker 1: So I think, if anything, it's a positive sign that
Speaker 1: there is more acceptance of how there can be fluidity
Speaker 1: in these roles. But when it comes to though, Caroline,
Speaker 1: this whole daddy issues thing, can we circle back to
Speaker 1: the daddy issues insult it? I don't know, is it
Speaker 1: is it a Is it a phrase that we need
Speaker 1: to retire? How well i'd like to see it retired.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it is always such an ugly
Speaker 1: insult to say to somebody. Yeah, I mean it's also
Speaker 1: used a lot. If you just google around different combinations
Speaker 1: with it, it is used a lot in headlines as
Speaker 1: a clever turn of phrase to indicate that there there's
Speaker 1: some kind of problems somewhere, like, oh this, you know,
Speaker 1: this organization has daddy issues or whatever. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just feel like it's so hackneat and cliche that, um,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe we need to move beyond the daddy issues thing.
Speaker 1: Or maybe I'm just also tired of it. You know,
Speaker 1: everyone's saying that all feminists have daddy issues. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: let's let's retire it collectively. We'll agree to do it. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, listeners, all right, well, and also listeners, now
Speaker 1: we want to hear from you. We want to know
Speaker 1: about your own dad daughter relationship, good, bad, non existent,
Speaker 1: How has that impacted you? And also what are yours
Speaker 1: on the whole daddy's little girl thing daddy issues? Do
Speaker 1: you think it should be retired or do you think
Speaker 1: that it is useful in some applications? Let us know
Speaker 1: all of your thoughts. Mom Stuff at how stuffworks dot
Speaker 1: com is where you can send us your letters. You
Speaker 1: can also tweet us a mom sub podcast and send
Speaker 1: us a message on Facebook as well. And we've got
Speaker 1: a couple of messages that have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: dads to share with you right now, I've gotta let
Speaker 1: her here. From Hannah in response to our Women's Wanderlust episode,
Speaker 1: she writes, I wanted to mention a few observations I've
Speaker 1: made while traveling alone. I made my first alone trip
Speaker 1: to India ten years ago at twenty one, and I've
Speaker 1: kept going back ever since. And the part of the
Speaker 1: observation of hers that I wanted to share with listeners
Speaker 1: is this. My biggest problem traveling in India as a
Speaker 1: woman has been finding toilets when on long trips through
Speaker 1: rural areas. I've had to talk many a bus driver
Speaker 1: into keeping the whole bus waiting while I wander off,
Speaker 1: usually into some potentially snake infested field, to find a
Speaker 1: discreet spot. Women in saries will often just lift their
Speaker 1: skirt on the side of the road, and wearing pants
Speaker 1: makes it more complicated. The lack of facilities for women
Speaker 1: in India is a well known problem, and of course
Speaker 1: much more serious for the local women who risk getting
Speaker 1: raped when looking for a secluded space. For me, it's
Speaker 1: a mere annoyance. Asked for the distinction between traveler and tourists,
Speaker 1: I would just say that someone who insists on calling
Speaker 1: herself a traveler and not a tourist is just a
Speaker 1: very pretentious tourist. And I do think solo travel can
Speaker 1: make you a bit self absorbed in the long run.
Speaker 1: Whenever I've come across some of those self proclaimed off
Speaker 1: the beaten track travelers who've been roaming around for years,
Speaker 1: I make a sport out of timing how long it
Speaker 1: takes them to ask a single question about anyone else.
Speaker 1: I have experienced having hour long conversations in quotes about
Speaker 1: the wonderfully intriguing travels of such people without even having
Speaker 1: been asked or my name. This turned out, This letter
Speaker 1: turned out long, and I could go on and on.
Speaker 1: Sorry about that, and thanks for making my early commute
Speaker 1: to work enjoyable. Sounds like she's running into some not
Speaker 1: so great travelers for tourists. Yeah, so thanks Hannah. Okay,
Speaker 1: I have a letter here from Gabby. She says, Hello, ladies. Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm a Brazilian actress and have discovered your podcast recently.
Speaker 1: Hello welcome. So your podcast on fat bottom Girls was
Speaker 1: especially interesting for me. I grew up in a culture
Speaker 1: that's really butt centric. That is my own analysis, but
Speaker 1: I feel that globalization is changing preferences in Brazil in
Speaker 1: front of my own eyes. As in the nineties, most
Speaker 1: people would choose butts over breast. In the two thousand's,
Speaker 1: globalization had a boom in quote and since then middle
Speaker 1: and upper class males have been paying more attention to breasts.
Speaker 1: The culture and cult of the bottoms were left to
Speaker 1: the lower classes. That can be seen very specially in
Speaker 1: the music scene inside Brazil slums. A really popular rhythm
Speaker 1: is called funk karaoka that valorizes a cultural vision really
Speaker 1: similar to the North American rap. The lyrics and dances
Speaker 1: tend to be really sexualized by men and women and
Speaker 1: quite focused on the bottoms. So thank you, she signs
Speaker 1: it lots of love from Brazil and lots of love
Speaker 1: to you Gabby. As a new listener, we appreciate your letter. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: we appreciate all of your letters. Keep them coming. Mom
Speaker 1: Stuff at house stuff works dot com is where you
Speaker 1: can send them, or you can always get in touch
Speaker 1: by tweeting us a mom stuff podcast or messaging us
Speaker 1: on Facebook and for links to all of our social
Speaker 1: media's as well as all of our bolog post videos
Speaker 1: and podcasts, including this one. Which also includes our sources
Speaker 1: so you can follow along. Head on over to stuff
Speaker 1: Mom Never told You dot com for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Isn't how Stuff Works dot
Speaker 1: com