Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie Ooh and Samantha, and welcome to Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Never Told your protection of I Heartradio's House to Works.
Speaker 1: We've been doing that intro for a while now and
Speaker 1: I just did it out of memory for the first time,
Speaker 1: and I'm feeling really proud of myself because I couldn't
Speaker 1: you probably could. Um for this this classic episode, we
Speaker 1: wanted to to bring back one that Kristen and Caroline
Speaker 1: did UM called Daddy's Girls, about the relationships between fathers
Speaker 1: and daughters. And we recently did an episode on daddy
Speaker 1: issues and they touch on this on that whole thing
Speaker 1: a bit in this episode, and um, It's just been
Speaker 1: on my mind recently and I've always kind of been
Speaker 1: curious about we just have interesting I find instinct dynamics
Speaker 1: in our society about the relationships between children and their parents.
Speaker 1: So inevitable, inevitable. You're right, there's a quote I wanted
Speaker 1: to say, but I forgot it immediately, So do is useless. Useless,
Speaker 1: But this episode is not useless, and we hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff, Mom Never Told You from how stupp
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline. And this episode is part two
Speaker 1: of Weird Parental Psychology Week because in the last episode
Speaker 1: we talked all about the Mama's Boy trope, and today
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about daddy's girls and daddy issues,
Speaker 1: right because you know, we we started off our Mama's Boy,
Speaker 1: which I know you listened 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 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 that is never meant as
Speaker 1: a positive thing. No, it's not. And it hadn't occurred
Speaker 1: 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. Belle went off in my
Speaker 1: brain thinking, why is that's 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 acted 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 of
Speaker 1: toxic relationships or Harvard hatred towards their dad's because why
Speaker 1: else would they have an express 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 Fathers
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 study, for instance,
Speaker 1: that found that father's acceptance might correlate stronger to children's
Speaker 1: psychological adjustment versus mother's acceptance. Similarly, a two thousand eight
Speaker 1: study found that a father's indifference was more related to
Speaker 1: children's scores on measures of depression, and a two thousand
Speaker 1: to study looked at father's sensitivity during toddler play and
Speaker 1: tied it to predicted attachment representations and adolescents versus the
Speaker 1: mother's influence. So all of these studies are pointing to
Speaker 1: dad having a super strong influence on all all number
Speaker 1: of things. Yeah, and this isn't just within American culture.
Speaker 1: A lot of these study findings do apply across culturally
Speaker 1: as well. And in this study sample the kids that
Speaker 1: they looked at for the father's in the dorm room,
Speaker 1: which is such a creepy image study, they found that
Speaker 1: father's acceptance was substantially more variable than mother's acceptance levels.
Speaker 1: And this is a theme that you see come up
Speaker 1: a lot when it comes to the father daughter relationship.
Speaker 1: This idea that we sometimes as children take our there's
Speaker 1: love for granted, whereas a father's love and acceptance of us.
Speaker 1: I think that acceptance party is really important, is something
Speaker 1: that we feel like we have to earn. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so I had like like a real, like real talk
Speaker 1: moment with myself when I was reading these studies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was real talking, real talking to myself like, hey,
Speaker 1: you you're all right, You're right, But no, I I
Speaker 1: can feel this, uh from my own experience because my mother,
Speaker 1: I'm an only raised an only child, uh, and my
Speaker 1: mother was like we were super close. I was more
Speaker 1: of a mama's girl than a daddy's girl. Even though
Speaker 1: my dad and I were always close and had a
Speaker 1: good relationship, but it always felt like, oh, well, I'm
Speaker 1: always perfect in my mother's eyes, Like she's always going
Speaker 1: to think I'm perfect and that I'm the prettiest and
Speaker 1: the best and the smartest. Um. Whereas my dad is
Speaker 1: a little more on the stoic side. And so it's
Speaker 1: like I knew he was proud of me, but I
Speaker 1: really felt like I had to work harder to earn
Speaker 1: that pride and that acceptance and that attention. I can
Speaker 1: completely empathize with it, and and that seems to like
Speaker 1: a common theme that you see in in this study
Speaker 1: in fact from two thousand and fourteen about how we
Speaker 1: as kids are really attuned to and sensitive to um
Speaker 1: our father's levels of acceptance and also rejection. And one
Speaker 1: key quote that jumped out to me in the study
Speaker 1: discussion was that parental acceptance and rejection may be perceived
Speaker 1: as a reflection of the self's social worth. Thus, low
Speaker 1: acceptance and high rejection by fathers compared to mothers may
Speaker 1: carry more negative psychological consequences. Dad's beware interesting well. Psychologist
Speaker 1: 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 idolize their fathers because they don't know them
Speaker 1: well enough to to see their flaws and therefore desire
Speaker 1: his approval. She talks a lot about how stereotypically, uh culturally,
Speaker 1: the father is working outside the home more, maybe he
Speaker 1: travels more than mom does, maybe mom's home more, being
Speaker 1: the primary caregiver, And it's that whole like allure of
Speaker 1: this powerful man outside the house and if he's oh well,
Speaker 1: if he's so powerful and needed out there, then obviously
Speaker 1: he's like a big shot. And there's that whole idea
Speaker 1: that dad is this sort of other figure. He's a
Speaker 1: little bit more distant from us than Mom, who is,
Speaker 1: you know, very close in terms of being a caregiver.
Speaker 1: So we've got to work harder and try to impress
Speaker 1: him more. Although I do have a feeling that narrative
Speaker 1: is rapidly changing as you do have more stay at
Speaker 1: home dads for instance, or moms who are the breadwinners,
Speaker 1: and and dad's in general just being more invested in childcare.
Speaker 1: And I think that would be a good way, for
Speaker 1: a positive way for it to be evolving. Um, but
Speaker 1: if we look a little more closely to at that
Speaker 1: father daughter relationship, not just looking at kids in general,
Speaker 1: looking now at dad's and daughters, what kind of dynamics
Speaker 1: tend to emerge. So there's also this common refrain that
Speaker 1: fathers are the first men whose love girls seek out.
Speaker 1: And a lot of this, too, you have to keep
Speaker 1: in mind, is coming from a very heteronormative framework. Um,
Speaker 1: there's this important importance of the father figure in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, being that that first guy that whose
Speaker 1: love and affection girls want to win over is based
Speaker 1: on the assumption that you know, in the in the future,
Speaker 1: she will be seeking the love and affection of other men,
Speaker 1: and so dads thus established our earliest models of what
Speaker 1: we expect relationships with men to be like. And then
Speaker 1: our relationship attachment styles, which we've talked a lot before
Speaker 1: on the podcast anxious attachment, secure attachment, et cetera. Then
Speaker 1: flow from there, thanks or no thanks, death. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I can I can totally see how this this
Speaker 1: goes beyond just like being a stereotype and something that
Speaker 1: people assume. I can totally see how dad would be
Speaker 1: a model, and psychologist Jennifer Cromberg basically says, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: basically that's that's how that works. She says, in my
Speaker 1: years of psychology practice, I've met very few women who
Speaker 1: didn't unconsciously or consciously pick a romantic partner based on
Speaker 1: her dad. Talking about it's true for whether she a
Speaker 1: woman dates a man because he's like her father or
Speaker 1: because he's nothing like her dad. Somehow, it's all based
Speaker 1: one way or another on her relationship with her father. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we actually did a podcast a while back now
Speaker 1: called Dewey Mary Our Parents, which if you want, if
Speaker 1: you want to dig more into this kind of psychology,
Speaker 1: you can head over to stuff Mom Never Told You
Speaker 1: dot com and look in our podcast archive, which you
Speaker 1: can get to by clicking on the podcast tab and
Speaker 1: scrolling all the way down and you'll see a button
Speaker 1: browse all of our podcasts and the episode title is
Speaker 1: do We Marry Our Parents? But back to dads and daughters.
Speaker 1: What daughters say they want more from their dads and
Speaker 1: perhaps to divert these so called daddy issues, that negative
Speaker 1: baggage that we you know, hear about so often in
Speaker 1: a very flip kind of way. Um. According to a
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven study in contemporary sexuality, what daughters in
Speaker 1: the in this case, college aged daughters wanted more from
Speaker 1: their dads was quote understanding men, suggesting ways to deal
Speaker 1: with pressure to have sex, sharing their own experiences about adolescence,
Speaker 1: dating insects when they, as in the ads, were adolescents,
Speaker 1: communicating values, providing more information on sexual risk topics, and
Speaker 1: being more open and comfortable when talking to their daughters.
Speaker 1: Because this entire study was looking at how dads talked
Speaker 1: to their daughters about sex and the answer is not
Speaker 1: very much, because that's uncomfortable. As a lot of the
Speaker 1: male psychologists they talked to say, yeah, it can be
Speaker 1: uncomfortable if you are a dad to talk to your
Speaker 1: daughter about sex, because then it gets into questions of
Speaker 1: what did you do dad, and then having to stay
Speaker 1: out loud well, I was young and horny once, and
Speaker 1: then the awkward silence that ensues. Right, Yeah, the whole
Speaker 1: idea about dad being all like, hey, kiddo and poling
Speaker 1: around with you before puberty, and then puberty hits and
Speaker 1: suddenly dad feels like he's in an awkward like just
Speaker 1: talk to your mother face. Yeah, because I'm sure for
Speaker 1: a lot of dad's there's you know, a line that
Speaker 1: they want to respect and don't want to cross. But
Speaker 1: also to you hear from these these older daughters saying
Speaker 1: that they, you know, wish that there had been more
Speaker 1: recognition of the fact that, yeah, they were growing up
Speaker 1: and that's not a scary thing, and it would have
Speaker 1: been nice from that primary model of what men are
Speaker 1: like in relationships to have one that's open and honest
Speaker 1: and able to talk about things like sex. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: to be fair, neither of my parents talked to me
Speaker 1: about sex, so that one, that one wasn't all on dad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is true, and I mean my mom definitely talked
Speaker 1: to me more about it, and the messages that I
Speaker 1: got from my dad about sex were more in the
Speaker 1: sense of no, you don't want to know what happens
Speaker 1: in a boy's mind, which, for the record, people not
Speaker 1: a good message to give to your daughters. Well, Kristen,
Speaker 1: we have a lot more to talk about, but first
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break. When it comes
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Speaker 1: Speaking of messages that dads are giving their daughters, what
Speaker 1: happens when daughters don't have those ideal, strong, warm relationships
Speaker 1: with dad. Study looked at stress responses that women experience
Speaker 1: and found that those who had reported relationships with their
Speaker 1: dad characterized by rejection, chaos, and coercion ended up having
Speaker 1: basically higher stress hormone levels, so cortisol levels and and
Speaker 1: but before a task that they anticipated to be stressful,
Speaker 1: and had higher cortisol in response to a problem discussion
Speaker 1: with a friend. They were also more likely to self
Speaker 1: disclose about psychosocial stressors. Yeah, that disclosure thing is something
Speaker 1: that comes up a lot in terms of corelates behavioral corelates.
Speaker 1: For women who have dysfunctional relationships with their dads, there
Speaker 1: is a lot more disclosure going on. And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why, but that was just something that I noticed
Speaker 1: from the research. Um, But in that particular instance, the
Speaker 1: opposite was true for the women who you know had
Speaker 1: self reported father daughter relationships characterized by warmth, autonomy, support,
Speaker 1: and structure. They actually on a physiological level, managed stressful
Speaker 1: situations better. And Caroline, you know, what is incredible to
Speaker 1: me is the fact that this relationship has been studied
Speaker 1: down to a physiological level. Did you see any physiological
Speaker 1: biological studies about the influence of mother's relationship on their
Speaker 1: sons and how they manage stressed Definitely not. There were
Speaker 1: 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 the 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 off or
Speaker 1: drug use, alcohol use, tobacco use, and premarital sex and
Speaker 1: teen pregnancy interesting not sliding down a long hallway within
Speaker 1: just a button up in socks listening to Bob Seagery. So,
Speaker 1: and of course this all ties into relationship habits as well.
Speaker 1: This is what we talk a lot about when you
Speaker 1: think about women with quote unquote daddy issues. But other
Speaker 1: studies have shown associations between negative relationships with dad's and
Speaker 1: relationship self esteem, overall self disclosure, and overall self silencing
Speaker 1: in romantic relationships. And then when it comes to sex.
Speaker 1: This is kind of echoing when I just said a
Speaker 1: minute ago. There's a two thousand three study in child
Speaker 1: development which found that girls with absent fathers were likelier
Speaker 1: to become pregnant, and I'm assuming that means teen pregnancy.
Speaker 1: And other studies have also correlated again absent or dysfunctional
Speaker 1: dads with not just uh sexual promiscuity, but lower sexual
Speaker 1: confidence in daughters, which psychologists would say would then lead
Speaker 1: to that quote unquote risky behavior. So there is a
Speaker 1: lot of concern echoed over and over again about will
Speaker 1: a bad dad lead to essentially a promiscuous daughter. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of focus just on that sex behavior of
Speaker 1: the daughter, right and uh. Catherine Hutchinson and Julie cedar
Speaker 1: Baum in a study looked at women who talked about
Speaker 1: their father's kind of encapsulating them and in this whole
Speaker 1: daddy's girl role and found that these according to these women,
Speaker 1: in their perspective, their father's inability to see them as
Speaker 1: anything but little girls was actually a barrier to father
Speaker 1: daughter sexual communication. The father refusing to see his daughter
Speaker 1: as either a grown up woman or as a developing adolescent,
Speaker 1: refusing to accept it that she's anything other than daddy's princess. Well,
Speaker 1: and in that situation too, I think those those relationships
Speaker 1: weren't necessarily seen as negative ones. These were dads who
Speaker 1: were involved in their daughters lives and were very present
Speaker 1: and loving towards their daughters. But like you said, just
Speaker 1: crystallize them in this you know, prepubescent phase and kind
Speaker 1: of can't move beyond that. I can't think about sex,
Speaker 1: doesn't want to talk about sex, noop, et cetera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so let's talk a little bit though about daddy
Speaker 1: issues in Daddy's Little Girls in pop culture, because that
Speaker 1: was a large focus of the Mama's Boy episode because
Speaker 1: it became so deeply ingrained in mid century American culture.
Speaker 1: So what about when it comes to Daddy's Girls. And
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about that when we come right back
Speaker 1: from a quick break and now back to the show.
Speaker 1: So it's about time we got around to talking about
Speaker 1: Freud because we mentioned him so much in our Mom's
Speaker 1: Boy episode, and we also mentioned the whole post World
Speaker 1: War two period when a lot of societal fears and
Speaker 1: anxieties cropped up, not only around mothers and their children,
Speaker 1: but also homosexuality and what that meant as a changing society. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there was just this really intense focus on psychoanalysis,
Speaker 1: and particularly psychoanalysis through that edible framework, kind of the
Speaker 1: placing perhaps too much importance and fear on the child's relationship,
Speaker 1: particularly with the opposite sex parents. And Tulane history professor
Speaker 1: Rachel Devlin actually wrote an entire book about this in
Speaker 1: two thousand five called Relative Intimacy, Father's Adolescent Daughters and
Speaker 1: Postwar American Culture, and she argues in it that the
Speaker 1: whole daddy issues Daddy's Girls thing was a combination of
Speaker 1: two forces, one being the popularity of Freudian psychoanalysis, and
Speaker 1: then also the rise of female delinquency because you have
Speaker 1: in post World War two America for the very first time,
Speaker 1: teenage culture really being this big thing. I mean, even
Speaker 1: if you look back at Life magazine at the time,
Speaker 1: they have feature stories on like what being a teenager
Speaker 1: is because it's this sort of new phase in life
Speaker 1: and 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. For sure, Broyd would
Speaker 1: have been like, oh, I got a lot to say.
Speaker 1: But Devlin 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 actual thing. She said that it was
Speaker 1: thought at the time that girls who were allowed to
Speaker 1: wear bright lipstick, which was in vogue with their father's
Speaker 1: blessing would be sexually well developed. Whereas dads who forbade
Speaker 1: their daughters to wear lipstick, we're arresting their daughters sexual development.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean talk about some loaded lipstick, interesting band,
Speaker 1: new band name? Well, I mean because two in this
Speaker 1: is in the what forties and fifties, and only a
Speaker 1: few decades prior, wearing wearing rouge on your lips would
Speaker 1: have been something only a stage actresses would do. And
Speaker 1: you know what stage actresses do? They act and they
Speaker 1: and they flown a kate. But she then ties that
Speaker 1: to this idea of a new fatherhood that began emerging
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties. This is when we slowly see
Speaker 1: the development of dad's roles starting to change, gradually becoming
Speaker 1: more involved and becoming more of an expected part of
Speaker 1: the paternal role, not just to go out and bring
Speaker 1: home the bacon and be the provider, but also provide
Speaker 1: emotional security as well. And when the depression hit, it
Speaker 1: had an interesting influence on the father daughter relationship. And
Speaker 1: this is coming from the book American Sweethearts Teenage Girls
Speaker 1: in twenties Century Popular Culture, and Alana Nashy, author says
Speaker 1: that the trophy daughter idea thrived in the depression, when
Speaker 1: the proliferation of sub deb as in debutante images in
Speaker 1: popular culture address the perceived crisis of masculinity, suggesting that
Speaker 1: Daddy was still a real man and that his masculinity
Speaker 1: was not lost entirely in the crisis as long as
Speaker 1: he could protect his angelic little girl. So daddy's little
Speaker 1: girl is going to be showered with gifts. He is
Speaker 1: going to, you know, buy all these things for her
Speaker 1: to protect her and also in the process assert his
Speaker 1: own masculinity, which is being threatened by this economic crisis
Speaker 1: of the Great Depression. That is interesting the layers on
Speaker 1: that one. It's probably not the same thing as when
Speaker 1: my father a couple of years ago asked if if
Speaker 1: I wanted him to take me find china shopping. I
Speaker 1: was like, do you really do you think I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna get married. You're just gonna step up to the
Speaker 1: plate and buy me some some plates. Maybe you wanted
Speaker 1: to assert his masculinity or something. Maybe he has a
Speaker 1: 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 has
Speaker 1: I mean, you're talking in a in a time frame
Speaker 1: of the depression, or a lot of nash is talking
Speaker 1: about a time frame of the depression. But I mean,
Speaker 1: now we have something similar if you look at things
Speaker 1: like moving on from debutantes up to the popularity these
Speaker 1: days of like purity balls and stuff. Oh yeah, the
Speaker 1: purity balls being uh, events that are more typically associated
Speaker 1: with evangelical Christianity and the whole virginity pledge thing. There
Speaker 1: are these events called purity balls where fathers will escort
Speaker 1: their daughters to a prom like event where or and
Speaker 1: it's sort of a prom and also a coming out
Speaker 1: kind of event where dads will pledge publicly to protect
Speaker 1: their daughters sexual purity, and then the daughters sort of
Speaker 1: pledge themselves to their dads as well. There's definitely a
Speaker 1: lot of interaction between what we've been talking about and
Speaker 1: that phenomenon. But in all of this, I mean, you
Speaker 1: could argue that all of that sounds pretty weird, but overall,
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot more social acceptance for daddy's
Speaker 1: little girl, daddy's princess, things like that, even like grown
Speaker 1: women saying it versus mama's boy, which is definitely pathologized. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because what have we seen in all of this research,
Speaker 1: there's this, you know, hammering home over and over again,
Speaker 1: this idea that if you have a solid relationship with
Speaker 1: your dad as a female, then you are well adjusted,
Speaker 1: you know, and there it kind of like can't And
Speaker 1: the only way that it starts to get so close
Speaker 1: that people start turning their noses up at it is
Speaker 1: when it becomes almost too financially involved, where she becomes
Speaker 1: the spoiled little princess rather than just daddy's little girl,
Speaker 1: but a woman who is codependent on her father in
Speaker 1: the same way that a guy might be codependent on
Speaker 1: his mother that we call him a mama's boy. Those
Speaker 1: are perceived very differently, it seems like, even even today,
Speaker 1: and speaking of Peggy Drexler, the author of Our Fathers,
Speaker 1: Ourselves and the Psychologists, the one big type of father
Speaker 1: that she calls out in her book that she sort
Speaker 1: of has no patience for is the dad who really
Speaker 1: fosters the whole daddy's little girl image, not in the
Speaker 1: sense of like wanting to have a close relationship with
Speaker 1: her his daughter, but dads who sort of want to
Speaker 1: almost over put put their daughters in a bell jar
Speaker 1: in a way to protect them from everything, because she
Speaker 1: says that it might render them incapable of self actualizing
Speaker 1: as adult women, because these dads want to hold onto
Speaker 1: them because maybe it's a need to assertain masculinity. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a fear, you know, the of knowing themselves as younger,
Speaker 1: horny men and not wanting to think about that in
Speaker 1: the context of their sexually maturing daughters. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: she's she's not look kindly upon that. That's funny, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't. I never got the impression that
Speaker 1: my dad wanted to keep me his little girl forever.
Speaker 1: I got the impression more that he was off to
Speaker 1: the side, like, ah, she's growing up, and I'm just
Speaker 1: I'll just be over here. I don't, I can't watch.
Speaker 1: Not that he was like super comfortable with me, like
Speaker 1: dating or anything. It was more that he's like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to know. I don't want to know, don't
Speaker 1: don't tell me. But Rachel Devlin, who we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: also looks at these contemporary father daughter relationships from an
Speaker 1: interesting perspective. She says that they're more commercially oriented as
Speaker 1: evidenced by things like MTV show My Super Sweet Sixteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in case you haven't seen this reality show, and I
Speaker 1: don't know that it's still on the air, it showcases
Speaker 1: a lavish, over the top sweet sixteen party for a kid.
Speaker 1: A lot of times it's a girl who is usually
Speaker 1: pretty spoiled, gets everything that she wants and usually ends
Speaker 1: with someone getting a new car. And it's always interesting
Speaker 1: in the show too, or thinking back on the show.
Speaker 1: It's not like I'm sitting at home still watching it
Speaker 1: these days, but I watched it enough in my youth
Speaker 1: to know that every now and then the mom always
Speaker 1: played a larger role in the show because the dad
Speaker 1: was off doing whatever, making these bookoo bucks to pay
Speaker 1: for this party. And when he would show up, though,
Speaker 1: he would always be the one handing over the keys
Speaker 1: to the car and like looking proud as a peacock
Speaker 1: to be showing off how well he was providing for
Speaker 1: his lovely daughter coming of age. Look at look at
Speaker 1: what he's doing. It's that trophy daughter idea, which is uh,
Speaker 1: which is really fascinating to think about, right, But I mean,
Speaker 1: I think what you just said illustrates what Devlin is
Speaker 1: talking about. As far as the monetary exchange being used
Speaker 1: as a way for fathers to distance themselves from their
Speaker 1: daughters sexual development, well, yeah, because it probably feels more
Speaker 1: appropriate to make purchase to demonstrate your love because, as
Speaker 1: Dad's can probably attest, when you know, girls start to
Speaker 1: their daughters start to mature, all of a sudden, they
Speaker 1: get boobs when you hug them, it feels different than
Speaker 1: when you hug them as little girls, and showing them
Speaker 1: physical affection could get uncomfortable maybe for them and for
Speaker 1: their daughters. And so yeah, I could totally see the
Speaker 1: consumer side of it being a distancing factor or a strategy,
Speaker 1: I should say. But one thing that we've touched on
Speaker 1: but haven't really gotten into is the fact and we
Speaker 1: we talked about this a little bit with Mama's Boys
Speaker 1: and that they're just different dynamics going on. If it's
Speaker 1: the same sex couple raising kids, then it is with
Speaker 1: our stereotypical mother father household that has been studied to death. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing for both of these episodes, Mama's
Speaker 1: Boys and Daddy's Girls is can goodness those phrases just
Speaker 1: burnt holes in my brain. Uh, It's interesting to talk
Speaker 1: about both of them at this time when I feel
Speaker 1: like the role of mother and father is very much
Speaker 1: in flux and almost it's starting to meld together into
Speaker 1: this broader role of just being a good parent and
Speaker 1: it not being so gender specific. Um, because you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, they are now plenty of two parent
Speaker 1: households with kids who are doing perfectly well where there
Speaker 1: is neither a father or neither a mother, depending on
Speaker 1: which kind of same sex couple it is. And there
Speaker 1: was actually an article in The Advocate called the Lesbian
Speaker 1: Dad and talking about how there are some gender nonconforming
Speaker 1: lesbians who are more comfortable with their kids calling them
Speaker 1: dad or a derivative thereof, Like they profiled one woman
Speaker 1: who preferred to be called Baba rather than being called
Speaker 1: mom or mommy, because particularly with the mommy, there's just
Speaker 1: there's just no identification with that label. What's however, and
Speaker 1: I can understand that, I mean, I oh, thinking myself
Speaker 1: being called mommy? Nope, well, I mean, you know, this
Speaker 1: also goes back to an episode that Kristen 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 sweetest 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 are 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? Oh, I'd like to see it retired. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it is always such an ugly insult to
Speaker 1: say to somebody. Yeah, I mean it's also used a
Speaker 1: lot if you just google around different combinations with it.
Speaker 1: It is used a lot in headlines as a clever
Speaker 1: turn of phrase to indicate that there there's some kind
Speaker 1: of problems somewhere, like oh this you know, this organization
Speaker 1: has daddy issues or whatever. So I don't know, I
Speaker 1: just feel like it's so hackneed in 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 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 your
Speaker 1: thoughts on the whole daddy's little girl thing daddy issues?
Speaker 1: Do you think it should be retired or do you
Speaker 1: think that it is useful in some applications. Let us
Speaker 1: know all of your thoughts. Mom Stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com is where you can send us your letters.
Speaker 1: You can also tweet us a mom stuff podcast and
Speaker 1: send us a message on Facebook as well. And We've
Speaker 1: got a couple of messages that have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with dads to share with you right now. I've got
Speaker 1: to let her here. From Hannah in response to our
Speaker 1: Women's Wanderlust episode, she writes, I wanted to mention a
Speaker 1: few observations I've made while traveling alone. I made my
Speaker 1: first alone trip to India ten years ago at twenty one,
Speaker 1: and I've kept going back ever since. And the part
Speaker 1: of the observation of hers that I wanted to share
Speaker 1: with listeners. Is this My biggest problem traveling in India
Speaker 1: as a woman has been finding toilets when on long
Speaker 1: trips through rural areas. I've had to talk many a
Speaker 1: bus driver into keeping the whole bus waiting while I
Speaker 1: wander off, usually into some potentially snake infested field, to
Speaker 1: find a discreet spot. Women in saris will often just
Speaker 1: lift their skirt on the side of the road, and
Speaker 1: wearing pants makes it more complicated. The lack of facilities
Speaker 1: for women in India is a well known problem, and
Speaker 1: of course much more serious for the local women who
Speaker 1: risk getting raped when looking for a secluded space. For me,
Speaker 1: it's a mere annoyance. As for the distinction between traveler
Speaker 1: and tourists, I would just say that someone who insists
Speaker 1: on calling herself a traveler and not a tourist is
Speaker 1: just a very pretentious tourists. And I do think solo
Speaker 1: travel can make you a bit self absorbed in the
Speaker 1: long run. Whenever I've come across some of those self
Speaker 1: proclaimed off the beaten track travelers who've been roaming around
Speaker 1: for years, I make a sport out of timing how
Speaker 1: long it takes them to ask a single question about
Speaker 1: anyone else. I've experienced having hour long conversations in quotes
Speaker 1: about the wonderfully intriguing travels of such people without even
Speaker 1: having been asked for my name. This turned out, This
Speaker 1: letter 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. It sounds like she's running into some
Speaker 1: not so great travelers see what I did, or tourists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so thanks Hannah. Okay, I have a letter here from Gabby.
Speaker 1: She says, Hello, ladies. Hello, I'm a Brazilian actress and
Speaker 1: have discovered your podcast recently. Hello, welcome. So your podcast
Speaker 1: on fat bottom girls was especially interesting for me. I
Speaker 1: grew up in a culture it's really butt center. That
Speaker 1: is my own analysis, but I feel that globalization is
Speaker 1: changing preferences in Brazil in front of my own eyes.
Speaker 1: As in the nineties, most people would choose butts over breasts.
Speaker 1: In the two thousands, globalization had a boom in quote
Speaker 1: and since then middle and upper class males have been
Speaker 1: paying more attention to breasts. The culture and cult of
Speaker 1: the bottoms were left to the lower classes that can
Speaker 1: be seen very specially in the music scene inside Brazil slums.
Speaker 1: A really popular rhythm is called funk karaokea that valorizes
Speaker 1: a cultural vision really similar to the North American rap.
Speaker 1: The lyrics and dances tend to be really sexualized by
Speaker 1: men and women and quite focused on the bottoms. So
Speaker 1: thank you, she signs it lots of love from Brazil
Speaker 1: and lots of love to you, Gabby. As a new listener.
Speaker 1: We appreciate your letter, yes indeed, and we appreciate all
Speaker 1: of your letters. Keep them coming. Mom Stuff at house
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com is where you can send them
Speaker 1: or can always get in touch by tweeting us a
Speaker 1: mom stuff podcast or messaging us on Facebook and for
Speaker 1: links to all of our social media's as well as
Speaker 1: all of our blog post, videos, and podcast including this one,
Speaker 1: which also includes our sources so you can follow along,
Speaker 1: head on over to stuff mom Never Told You dot
Speaker 1: com or more on this and thousands of other topics
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