The dark side of the father-daughter relationship

The father-daughter relationship has always been overlooked. Fathers have a major influence on a child’s development and quality of life, as is the impact of the relationship the fathers have with the mothers. This relationship has an enormous and long-lasting influence on a child, which continues throughout their adult life. We might not realise it, but countless areas that concern our personal lives and well-being are linked to the kind of relationship we had with our dads. The relationship that boys have with their fathers is complex too, but it is different with girls. A father-daughter relationship is a key to a woman’s happiness and life. Just as important as the way that her parent’s relationship will forever taint her future ones, the way that her dad made her feel is likely to be transferred to every guy that she meets. The way that a girl sees her value, and the way that men should treat her, all stem from the notions that she got in her father-daughter relationship.

Who doesn’t want to be daddy’s girl? Loved, accepted and celebrated. The father is supposed to be the man who stands up for you, protects you, and looks at you like you are a blessing. Unfortunately, not all of us end up with the fairytale father we wish for, nor do we have a perfect father-daughter relationship to remember fondly.

“Therefore, it is said a father holds his daughter hands for a short while but he holds her heart forever.”

Here are some types of a toxic father-daughter relationship: Daughter craving attention Daughter spends her lifetime trying to get the attention and/or approval of a dismissive father. The competitive relationship. In this father-daughter relationship, the daughter is constantly fighting for the fathers’ attention because she has siblings who are the “golden” child. With the critical dad. The daughter of a critical man is fearful and anxious all the time. The abusive father. The down-right abusive father is one of the worst role models that any woman can have. Daughters of such men seek out for men who will abuse them, and when someone is nice to them, they will believe the worst anyway.

The abandoned girl. These are girls who lost their father or were abandoned early on. Typically due to divorce or losing a father, the abandoned girl takes it personally and will have low self-esteem, and very little confidence in herself and the person she would be with. The girl who never knew her dad. This is a very sad father-daughter relationship because the girl didn’t ever get to know her father and has had a hard time knowing who she is. Growing up, it was difficult to see her friends spend time with their dad and have a good relationship with them. The strict father The girl who has a strict dad is going to be very sheltered and immature.

The Narcissistic Dad, who gets what he wants even at the risk of damaging his family and its members, which it usually does. Arrogant, self-assured and self-centred. The daughter will turn out to have Lack of empathy or sense of morality

Each of these types of fathers leaves a unique imprint the daughters emotions, way of thinking and innate beliefs that often go onto affect us in adult life.

The biggest problem the daughters reflect in their inability to commit, fear of abandonment, lack of communication, poor emotional intelligence and/or understanding of themselves and their partners.

Daddy’s are said to be daughter’s first love and that’s the reason they are also the first male influence in their lives. The seeds of every relationship, desires, actions, choice, that the girl makes in her life are sown basis the father-daughter bond which acts as an embryo to the tree of girl’s life choices.

As an Indian daughter, I was made to believe that fathers could be a patriarchial, supremacist, arresting authority in the family but they were not the kind we should be revolting against. Unlike movies, which sometimes help us gloss over the regressive mindsets of desi dads, the cruelty of real life doesn’t let us afford the luxury to skim through. It’s something us daughters have to wrestle with every second of the day. Some things we go through are:

Choice of clothes as a child: Something as simple as allowing the child to wear what she wants then making her conscious of being a girl. At the age of 3 when the girl is asked “theek se baitho” or “ladko ke kapde kyu pehne hain”, the girl is made conscious of being someone different and that she is supposed to behave differently from her brothers.

Choosing an against the wave education line: A girl from a reasonably not so remote area wants to become a journalist and expresses her self to her father to get back a male chauvinist answer like “Aab tum mic le ke poori duniya me ghumogi” or “ye koi ladkiyon wale kaam hai”

Not allowing overnight picnics to girls: We have known of a lot of girls saying that they may not come for the overnight school picnics for their fathers don’t approve of it. And we may know that the boy child of the same family is given the luxury for the fact that he is a boy.

Fathers asking the girls to learn cooking: A girl aspiring to study tough courses is generally found busy with books or complaining that there is too much pressure on her to learn the household chores because the father thinks her culinary skills are way more important than the education she is pursuing, and this gives a girl that feeling of being suffocated and being controlled by fathers.

When it comes to choosing a life partner: Whether it’s about “what kind of partner to be chosen” to “when is the right time for marriage” girls find it difficult to explain to their fathers and more often than not, mothers hardly have a say in this matter. Girls generally end up listening to the phrases like “aab tum humain bhataogi ki tumhare liye kya sahi hai?”

When fathers feel “women can’t be independent“: when a girl expresses her wish of staying single all her life and living on her terms is when she gets to here. Something like “what will you do after we are gone” or “it is a bad world for single women”

When they say sports are for men you are supposed to get married: in schools we have surely come across women wanting to pursue sports and their sports teacher running around parents to explain to them about the potential of their daughters but fathers can’t really understand the combination of sports and kitchen and sadly, they choose a kitchen for their daughters.

Hence bring up your children as children, not as a daughter or a son, and they shall flourish and make you proud. How fathers treat their girls makes them learn how to have relationships with men. They are guided by the experiences that she has with the main man in her life, which up until puberty, is typically her father. If he is overbearing, too protective, or abusive, it is likely going to affect the way that she relates to you, the expectations that she has, and the assumptions that she makes about who you are. And girls if there’s one thing you’ll realise, is that with your fathers, the grand declarations hardly mean shit. There’s no point waiting for our own “Jaa Simran, jee le apni zindagi moment”.  As daughters, you should only be impressed when they stop getting away with merely parenting you, instead of being the father you want and need.