This is a serious question, mostly addressed to the adult women among us but also to anyone else who has a stake in the matter.
What did your father do for you/not do for you, that you needed?
Context: I have recently become a father to a daughter, with a mother whose father was not around when she was growing up. I won’t bore you all with the details but our daughter is here now and I am realising that I’m the only one in our little family who has really had a father before. But I have never been a girl. And I know that as a boy, my relationships with my mother and father were massively influential and powerful but at the same time radically different to each other. People say that daughters and fathers have a unique relationship too.
Question: What was your father to you? What matters the most when it comes to a father making his daughter loved, safe, confident and free? To live a good life as an adult?
I’d like this to be a mature, personal and real discussion about daughters and fathers, rather than a political thing, so I humbly ask to please speak from the heart and not the head on this one :)
Thank you
P.S Apologies if this question is badly written or conceived; I haven’t been getting enough sleep! It is what it is!
Actually being there and staying involved is important. My biodad was a complete POS until last year. My mom was essentially a single mother my whole life because my biodad was never around. He was a really good father for the first two years of my life, then he just kinda stopped giving a shit. I recommend that you don’t do that. He used to manipulate tf out of me emotionally and would make so many false promises. His mental health was fucked and he was an alcoholic for a long time.
I cut ties entirely with him and a few years after that, he reached out to my mom to see if we could talk. He had finally gotten his shit together. He’s on his meds and doesn’t drink like he used to. I don’t see the man as a father, however. I see him as a friend. We text almost daily, but he knows that I don’t consider him a father-figure and acknowledges it and all of his wrongdoings. He was only 21 years too late, but that’s better than never.
He is part of the reason I have a very hard time trusting people. He had let me down countless times in my life and each time just broke me. I just couldn’t not get my hopes up at his false promises. He was so good at sounding genuine. Now that he’s sober and on his meds, I’ve learned that his truly genuine tone and words are far different than the ones he used when he was still a drunk.
Anyway, I highly recommend you don’t do any of the shit my biodad did. Being hella bitter about your relationship with your father sucks.