A lack of natural synchronicity between fathers and daughters doesn’t mean either party is not a priority to the other. The simple answer to an improved relationship lies in intentional communication.
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Jay:
One of the toughest things about parenting is that you can have perfectly good intentions and still be sending your children damaging messages. And one of those messages I see all too often tells daughters that their dad doesn’t think they are worth talking to.
Now, you may be thinking I talk to my daughter all of the time. And you may talk to them regularly. What matters, however, is what you talk to them about.
A lot of dads are more than happy to talk to their daughters as long as long as the conversation is safe. And by safe, I mean, doesn’t involve emotions or vulnerability. Those kinds of topics are the ones dads too often avoid and so they end up unintentionally telling their daughters, “You aren’t important enough for me to bother talking to you.”
Here are a couple of examples. I’ve seen variations of these play out multiple times in different ways.
- Sister texts “Dad wants to know if you are coming home for Christmas.” Sure, maybe dad was busy. Except five minutes later he is happy to randomly text, “Go Packers.” He may text regularly, but the topic is never anything meaningful where there might be risk of disappointment. That is left for others to do. Message received: I ’m not worth him asking me about Christmas (or whatever the subject might be) himself?
- Daughter is home for a holiday and Mom says, “Dad is pretty upset about [your job choice, the fact you are not heterosexual, you are sleeping with your partner while not married, that you got a tattoo, whatever it is] so you shouldn’t bring it up around him.” Message received: I ’m not important enough for him to talk to me about a difficult subject? I ’m not allowed to talk to AND he needs Mom to tell me that for him?
The response I usually get from dads is that I’m crazy if their daughter thinks he doesn’t love her and value her. That may be the case. What I know is what I hear from clients and from friends. I’ve heard situations like these repeated over and over by many people. They all describe essentially the same message: I don’t matter enough. The follow up response is usually, why doesn’t she tell me? Think about that one. Your daughter is feeling like you don’t want to deal with her around challenging subjects and are already deeming her not worthy and you expect she’ll just walk up and confront you about it? While some daughters may, for many, even perhaps the majority, that action feels too scary and risky.
What is your response likely to be? Will you be soft and vulnerable and say,” I’m so sorry, that’s not what I intended?” Or will you tell her she is wrong, that you do think she matters and is making a mountain out of a molehill? Because if you do the latter, you’ll be sending her another bad message :your feelings and beliefs are wrong and don’t matter.
For reasons I don’t have space to speculate about, I seldom see this play out this way with sons. Maybe that’s a topic for another day.
For now, remember even good intentions can sometimes have unintended consequences. While these can’t all be avoided, stop to consider if there are some that can be avoided. Talk directly to your daughters; don’t limit the conversation to fun or meaningless topics. Have a real conversation. Let her know she matters.
Alison:
Parent-child communication can be difficult. I think there are likely a myriad of reasons why and as many solutions.
The default parent. Has mom been the default parent in terms of caretaking and overall responsibility? It can be easy to fall into familiar patterns, letting the “default parent” handle things. When practical personal care is no longer required, this may evolve to emotional caretaking.
Social skills. Is the person relaying dad’s communications used to being the “interpreter” in social situations and in maintaining relationships? Each family seems to have “connectors”—the people who hold everyone together. This role may be something they have been given explicitly or implicitly over time. If siblings observe mom “interpreting” for dad growing up, it becomes a learned behavior, a habit or reflex to compensate for things that Dad might not have felt empowered to do before. With everyone picking up the slack, there’s no impetus for change. It can become so habitual, the person being interpreted for no longer notices it’s happening.
Uncommunicated expectations. With power imbalance in parent-child relationships, it can be hard to vocalize what we want or need without sounding critical or ungrateful. If there’s emotional distance, there’s a risk in speaking out in terms of losing what little is there. One way stopping the cycle can happen is by rewarding desired behavior when it manifests with something like, “It meant a lot to me when you did X. That’s the sort of thing that helps me feel close to you.” Otherwise, a more direct approach might be helpful, “I need your advice on X, because I value your opinion.”
Optimal conditions. Sometimes we need to identify the communication style of the person with whom we are trying to connect. Maybe dad is a man of few words aloud, but if given time to thoughtfully contemplate, he could provide some solid feedback in writing. Perhaps dad does better talking about things during lateral activities. Sitting down to coffee to talk can be intimidating, but if we happen talk while we are enjoying a shared activity, there’s a lot less pressure. A phone call might go over better than an in-person visit, or a text message might be more successful than a letter. When you know your audience, you can find the best way to reach out.
Gender roles. How competent does dad feel dealing with “womanly” things? What patterns were present in his family of origin? Is he following the example that has been set for him? It isn’t an excuse, but it might be an explanation. If he learned moms handle the squishy emotional stuff and dads handle the discipline and authoritarian stuff, some types of communication might feel foreign.
It’s important to not personalize or internalize someone else’s shortcomings as an indictment or evaluation on your own character or worth as a person. Just because someone isn’t good at something doesn’t mean you aren’t worth doing it for. Father-daughter distance can be a challenge, but all relationships take work. A lack of natural synchronicity doesn’t mean it’s not a priority, likely it means communication may need to be more intentional.
Jay responds:
Alison, you are sounding like the therapist now! I agree with every point AND to some degree it doesn’t matter.
Children are born wanting their parents’ approval and love. When they are young they don’t have the ability to process all of the reasons something is happening. They just feel it emotionally.
Those messages get deeply embedded. As adults, we can change these messages, but it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes work to undo patterns. Meanwhile they still feel the messages.
I’m just asking dads to think about it. Intent matters, but what matters more is how your daughter is receiving it. What dad would want their daughter to feel unloved?
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