Damon Young reasons that the age-old excuse for bad behavior as “Daddy Issues” is complete B.S.
Originally appeared at Very Smart Brothas.
“You know, it was just typical daddy issues. Nothing else, really.”
The statement above was my friend’s (“Jim”) response to a question I asked regarding a woman (“Jane”) he’d recently cut ties with. Despite her quite distinguished ass-to-waist ratio, he’d grown tired of her flakiness, her (relative) youth—he’s 31, she’s 23—and her emotional instability. The response came when I asked him if he ever figured out why she was so prone to random (and public) bouts of strange behavior. (Example: At a get together several months ago, she got upset with Jim and decided to leave and sit in his car with the windows open for the rest of the night. The low temperature that night was 37.)
Apparently, she didn’t have the best relationship with her father, and this combined with the fact that the last couple guys she dated were also in their 30′s was all the proof he needed that she just had serious daddy issues.
While I didn’t dispute my friend’s claim, hearing this woman’s obviously faulty behavior being dismissed as “daddy issues” made something click inside of me, something that had been festering for years now and finally needed to come out:
“Daddy issues” are complete B.S.
Think about it. Think about how every single dating and relationship-related thing that could possibly be wrong with a woman always seems to come back to her father.
If a woman seeks approval from men it’s because she didn’t get enough from her father.
If a woman only dates older men it’s because she’s searching for a father figure.
If a woman’s only attracted to distant and emotionally unavailable men, she’s trying to replicate the relationship she had with her father.
If a woman dates players and man hoes it’s because her father was the same way.
If a woman’s extremely and unnecessarily hard on men it’s because she’s a daddy’s girl.
If a woman’s promiscuous it’s because she either didn’t give enough love from her father or had an inappropriate relationship with him.
If a woman can’t properly gauge a man’s character it’s because her father didn’t teach her how.
If a woman’s too sexually naive she was babied by her father.
If a woman screws an illegal alien it’s because her dad got abducted by a UFO
Point? If every single woman on the planet has some form of daddy issues — and, if what everybody seems to say is correct, they do — then daddy issues don’t actually exist!
I mean, there’s a reason why there’s no such thing as “human issues” or “10 toe issues” or “two nipple issues.” An “issue” is no longer an issue if everyone has some form of the same damn issue. At that point it’s just…normal — no one on Earth has a perfect relationship with their father — and this normalcy means that this “issue” can no longer stand as an excuse for effed up behavior.
Jane’s relationship with her father didn’t make her a weirdo. No, the fact that she was fucking weird made her a weirdo. Daddy issues didn’t cause your ex-girlfriend to break-up with you because she just couldn’t be with a guy who “liked her too much.” No, she couldn’t be with a guy who liked her too much because she was an asshole and an emotional nincompoop. A woman only attracted to much older men isn’t trying to “replace” her dad. She just a lazy ass who tries to explain her lazy ass-ness by saying that she’s too mature for men her age.
Seriously, a grown woman (or man) blaming odd dating and relationship behavior on daddy issues is like a Black man getting fired from the Cheesecake Factory and blaming slavery. Sure, maybe your life might have been a tad different if your great-great-great grandmother wasn’t massa Jackson’s favorite nighttime foot warmer, but you got fired today because they caught your creepy ass eating the tomatoes out of the shrimp and bacon club sandwiches.
This isn’t meant to minimize the importance of a father in a young woman’s life and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Dads matter and shit. But, using daddy issues as a universal excuse, distinction, and diagnosis subtly absolves accountability, making all dads equal scapegoats for shitty behavior.
You know, I’m not a dad yet, but I might be one day. If this day comes, there’s a 50/50 chance that my child will be a daughter, and I will do everything in my power to protect, love, and educate this girl. But, if she decides to cite a hug I didn’t give her in 2018 as the reason why she can’t find love in 2038, I’ll have one message for her: Fuck you.
Photo courtesy of rachelkramerbussel.com
Take it from a guy with 5 younger sisters and a lunatic father. YES YES and YES, an unhealthy relationship with your father can cause all kinds of issues in a women, young and old. Two of my sisters from my fathers first marriag with my mother are completely different. One formed a wondefulbond with my stepfather and she seeks only healthy relationships with men and cannot be intimate with a stranger. On the other hand, my other sister never formed a bond with my step fther and carries around incredible anger and all kinds of shit from my father.… Read more »
I’d turn it around and treat it like a scientific theory. Okay, you say she is acting out her issues with her father. Explain how one would test that assertion. If she was NOT acting out her issues with her father, what would that look like? Come up with a way to test it that could have a Yes outcome or a No outcome. What would constitute proof that she was not acting out of daddy issues? If there is no way I could even imagine her NOT acting out of daddy issues or could not conceive of her not… Read more »
You don’t THINK anyone has “10 toe issues” or “two nipple issues,” until you come across someone who has a different number of them. You are so blinded by your binipplist prejudice that you can’t even see it….. : – ) I agree that “daddy issues” may be an overused term. When someone uses the same explanation for two completely opposite things, that suggests that the explanation is flawed to me. If she wants men’s attention it must be because of her father. If she completely avoids male attention it must be because of her father. If the man she… Read more »
Who are you talking to?
Well, the reality is that women learn how to build relationships from their fathers and mothers. The same goes for men. However, usually a heterosexual person will seek out someone of the opposite gender to fix unresolved issues they had with their opposite sex parent. Hence “daddy issues”. And yes, they are real. It was a big reason I dated older men. And I knew it because I found myself playing out the same problems with the men I dated as I did with my father. That isn’t to say my dad was an awful man or not a good… Read more »
Question…would you say the same thing about a 41 year old man and a 33 year old woman? How about 51 and 43? 61 and 53? You see where this is going…
More importantly, though is the fact that chronological age isn’t everything. There are some particularly immature middle aged adults, and some particularly mature 20-somethings. It’s about the individual.
I think there is a different level of maturity for someone who is 33 vs someone that is 23, in most cases. A relationship beween a 41 year old man OR woman and a 33 year old man OR woman is going to be different from a relationships between a 31 year old man OR woman and a 23 year old man OR woman, again, in most cases. The rare exception not withstanding. Yes, of course there can be some very mature 20 year olds and immature 40 year olds. Regardless, the life experience of a 20 year old is… Read more »
“Many other factors play their parts.” That’s sort of my point, though. It’s not all about your chronological age either. I know people who wanted to settle down literally right out of high school, and I know people who are 50+ and who never wanted to settle down. I know 30-year-olds who’ve had extremely limited life experiences, and I know teenagers who’ve seen more shit than anyone ever should. It’s all about the individual. We can make generalizations based on statistics about this or that…but when it comes to relationships that all sort of doesn’t matter. The bit in your… Read more »
Heather, I get the impression you are arguing your life experiences vs. my life experiences. I understand that people can live a million different ways with a million varying levels of maturity. I understand that people are individuals. This is not a message you need to keep making specifically toward me. We both have life experiences that have shaped the way we individually see things. I also know people 50+ who will never settle down, and 30 year olds with limited life experiences. But this is not the common situation I personally encounter. From my experiences, there is not an… Read more »
So no, I wasn’t arguing my life experiences versus your life experiences. I’ve never dated an older guy (lol). As I said, my problem was just at the use of generalizations and the use of judgement. Mostly, though, it was at your use of judgement. People don’t always know what they want…or sometimes they want something specific in a relationship, and it changes. i.e. maybe an older person (man or woman) is interested in a younger person precisely because they expect that younger person to behave a bit more recklessly, or whatever. Not all relationships are about eventually settling down.… Read more »
How many Dates have you been on? I sort of get what you are saying. But I look at it this way…everyone has Daddy issues at some level, and it’s not complete BS. “daddy issues” aren’t always bad…I think women will be influenced heavily by the dad for all a long time….I have seen good, and bad…but that is why I try to be a good Dad.
So I’ll echo what Aya said, in that I don’t associate “daddy issues” with a lot of the negative traits you mentioned. I do agree that “daddy issues” gets over-used, just as “mommy issues” gets over-used when describing negative traits of some men. Our society has a bit of a problem with blaming the parents, even after people reach adulthood. That being said, daddy issues can be a real thing. I’ve a friend who really does have issues that centre around the fact that her father pretty much ignored her, but spent loads of time with her brothers. Actually, I’ve… Read more »
As a man who is struggling with (and winning against!) mommy issues, well… I buy the “daddy issues” explanation for a lot of things. Ultimately, though, responsibility to change lies with the individual. The only constant in any of your relationships is YOU.
Thanks for actually validating that the sh*t is real. I’ve honestly never heard anybody describe “daddy issues” as anything more than clinginess, neediness, and at worst controlling behavior or infidelity and that too only after confirming that her dad was indeed a bad father. I think too many men see only one side of the coin, and too many on the other side (myself included) don’t face them.
Nothing is an excuse to act like a jerk and hurt others, but because this woman did something “bad” is it a reason to exclude the influence male domination might have had in her life ? I mean, it obviously isn’t the only thing that is to be blamed on earth but this shouldn’t refrain us to address it. The friend saying that “it’s only daddy issues” kind of sounds to me like he didn’t take her feelings or eventual issues very seriously. Saying she does something because she’s just a “lazy-ass” is not better. In both case if feels… Read more »
When a woman does something bad or has some mental or attitude problems, then the blame has to be put somewhere. In the present social environment, any women cannot be blamed so a suitable man has to be found to be blamed. Here the father (man) comes in handy as everyone has a father to blame. After all patriarchy (father’s rule) can be blamed for everything evil between heaven and Earth.
While I agree that blaming everything on ‘Daddy issues’ is really stupid, there are a lot of problems with what you say. Many of the examples that you describe as needing excuses really do not. If a woman is dating an older man–maybe she’s just attracted to older men or to this particular older man. The man is also dating this younger woman, keep in mind (and men have come up with many excuses for not being comfortable with women their own age, whether they’re into MILFs or barely legals). If a woman dates players and ‘man hoes’–maybe she’s not… Read more »
Also, you mention the ‘weird’ dating behavior from Jane. From ages of 18 to about 23, almost every MAN in my social circles did some really ‘odd’ things. So it’s not just limited to women. A guy who was having issues with his girlfriend would throw himself down the stairs and go out into the woods at 2 am, coming back all scraped up. Another one would have his friends stalk and harass a woman with whom he went on a few dates with and things didn’t turn out well. Another one would get drunk and cry or lie in… Read more »
I think Damon’s point was that people behave the way they know how. Everyone else rationalizes their behavior, if they find it weird, by saying “daddy issues”. I don’t think he in any way implied that women do it more than men, or that there is something wrong with a woman dating an older man.
His point was that whatever it is, don’t start blaming the dad.