MUMMY AND DADDY ISSUES

If she were my friend, I'd tell her to not look for a man like her father. And instead look for a man who is nothing like her father.

There is a big difference between a man who sees his child as an extension of himself, and therefore, gives her all that she wants as long as she does everything he wants, and a man who has no ties with that daughter and is only interested in getting what he wants from her. He could take everything and give her nothing in return.

We have heard of girls having daddy issues, but I don't think we fully understand what it means for a girl to have daddy issues.

We think daddy issues is when a girl lacks a father figure while growing up, and she ends up seeking male partners who can take that spot. So, she seeks out older men and form a childlike bond with them. She may also act out in the hope that the man will punish her, just like a father would. We like to think of every woman who does not conform to societal norms as a woman who lacked a good father figure. Because if her daddy loved her, she would be better behaved.

Well, I think the whole issue is more than that. I think that even girls who grew up with a father can still have daddy issues. Because the problem is not whether the father was present or absent. It's whether he was a healthy presence or a toxic one. Most children fail to see their parents' toxicity. They idolize them and eventually seek out partners that remind them of these toxic parental figures. 

Since this can happen to both boys and girls, to balance things out, as we talk about daddy issues, we should also talk about mummy issues.

Your parent is nice to you but horrible to every other person. You only get to do certain things or get away with certain behaviours just because you are their child. Many times you have watched them as they castigated and judged another person's child who wanted the same things as you or who did something you got away with.

Many women who end up in abusive relationships do so because they erroneously idolize their fathers. And many men who end up being abusive do so because they erroneously idolized their mothers.

We need to be more critical of these two human beings that bore us. They are not perfect. They are not beyond reproach. It could happen that they are just vessels. We come out of them, but we are nothing like them.

I wish I could sit every little girl down and tell her "No matter how great you think your father is, if you want a man, seek a man who is greater than him".

We need to break the cycle of abuse. 

We need to admit that our parents are flawed.