Few things in life are as damaging as the burden of having such a mean, uncaring, vindictive loser of a father:
And of course, if anybody were to ask him why his miserable daughter has to pay for his dysfunction, he’d say he’s doing it out of love. This is the favorite excuse of abusers, after all.
Not even the best school, the most caring teachers, the most supportive friends and partners can erase this kind of parental conditioning. The girl gets the message that Daddy will only accept her if she’s a life-long victim and a loser, and even after he’s long dead, she will dedicate every ounce of her energy to living up to his expectations. Or in this case, living down.
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Hi clarissa!
I really like your blog for its variety of subjets and the commentary.
“Not even the best school, the most caring teachers, the most supportive friends and partners can erase this kind of parental conditioning.”,it seems very bleak.
I have been wondering what can the daughter do if, even an excellent support system and a good entourage can’t undo the damage.
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This is a good question. The very first (and the most crucial) step would be to see the connection between her father’s conditioning and her current problems. Who knows, maybe a person with this kind of issues will come by my blog and for the first time will wonder whether there is a link. Maybe somebody will tell her. Maybe there will be a time when she’s ready to listen. Maybe there will finally be a responsible journalist who will not just unthinkingly present such parents as good, caring people.
In short, what she can do is take the absolutely heroic step of placing her father under the light of critical scrutiny. And this is a huge taboo in patriarchal cultures where parents are sacred figures who can do no ill.
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At first I thought the dad might be doing a good thing, trying to be realistic. But then I realized the das is a loser who doesn’t think his daughter can succeed and he thinks he’s being realistic. This is something I’ve seen with working class and some minority people, don’t get too high above your station or you’ll be disappointed. It reminded me of something Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols said, he is British but his parents were Irish. He said the nuns at his Catholic school didn’t have high expectations for the students, the highest they could aspire to was being a bank clerk for boys or marry a guy who wasn’t a drunk for the girls.
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Exactly. The father doesn’t want her to succeed because if she does, he’ll feel envious and resentful. This is nothing but sabotage.
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