Daddy Issues Pt. 2: I'm Single Because I Have a Dad?

"So now I have to have bad luck in love because I have a positive relationship with my dad?? Bullshyt." - Me.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about how absent fathers and negative father relationships adversely impact men. While writing that post and speaking with some of my girlfriends about "daddy issues", I began thinking of another take on this subject that seemed worth writing about.

Most of my close girlfriends are single. Not just, "I'm not married yet so on applications I check single" single, but "I don't have a steady man that's even worth talking about" single. They're attractive, educated, smart, ambitious women with pleasant personalities, but they're all single. Maybe it's just a sign of the times or merely a correlation between singletude and living in big cities with terribly uneven eligible male to female rations. But then again, maybe it's more than that.

I'm an over-thinker so of course I started to look for a common thread or theme among us. And as I started to do so, I thought about our family backgrounds. Almost all of my friends, myself included, who are super single, either come from two parents households or family situations where they have great relationships with their fathers. Could women with positive father relationships in their lives be negatively effected by such a great thing when it comes to dating?

I've talked to one of my married friends who has a different family background about this, hey Mira boo!, and she sort of agrees here. According to her take, women, like the aforementioned, create fairytale-like qualifications for their future mates based off of the positive relationships they have with their fathers. Instead of just dating guys for the fun of it, they want to find a man, THE man, who is going to be their husband because that's what they're used to seeing. I don't necessarily disagree here, but I don't exactly agree with that take either.

I look at it like this: how often do you hear people say, "I want my kids to have it better than I did. I want to be able to give them more than I had."? Pretty frequently right? When a woman has a great relationship with her dad, this is exactly what happens. Instead of saying, let me settle down with this guy who may not be bringing much to the table, they(we) want the guy who we see has the potential to give us AT LEAST what our fathers gave us. Is that so wrong? It doesn't mean we won't give a guy who hasn't quite made it, but is on his way there, a chance. It may however, mean we're less likely to let a man stick around who doesn't have it together at all and doesn't exemplify those characteristics that we love in our fathers. For many of us, our dads are our frame of reference for what we want in a man.

I love that my father was a great provider for us growing up. He worked hard to keep the roof over our heads and food on the table. And at the same time made it possible for my mother to be a stay at home mom until I reached 7th grade. Do I think i'm going to meet a man right now who will be 100% cool with me being a housewife while he goes out to work everyday? Not necessarily. But I do want a man who realizes the importance of love, trust, family and sacrifice and how those factors work together to create a successful family unit. My dad also has drive and ambition. He's helped to create plans that have impacted pretty much every person in the DMV if you ride public transportation. Ever rode an express metro bus or used a student pass growing up? My dad's ideas/plans(yep! I'm bragging right now). With a dad that great, why should I be aiming to settle for a man who lacks those very same qualities? Just like I have a father I can brag on, I want a husband I can brag on as well. *Cue Drake - Make Me Proud*

I'm sure this may be an unpopular opinion but eh, it happens sometimes. What do you all think? When it comes to daddy issues, are women "damned if you do damned if you don't"? Or am I merely blowing smoke out of my a$$?

Daddy Issues

I know what you're thinking, "Ohhh here we go. The same 'ol discussion on why chics with no father figures in their lives end up looking for love in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways."

Sorry to disappoint, but that's not what I'm about to talk about at all. How about we discuss men and THEIR daddy issues for once? 

The overwhelming lack of positive male presence in the Black community is one of the biggest issues effecting our current collective state. Men are just as effected by the absence of a male presence in the home as women are. But let me not just make it seem like fathers not being around is the only issue, because many of the guys I know with daddy issues know their dads; and they also know that their dads were no good.

They grew up watching their fathers cheat on their mothers, fall victim to addictive behaviors and emotionally neglect their families. If this is what a boy grows up being surrounded by, what kind of man does he grow up to be? As important as we all know it is for women to have positive "father"* relationships in their lives in order to show them what type of man they should marry, it's just as important for men to have those relationships so they can know what type of man they should strive to be.

I've heard a lot of chatter lately, on twitter and even in Jay-Z's most recent GQ article about the"scars" left behind when a father is absent in the home. I always say that when you grow up around negative behavior, you either fall victim to it yourself or you fight to do and be the complete opposite. That's essentially the sentiment Jay expresses in the GQ article. His excitement over not only becoming a father but also having the opportunity to be the type of father to his child that he never had himself is definitely apparent. And while there are men out there who do exactly as Jay strives to and be the opposite of what they saw growing up, I've witnessed far too many young men who follow in their negligent father's footsteps and use their past as an excuse for their misbehavior. I remember having a conversation with a guy friend once about infidelity and he admitted that he cheated because that's what he had seen from his father and from the other men in his life.

Is that an excuse? Yes. But it's also a reason. How can we truly expect for boys in these types of situations to all grow up and automatically know how to do the right thing once they reach manhood, if that's something they've never been privy to?

The biggest issue I see here is that in our community, and hell, in America period, men aren't "allowed" to freely express the pain and emotion caused by growing up without positive male role models in the home. As I stated in the beginning of this post, everyone talks ad nauseum about the ways in which women are affected in these situations but rarely the way men are. In order for us all to heal and begin making things "right" we have got to start talking about this. Male emotion is not something most of us are used to discussing or are even really comfortable doing so. Nobody's saying men need to go all Emo on us and tap into their inner Drake or anything *cue tracks 1-17 of Take Care* but this discussion is definitely long overdue.

So why don't we turn the tables, men, who hurt you?