Having Daddy Issues is not a flattering psychological state. It is a bizarre blend of hyper-sexualization, whereby the daughter of a toxic father is treated, in essence, better than a wife or mistress. Little girls with Daddy issues grow up to be toxic parents themselves, plain and simple.
They say a woman has “daddy issues” when her behavior or mindset indicates that her father was either absent in her life completely, or physically present but emotionally unavailable. This includes the father who overindulges their biological daughter or a preferred little girl for lavish and indulgent treatment while willfully under-parenting or setting a poor quality adult role model.
A Madame Noire article about the pop-psychology phenomenon summed up the syndrome (of sorts) quite well by sharing the following statements. They write, “I’m sure we’ve all heard the term “Daddy’s Girl” – you know…that “Princess” who was spoiled rotten by her father and has him wrapped around her little finger.”
Targeting men who are involved with girls who have Daddy Issues as much or more so than the women themselves by sharing the article, the site shared just a handful of common personality signs.
If your wife, girlfriend, daughter, granddaughter, or female friend enjoys a close and healthy relationship with her father, understand there is every reason in the world to praise and support the relationship. But if a little girl manipulates her father or her father sets creepy precedents regarding expectations of how she is to be treated as a pretty-pretty princess, be careful.
According to the source, “Most women fortunate enough to have a special relationship with their father wear that title as a badge of honor.” Failing to note the lifetime of toxic entitlement based thinking such young ladies typically tend to develop due to nurture rather than nature, they jokingly point out the grandiosity such a title implies.
“They say a woman has Daddy Issues when her behavior or mindset indicates that her father was either absent in her life completely, or physically present but emotionally unavailable. These issues can plague a young girl into adulthood, especially if she’s trying to compensate for the attention she may not have received from her father in her relationships. While a woman may seem to have it all together at first glance, there are certain characteristics women with daddy issues display – and if you’re not sure, the following may be a few of the signs…” says the self-help resource.
Men with pedophile impulses but a certain level of self-control are likely to fantasize about their “perfect” daughters. They are also the toxic male role models to engage in acts of “grooming” — literally buying a child’s affection by giving them adult theme gifts, over-indulging them materially, not enforcing healthy parenting limits, taking them on expensive leisure theme vacations, or splurging on things like boutique shopping and spa trips.
While many toxic mothers will strive to make a female child a mini-me replicant (something along the lines of training a Stepford wife), the toxic father treats a little girl to indulgences based on an entirely different set of intentions than even the most malignant of Somatic Mothers implies. Men who overindulge and allow themselves to be psychologically lied to, conned, or emotionally manipulated by little girls willingly are a sick sort of adult — one of the most covertly toxic of situational abusers masquerading as “good parents”.
Teaching a little girl to use charms and feminine wiles from toddlerhood forward to manipulate older males is just plain wrong. Not only does the little girl learn to use her sex to manipulate others, it forever tarnishes every relationship she will ever have from that point forward with every single man, woman, or child she encounters.
Learning to connive and scheme using sex to get what a young lady wants is teaching them Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and encouraging a mild form of Sociopathy. Seeing men as objects to be used at whim without care, regard, or respect for them as anything other than attention -givers or open wallets are profoundly toxic social and emotional values to teach a maturing child.
The list of signs Madame Noire tongue-in-cheek pointed out about women with Daddy Issues include but are not limited to the following personality traits, symptoms, and deviant psychiatric signs:
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Some women who lacked a father growing up may find themselves solely attracted to older men. These older men then become the “father-figure” in their lives rather than a boyfriend. She looks to these men to care for and provide for her in order to feel a sense of security – which she lacked growing up from her own father. Dating older men is her subconscious yearning for fatherly love.
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Most women who grew up without a father probably did so because their father left the home. No matter the reason, all she knows is her father abandoned her – and if she’s close to and adores her mother, she may be resentful that he abandoned her mother as well. In dating situations, she may be a bit jealous, clingy and overly protective of her man because she’s afraid he’ll leave just like her father did. After all, if a father can leave his daughter, certainly a regular Joe off the street can bounce with no warning. Thinking every man is capable of leaving may make her try to hold on to him that much harder, even when the relationship isn’t a healthy one. Then when her constant smothering becomes too much for him to handle, he leaves – and she says, “I told you so.”
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Even if a woman’s father was physically present in her household, it’s possible for her to still feel unloved growing up. If you constantly question your man’s feelings for you, it could be because your father never hugged or kissed you or told you he loved you on a regular basis. If you’ve NEVER heard these words from your father, the feelings of insecurity run much deeper. Even if the man in your life shows or tells you how much he loves you, it may never be enough. If you feel that your man should shout from the mountain top that he loves you EVERY SINGLE DAY – and you feel inadequate or unloved if he doesn’t – then you may have daddy issues.
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These women look to sex to fill the void left by her father. Most fathers teach their daughters to respect themselves and their bodies, so if he was never around to give this advice, she may feel that sex is power – and she uses it to gain the attention she lacked as a young girl. Unfortunately, what these women discover is that they can’t fill that void with jerks and jump-offs – she’ll only attract more men who are only interested in sex and who will disappoint her. It’s a cycle of emptiness that most women with daddy issues continue.
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Some women can’t remain single because they’re constantly looking for a man to fill her father’s shoes. They move from boyfriend to boyfriend because being alone is their greatest fear. She can’t simply “be.” These women should take the time to get know themselves, therefore recognizing a pattern so that she can ultimately break it. It’s okay to be “man-less” – because in the end, no matter how many great men she dates, none of them will ever measure up because none of them will ever be her father. She has to learn to accept the past and forgive her father for his short-comings so that every man she meets doesn’t pay for his mistakes.
Whether a self-proclaimed “Daddy’s Girl” grows up to be a sex worker, ends up marrying a man for status in an effort to artificially bolster her self-esteem, or she ends up never having a satisfying adult romantic relationship with a male because, in her socially nurtured eyes, no man could possibly meet up to the precedent of pedophilic treatment heaped on her by a toxic father, makes no difference. All three types of women are perfect examples of the perils of being raised by an overly attentive, perverse, under-parenting yet wildly controlling toxic father.
The ultimate outcome in nearly every case of parenting a little girl in such a way that she grows up to have complex Daddy Issues is that the female is likely to herself become a toxic parent. If her love interest(s) are lucky, she will never be able to parent and will resist the compulsion to adopt or foster someone else’s children.
Unresolved Daddy Issues create a female role model that is extremely toxic to observe as a child of either gender. Little boys learn to believe all women are inherently immoral — willing to lie, con, throw temper tantrums, withhold affection, connive, and do whatever it takes to get what they want from a man with little to no regard for the gentleman. Young women grow up thinking that not only is manipulating other people right, that doing whatever it takes to get ahead in life — including using sex as a weapon — is somehow the way the world works.
Neither viewpoint taught to children helps the children themselves. In fact, growing up socially influenced by a manipulative woman with Daddy Issues — or worse… watching a toxic father play gender-based favorites — truly has a direct, harmful impact on the emotional intelligence as well as the psychological body of any and all affected family members.
Walking away from a needy female with Daddy Issues is something many of their conned or trapped partners feel too guilty to do. Likewise, mothers who are triangulated between a toxic father and a psychologically and emotionally unwell female offspring who is guilty of nothing more than the crime of allowing herself to willingly be groomed for sexual exploitation or abuse tend to justify staying “for the sake of the children”.
Staying, in either case, is ill-advised, either with a woman prone to using and abusing others in the Machiavellian sense of a gender-based blood sport or with a man who has unsettling levels of romanticized attachment to one or several of his daughters. Be mindful in both cases that any youngster watching is learning what to them will feel upon adult reflection like a household social dynamic that is normal. It is not.
Women with Daddy Issues related to abandonment are likely to do anything they can to keep a man — no matter how abusive or toxic he is. Men with fears of breaking up a marriage or who (for whatever reason) don’t feel they have the life skills to do well living alone tend to stay and allow themselves and their offspring to be mercilessly used and abused by a dissatisfied or grandiose Malignant Narcissist.
But women who stay with men who engage in acts of grooming their little girls for child sexual abuse or an adult life where they are seen as little more than sex objects for men to exploit and abuse truly tend to do more harm than absentee fathers or the creepers who fantasize about psychologically, socially, and emotionally controlling easy to manipulate, profoundly messed up, adoring youth. The ultimate child abuse enablers, women who get involved with morally and psychologically deficient men teach their daughters and sons the lifestyle habits and patterns to replicate in the next generation.
To say so in no way, shape, or form takes Enabling Henchmen fathers off the hook. Enabling a toxic mother includes failing to participate in the 24/7 daily requirements of child-rearing, using work as an excuse to avoid participating in family life in general, as well as treating women in general one way socially while striving to promote the pretty-princess syndrome in Peter Pan’s daughters.
