Pop Culture Curmudgeon

Fathers and Daughters

I was watching Juno over the weekend, and I was struck by the moment when Juno’s father says to her “I thought you were the kind of girl who knew when to say when” when he learns his little girl is pregnant. The look of sheer and utter disappointment on his face is one of the truest moments I have seen on film in a long time. Who knew the psychiatrist from one of the many flavors of Law & Order had such strong acting chops?

Another father-daughter relationship that brought me to tears–like bawling in the theater for half the movie tears–was that in Crazy/Beautiful. Yes, the movie most known for making Kirsten Dunst look totally fug and really not much else.

Since my parents split, I have been pretty well estranged from my father. We email and occasionally chat on the phone (very occasionally), but we just aren’t close like we were when I was growing up. I actually had a moment where I wrote some kinda bad poetry about it after a Tori Amos concert. Something about the father I only thought I had–perhaps the pre-concert refreshments also contributed to the need to write a poem. I’m alternately glad and sad that I accidentally washed the piece of paper I scribbled it on; I’d like to know if it was decent or not, but it is probably for the best that it lives only in my memory, much like “The Other Woman,” a song I wrote right after listening to Heart’s Bad Animals album for the first time. All I remember about it is the line, “That cold, cruel other woman.”

I think the estrangement between fathers and daughters is an unfortunate and unavoidable consequence of getting older. Relations are good when you are young, daddy is your first love, and both of you can be free and open with each other. But then puberty begins to hit, and girls pull away. Society also frowns upon too close relationships between fathers and daughters. Fathers must channel their feelings for their daughters into a fierce protectiveness about all suitors. It seems to get worse as girls grow up and move out. Many women actually begin to see their mothers as trusted advisers, not just hassling fiends, as they live on their own and confront the same issues their mothers have confronted with managing a home and raising children. But there just isn’t that much to draw a father and daughter closer other than the need for familial ties that comes with aging.

How about you? Do you ladies have close relationships with dear old dad? Do you dads feel close to your daughters?