Do girls who grew up without fathers know how to communicate with young people? Will happiness await them in family life? What are stereotypes about children from incomplete families based on?
“It is believed that girls who grew up without fathers do not know how to communicate with young people. For me, this was never a difficulty, although I grew up without a father. A girl properly raised by her mother has a chance of becoming more attractive to men than the one raised, for example, by her drinking father. Is not it?”
Alexandra, 22 years old
Ekaterina Mikhailova, psychotherapist:
“Alexandra, who are you angry with and why? Your letter just screams: everything is fine with me, even better than girls from complete families! I, too, am not very fond of the hackneyed truths that children who grow up without a father will certainly be unhappy in family life. But why are you so worried about this most “common opinion”? The experience gained in the parental family is incomplete for everyone: there is always something that we have not met, that did not fit into the family scenario. You don’t know how to answer the stupid question: “Who do you love more, dad or mom?” Your picture of the world is simpler: for example, you have never been in a situation where parents quarrel, both are right, both are loved, both are sorry … You have not experienced jealousy and anger when a mother is taken away by a nasty father and the child finds out that she belongs not only to him. But in the same way, you had no experience of attracting the attention and interest of your father. Even if we leave aside the views of psychoanalysts on childhood sexuality, it is impossible not to notice that love for a father and mother is different. Dad and mom praise and scold for different things, play different games, have different attitudes towards the gender of the child and the process of becoming a girl or a boy. Often fathers, loving their daughters and being touched by the charm of little women, still treat them like “dolls” and do little to help them develop intellectually and emotionally. It seems to me, Alexandra, that you are leading an internal discussion primarily with the stereotype of a “girl from an incomplete family”, protecting not only yourself, but also your mother. Defending, if you will, the honor of the family. Isn’t it time to stop? After all, you are already an adult. Difficulties should be expected, perhaps, on the other hand: your picture of the world and family is somewhat one-sided. Are you ready for compromise, forgiveness, the ability to look at things through the eyes of another person, through the eyes of a man?
See also:
- How to understand what kind of parents we are
- When divorce confuses the cards