To be a daughter is to have multiple messages about what to accept from men’s behaviours passed on to you directly and indirectly from your father’s actions.
The reality is that women learn a lot about men from how their fathers treated them and the women around them.
Women are also radicalised by the negative actions of their fathers and sometimes this radicalisation can lead to the relationships with their fathers becoming strained.
In our latest listicle, Urban Woman Magazine asked some women to share why their relationship with their fathers is strained.
Read their responses below.
G
I’m the only daughter of my father, and I’m not from a home where we show love in soft and more obvious ways as most families do, but it was known that my dad paid attention to/indulged me more.
My mom wasn’t really a girls’ mom, she was a proclaimed boy mom so we didn’t really have so much to build a relationship around, she loved her sons more, made that super obvious, and always threw me under the bus.
I remember going with my dad to his office and errand runs, we did that a lot. I fancied him more than my mom for the obvious reasons.
But when I grew up, I got to see a lot of my parents as adults:
My dad being a promiscuous man, even with ladies my age.
My dad running a joint account with my mom for a fixed goal, but somehow she was the only one putting in monthly consistent funds even though he earned more, he would say he’s waiting for a particular project cash out, and when my mom had saved for months, he’ll withdraw the funds and say for his personal business investments; how do two people own a joint account, and one withdraw it without the notice of the other party until after, until we see the alerts and question it, and he’ll tell her whatever will get her to believe him.
After doing this repetitive cycles, plus his promiscuous activities getting bolder and closer to home, where when confronted at first he said we didn’t catch him red handed so it was just haters & hearsay, but then he continued and kept at it but bolder, and my mom caught him a good number of times but nothing came of it.
We convinced her to stop the joint account as she was close to retirement, and their financial goals as a couple weren’t forthcoming, neither did she have any personal investments. With just 3 years to her retirement, we encouraged her to stop the joint, and save on her own for that goal they wanted together; to procure a property.
Once she finally stopped the joint savings, my dad rained all sorts of sermons and words on her; mostly that she wasn’t submissive and he couldn’t live with such a woman, he also stopped eating her food, and stayed at home less, all these and more, including complaining about her to anyone who cared.
This and more gave me an insight into the nature of man he was, and what he would overlook for marriage – in my potential future marriage, which he has been advocating for and made clear his stance on women & marriages being their highest and solely fulfilling and important role in society.
Despite my relationship with my mom, as I grew up, I empathized with her, as a woman, and personally I’m of the opinion that nobody should go through what she did, in marriage and with another human.
I
I grew up a Daddy’s girl, so when my parents’ marriage started crashing, it affected me the most. Eventually, my father just left my life. And one time in the village (we went to my maternal Grandparents’), I saw my Father and called out to him and he told me in the market with at least 20 people staring that he’s not my Father. I was 13.
We reconciled some years later but in 2021 when my nephew was murdered in my arms, he called and told me it was my fault, and that it was all he had been warning me about.
My mother caught me having a panic attack and called him and asked him to never contact me. I blocked him after that.
We’ve not spoken since then. Even when my brother died.
If he doesn’t want me then I don’t want him too. He’s not the only one that can be mean. I am his daughter after all.
A
I won’t say I hate my father, neither will I say I love, what we have is far from love.
I didn’t grow up with my father. He was always away for business; at least that’s what my mum kept telling us till we got to our teenage years.
We used to like our father, because he’d come back during weekends from Lagos to Aba and then leave early Monday morning. Before we’d wake up he was gone, just like that. But my mum never made us feel the absence of our father, she played both roles for us.
Until my father decided to come back fully in 2018, we didn’t know the type of person he was because he never lived with us. Note: While he was still working he was never sending money home. My mum took care of the bills and everything, but when my dad came back to stay with us, everything changed.
Before he came back, my mum never painted him bad or whatever to us. Instead she kept lying for him which we later clocked.
Then in 2017 I wrote my first Jamb. I was 15 then, and I didn’t get a high score. My father flipped and called me all sorts of names and how I will remain a useless person 😂.
I was still very young and I didn’t understand why he’d flip like that, while my mum was the opposite; she just told me we will try next year.
My father projects himself to us so much, he’s a failure, so he’d always call us failures or useless and even call his daughters ashawo 😂.
What cut it for me was when he called me possessed and when he called my mum an idiot and that she gave birth to stupid children.
I mean my mum literally got him a shop and filled that shop with building materials for him. But he squandered everything and ran down the business and still blamed my mum for calling his siblings and reporting him to his siblings. My dad never hit me. He barely does. But his words and actions will always pierce our hearts because he’s always speaking vile words to us.
I have brought myself to hate him but I just can’t. But I don’t love him either.
Angel Nduka-Nwosu is a writer, journalist and editor. She moonlights occasionally as a podcaster on As Angel Was Sayin’. Catch her on all socials @asangelwassayin.