The "Daddy Issues" Generation
Everything was someone else's fault in the 90s.
Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a newsletter by Shani Silver.
If you’re a member of the generation who was taught to internalize other people’s bad behavior like it was our fault instead of their choices, welcome! If you freeze up every time someone asks, “Why are you single?” because you know that no matter what you say, nobody’s going to believe that your singlehood isn’t your fault, hi babe! If you are utterly fucking done being blamed for things that you did not cause, I’m so happy you’re here.
“Daddy Issues” is a now out-of-fashion term that once referred to women who challenged patriarchal norms and still had the audacity to believe we deserved love. The “difficult” girls, the ones men used to condescendingly call “feisty.” Those of us who weren’t willing to just smile, lean in, and listen to men with our eyes wide and our bodies effortlessly available with zero expectations afterward were shamed as girls whose father’s fucked them up—the aftermath of which was our fault and our responsibility to bear. And you know what? Some of us did have shitty dads, and it gave us more perspective than other people our age could acquire. We never had Daddy Issues—our fathers had Daughter Deficiencies, and either way there is nothing about your childhood that made you unfit for romantic love as an adult. Times have changed, and it’s now a proud marker of parenting when your daughter rejects patriarchal norms and won’t settle for bare-minimum boys. But our generation is still here, and we still lived through that Daddy Issues shit. Our memories don’t go away just because a younger generation has better ones.
I remember how they used to brand us, slapping the label on any woman who disagreed with a man or who had the audacity to be the architect of her own sexuality. They’d say she had Daddy Issues to shut her down and shut her up. It was also used as a warning to other men who might desire her. “Careful with that one bro, she’s got baggage.” Loosely translated, this means: What we have here is a woman who hasn’t led a perfectly manicured life of privilege and societal adherence to norms, particularly when she was a child and had zero control whatsoever over her own circumstances. Make sure not to date that one, she has Daddy Issues. Her father probably abandoned her family when she was little, was abusive in some way, or maybe he was just routinely disappointing. Make sure she knows that all that shit makes her unfit for love, rather than him unfit for parenthood.
It never felt right to me that I was somehow expected to pay for the errors of someone else. I didn’t raise a daughter poorly, I was the one on the receiving end. How is this my problem? The disconnect ran deep, because I never thought I had Daddy Issues, just the opposite! I was actually really proud of myself for having an absolutely shiftless father and turning into a functioning adult who’s a good person. Instead of shaming women for things that were not their fault, maybe we could celebrate them for overcoming things that impacted their childhoods unfairly?
We were not celebrated. That didn’t happen for us. We are the Daddy Issues Generation. We were pressured by reptilian brained boys to be a “Girl Gone Wild” one moment and shamed for confidently having fun the next. Every generation gets labels it doesn’t deserve, I don’t really think anyone is spared there, but there’s something uniquely cruel to me about how Daddy Issues called out single women specifically for being unfit for romantic partners just because our childhoods weren’t perfect.
It stings. The notion that a past that’s out of your control (that you had no control over at the time, either), can be twisted into judgements about who you are as a person, as well as questions regarding your aptitude for romantic connection—that’s not right. I resent the idea that a relationship with one of us was considered harder to deal with than a relationship with someone else. My own father found me to be too great a burden when I was a child, and for that I get what? More men finding me to be too much? Go find less then, because it’s literally always been men who haven’t been enough for me.
Our childhoods impact our adulthoods, without question—but I don’t think they set them in stone. I don’t think there’s anything we experienced in childhood that gets to dictate the rest of our future. Ironically, one of the things I experienced when I was younger that I don’t want to determine the rest of my life is how I was belittled, shamed, and dismissed for demanding more of men than the women who demanded nothing. I got a shameful brand for that and I didn’t deserve it. Neither did you.
There’s comfort in the reflection we’re afforded over time. No one would use the term “Daddy Issues” with the same kind of flippant elitism we were treated to. We’re much more aware now that when a parent is a bad parent, it’s the parent’s fault, but it still breaks my heart that I was a child with a bad parent, it was my shame to bear, not his.
Shedding shame and guilt that we didn’t deserve can feel like a lot of work, but at least it’s work that’s rewarding. I feel vindicated each time it dawns on me that I experienced something that was actually a commentary on the people who put me through it. We’re allowed to look back at the bullshit and recognize how it didn’t have a leg to stand on, it just got away with cruelty because honestly…people were dumber back then. It’s freeing to recognize the ignorance of others because it’s one of the key things that helps you let go of any shameful memories (baggage!) that you never should have carried.
I don’t care what you call me, I triumphed over my childhood. I was always someone lovable, but I also became someone capable of deep love, too. That’s an achievement for someone who didn’t experience it in her formative years, the years when love should have been free-flowing. I became someone sharp, too, someone who can finally look at a man claiming “Daddy Issues” about a woman and know that she probably just rejected him and he couldn’t take it. I believe the term for that is “Mama’s Boy.”
Things I Recommend To People Our Age Right Now
Meditation Background Noise
We need to take care of our mental health and wellbeing, and sometimes we need to do it for free. This is the YouTube video I’ve been using since October for my morning meditation. If you’re not experienced with meditating or you’re not sure why you’re doing it, I recommend finding a guided meditation that you like, but if you’re a bit more seasoned, this has been a really effective solution for me. It’s over two hours long, but I usually do about 15 minutes every morning.
Repeat Purchase
I am in a very low-spend season of my life right now, so I’m not trying a ton of new things to recommend to readers, but I do think it’s important to point out when I repurchase my past recommendations, so that you know I’m not full of shit. I just bought my fourth huge bottle of this. My skin is noticeably softer and far less itchy this winter than I’ve ever been in years past. In addition to just being a gold standard name in skincare, I really think it’s working because I’m consistent with it. Every single time I get out of the shower, I frost myself with this like a cupcake. Find something that’s made well, use it consistently, who knew—it works.
Nivea Lotion, about 10 bucks, here (not sponsored, yes affiliate)
Let me tell you what I’m looking for in a food content creator: Someone who makes recipes that a normal human person, who does not make food content for a living, can realistically implement in their regular schmegular daily lives. I am deeply tired of food creatives plating up expensive, complicated, albeit incredible looking dishes that are simply impractical for someone who just wants to eat. This is my new favorite food content creator because in addition to her genuinely appetizing plant-based recipes, she’s not posting anything that she’s not really eating herself for actual sustenance, meaning: I can, too. Did you know you can make an aromatic edamame spread and eat it on toast instead of avocado? Yeah, me neither. But guess who’s going to make a batch and eat it for lunch for several real, normal, human days? Me.
I heard this song out in the wild and almost broke my fingers trying to Shazam it in time. You’ll like this. A lot.
xo
Shani
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I’ve even heard people in the manosphere say that good fathers hurt women because they make them entitled. You literally can’t win.
"I feel vindicated each time it dawns on me that I experienced something that was actually a commentary on the people who put me through it."
spot on. especially when we were so conditioned to self blame.