About fathers and daughters - by Judith Hudson

 Hi Everyone,

A beach on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

My current work in progress (WIP in author speak), is tentatively titled, Secrets of Elk Horn Lodge, and this time is set on my own stomping ground of Vancouver Island. 

As usual when I’m starting a book, I have an idea of the plot, but  usually the story issue doesn't emerge until about the one third point. This time, I suddenly realized (hits herself on the forehead) that this is a father and daughter book. Actually, an absentee father and daughter book.

While researching the role fathers play in a young girl’s development, I was surprised to find that 30% of American women describe themselves as having an ‘absentee father’. Sometimes this is caused by divorce, death or because he actually left, but girls can feel abandoned even when their fathers work exceptionally long hours.

Regardless of the cause, these women can act in various ways when looking for the male attention they crave, and this can lead to lifelong self-damaging relationship patterns. Looking for love in all the wrong places, as the saying goes. Some choose men who neglect them the way their father did, and others react by not taking the chance of getting emotionally involved at all. 

Experts talk a lot about self-esteem and sense of self-worth being instigated by fathers telling (or not telling) their daughters how pretty they are. But it’s not always only about looks. The lack of self-esteem can spill over into all areas of their life, including careers and friendships.  

My dad and me.

I was lucky enough to have a father who cared, and I’d say was reasonably participatory in our upbringing, but although I think he was a sensitive person, he was not one to show his emotions. He was raised during the depression and had to go to work in the family painting business at thirteen. He worked hard and fought his way up to write for TV and be V.P. of a national advertising agency, but although he was a writer, he never had the freedom to try his hand at writing a book. I wish he’d lived long enough for us to get to know each other as two adults. 

I remember, though, as a child, how if I got 98% on a test, he would always say, “What happened to the other two percent?” We all knew it was a joke, but just once I wanted him to say, “good job”. 

I’ve retold this story often enough to know it made an impact on me, but it wasn't until I was researching this book and suddenly remembered how unreasonably upset I would get with my husband when, in the early days of our relationship, he would say I was pretty. My back would go up and I’d respond, “I don’t want you to think I’m pretty, I want you to think I’m smart.” Poor guy always looked surprised and confused, with good reason. But I didn’t make the connection between my response to my husband’s words and my father’s lack of acknowledgement of my achievements until just now while I was researching this book. 

It’s a small thing compared to many women’s father/daughter stories, but remembering this reinforced for me how important a father’s role is in our sense of self.

So, I got to thinking, what if you never knew your father, like the two sisters in my story? How would growing up with different mothers in very different circumstances affect their later lives? Now the story gets some meat. (Rubs her hands together gleefully.) This is where, as a writer, the fun begins.

How about you? Any father/daughter memories, good or bad, that really stick out, that you would like to share? Or maybe it’s the struggle you're having to give your own fatherless daughter a positive role model. Or are you, like me, one of the lucky one who remembers her father with love? Please let me know in the comments below.

Thanks for reading. Talk to you next month. 

Judy Hudson

 

P.S. If you want to learn more about the background to my stories, join my readers group, and receive the first book in the Fortune Bay series FREE.  Just click on the link below.