I’ll Be Your Pappy: The Silence of the Daddy Issues

While most of us joke about it, asking a woman if she likes (or knows) her father really isn’t such a bad idea. The way a woman interacts with her father is going to help shape her relationships with men for the rest of her lives, either positively or negatively.

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That goes double for absentee pappies. But who really delves into it? It’s interesting how much time we spend in the Black community talking about how hard it is for Black men and how much of a set-up life is for most of us. We spend a lot of time doing everything we can just to make sure that we don’t go to jail knowing full well that we’re all one accusation away from the pokey.

Pun.

In that regard, it makes sense; the physical stakes for Black men are a lot higher. Hell, a man without a father living in the hood probably has a higher chance of going to jail, getting killed, or killing somebody else (and then going to jail). When you add that psychological impact of Black manhood, frankly, I’m amazed that I can even read. Granted I know my father and even had the benefit of being raised by him (after a certain point, I mean I am Black, he wasn’t always around) which in our community is as normal a tutu-wearing Sasquatch dunking a ball at Rucker Park in Harlem. Plus, if you take it a step further, Black males without a father figure will possibly take some of that dysfunction into their future relationships and continue the cycle, which in theory would f*ck up the community, basically, forever.

Our women are generally the vanguard of the home and the ones to keep it all together. A lot of us point to our mothers as the strongest people we know because of the drama they had to deal with and what they managed to raise us on. So I think a lot of women’s issues get left out of the relationship equations(psychologically anyway, not the “she’s just batsh*t crazy” stuff). We usually assume that women know how to be in relationships or deal with men when the truth is…a lot have no f*cking idea. All those same families with sons without fathers have women without fathers. Heck, when I do a non-scientific poll of the women I know well enough to ask about their fathers, about 75 percent of them have a soured relationship with their father, if they even have one at all. But that rarely gets mentioned and that impact carries over into dating lives. If you don’t trust your daddy, why would you be open to trusting other men. The one who’s SUPPOSED to want you bailed, so it must be difficult to really fully trust other men with your heart and soul.

How are you supposed to understand the dynamics of a man-woman relationship if you’ve never really seen one that didn’t include Bill Cosby or something called a Florida Evans?

Part of the reason women and daddy issues doesn’t get much burn is that for the most part, a lot of women succeed in other areas. She doesn’t know her daddy, but she has a Ph.D. or a J.D. or an M.B.A. and is a partner or an associate in some firm, etc. Despite the obstacles (and with the lack of a police presence all in that arse and because the WNBA pays less than a manager at McDonald’s), women with daddy issues can be just as accomplished and successful as they want to be.  Lucky for us, women with daddy issues don’t tend to murder anybody because of them. They might bust the windows out of a car or go full stalker on you, but those aren’t even felonies. So who cares?

And the beat goes on.

It’s really tragic that “daddy issues” is more of a jokey scarlet letter we attach to needy and insane broads than something we really discuss because really, if the women are all insane, and the men are all going to kill at least 1/10 of a person apiece, who knows where our community is heading.

Then again, I’m pretty sure Oprah doesn’t know her daddy. Whoopi neither…but she doesn’t have any eyebrows.

I’m afraid of an eyebrowless community.

With that said, falks, how do daddy issues manifest themselves and do you think daddy issues get their just due? And what impact are daddy issues really having on our community? Hell ladies, do YOU have daddy issues? And my brothas, how have women’s daddy issue affected your relationships?