My road to LDness

[fearless]

Wow, a very interesting conversation. While I think that Cobra went off on a tangent from the original subject of how damaging a father's comments to his daughter about sexuality can be, he has still brought up some interesting subjects. First the original subject - it sounds like he does agree that a father can cross the line and be damaging to a daughter by inappropriate, careless or uncaring remarks about sexuality. This is the father's responsibility and issue and is not the fault of the daughter or wife. His question was how much a mother could balance this issue. Of course the first issue is whether the mother is even present for the remarks. And even if she is there, how to handle it without more damage is key, and I thought his view of what the mother could say might even cause more damage. First do no harm is something that might work here also. If the mother was strong enough, she would just cut off the remark and make it clear to the daughter that that kind of remark was not to be tolerated.

As far as the other topics Cobra brought up here's a quick break down of how I saw them. First, the whole male/female view of teasing - I think Cobra may be extra sensitive because of his wife's issues with male teasing. Many women are not as bothered by male teasing, they understand that male teasing is usually a way to deal with uncomfortable situations, to lessen tension or to just hang out with the guys. I think the women here seem to be ok with male teasing generally. Second, the type of teasing that a parent does should be different than that of a peer. The comments from a peer can be taken in context and ignored, argued, refuted, etc. The comments from a parent or authority figure have a different affect. I am not sure how else to view this one. Deraven and I spoke about this yesterday and one thought we had about what comments a father could make to his daughter could be "tested" by thinking would you want your daughter's math teacher, basketball coach, male family friend, etc. making that same comment to or about your daughter? They may not have a clear signal of inappropriate remarks from other adult males if their father makes the same remarks.

Third, the idea of human sexuality/nudity as being a "problem" in American society is pretty much a given. However having a problem about teasing remarks from a parent about a son/daughter's physical appearance/sexual appearance does not fit into that category for me anyway. I happened to have grown up in a family where I took showers occasionally with my father until I was probably 6 or 7. The human body was not viewed in any negative way. And while my parents and grandparents talked about sex, it was not in a derogatory way and the sexual talk was not directed at children or teenagers. Sex was an adult topic but was not a "dirty" topic. I saw sexual comments back and forth between my parents and grandparents about physical attributes, etc. but this talk was not directed toward the kids and grandkids. (i.e. the husbands would comment about their wives endowment but not on other wives and definitely not about any of the kids) I have always had a basically healthy attitude and feeling about sex so I guess this worked for me. Fourth and fifth are the mothers and fathers roles in a girl's development into a woman. Both are very important because you learn a lot from each. The mother's role definitely gives a girl a direct view of what is womanly/feminine. (This could be a side topic - as I have written it occurs to me that I would categorize myself as more womanly than feminine) The father also is important for showing a girl how men are supposed to treat women. Mojo's example is very interesting because she did not have a healthy female role model but her father's treatment of her managed to counteract her mother. So it could be that this is the opposite of Cobra's theory. At least Mojo shows that a "good" father could offset a "bad" mother at least as well as a "good" mother can offset a "bad" father.

Anyway, whatever happens with your family life growing up, at some point you have to face your issues and move forward with the rest of your life. Some Jungian psychologists I have read write about this occurring at midlife. This is where your past shadows creep back to the surface and need to be resolved. The coping mechanisms for dealing with the shadows tend to start falling apart. This is where the midlife "crisis" can occur. (On possible example - The man who deals with his father issues by being successful at his job finds himself no longer feeling good about himself even as he works longer hours and achieves greater success. It worked in his 20s and 30s but may not work in his 40s. He needs to find out what he was trying to cope with by achieving success) James Hollis writes in his book Midlife Passages about how everyone goes through midlife and needs to deal with their shadows. If you do not open up and fully deal with the past, then the crisis scenario can occur.

So Mrscac4 is doing her own search. She does not seem to be looking to BLAME her father or mother for her issues. She is looking to see how she got where she is (which means looking at her parents weaknesses and mistakes) and is working to work past those shadows (developed by her coping mechanisms for her father and learned behavior from her mother). Obviously she is an amazing woman to be owning up to her past issues and working to get past them and her H is a pretty wonderful guy to be so supportive of her in this journey!!

And Mrscac4 IMHO you are exactly right that it should not be a child's responsibility to understand their parent's issues. It does become the responsibility of the grown up child to look back with understanding of the parents issues, to heal themselves and to try and not make the same mistakes with their children.