Father-daughter Relationship Research Articles

Early father–daughter relationship and demographic determinants of spousal marital satisfaction

This study examined several dimensions of early father–daughter relationship as predictors of marital satisfaction among 494 respondents. Descriptive comparative approach was used in result analysis. The Father Presence Questionnaire and Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire were used, in addition to a number of demographic variables. Results showed that only physical relationship with the father, and perceptions of father’s influence, had a positive significant impact on wives’ marital satisfaction. Of all domains, only positive feelings about the father had a negative impact on the husband’s marital satisfaction. Most demographic variables had statistically significant effect on marital satisfaction. Sociocultural implications for marital satisfaction for wives and husbands are discussed.

Écrire la mort, écrire l’amour dans La Part secrète de Carol Bernstein

La Part secrète (1999) is the second text by Carol Bernstein, an American writer living in Paris, the first having been Le Rival invincible. This latest text exemplifies several contemporary discourses, addressing issues of disease, trauma, biography and autobiography, parentage, and testimony. Although at the crossroads of so many current debates, to date it has not attracted any critical studies. Faced with this lack, due perhaps to the brevity and apparent, but misleading, simplicity of this story, I first consider the text as a narrative about illness, relying primarily on Susan Sontag’s study Illness as Metaphor as well as Arthur W. Frank’s The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. I then show that via writing the narrator manages to work through his feelings of loneliness, to overcome the lies that surround him and to inscribe himself within his family history. This second part of the article, which analyses the redemptive power of writing to rise above the ravages caused by an unnamed disease, is however only a fragment of the exposition because this act of writing is probably not in fact that of the narrator. It could be that of his daughter, usurping her father’s identity in an act of ventriloquism. Finally, I consider the daughter’s motivations in order better to understand how the writing of La Part secrète illuminates in a disturbing way the father-daughter relationship.

Producing High Priests and Princesses: The Father-Daughter Relationship in the Christian Sexual Purity Movement

This article describes and analyzes father-daughter purity balls in the context of the contemporary U.S. American conservative Christian sexual purity movement, with an emphasis on taking the self-understanding of those involved in the movement into account. It shows the ways that the idealization of a hierarchical father-daughter relationship both constructs and reflects sexual purity ideals. The Christian sexual purity teachings frame this father-daughter relationship as an essential part of forming the ideal subject, and as reflective of the right order of the kingdom of God. In the logic of sexual purity, a good man is the strong high-priest leader of the household and the ideal girl is princess-like: white, non-poor, attractive, pure, feminine, delicate, and receptive. She is preparing, under her father’s guidance, for heterosexual marriage. Attention to the father-daughter relationship in the sexual purity movement highlights the ways that sexual purity is primarily about subject formation and the ordering of relationships—in families, in the nation, and in the church—and less about the specifics of when particular sexual acts take place or the public health risks that might come from those acts. This exploration also brings into relief the ways that contemporary conservative Christian sexual purity teachings draw from and build on two prominent aspects of contemporary U.S. American popular culture: the important role of the princess figure, and the buying of goods as indispensable to the formation of the subject.

Working class fathers and daughters: Thinking about desire, identification, gender and education

Given the overwhelming attention paid to the mother-child dyad in all realms of psychology and many in sociology, what theoretical frameworks are available to us through which to explore and understand father-daughter relationships? More specifically, what significance might working class fathers, both the flesh and blood person and the ‘father in the mind’ so frequently approached through the realm of the imaginary, have for their daughters’ relationship with education? Drawing on a longitudinal study of girls growing up from 4 to 21 years old, we look to the work of psychoanalytic and psychosocial theorists to think about the place of fathers in the educational experiences, trajectories and outcomes of working class girls and young women. In doing so, we want to disassemble some of the ‘heteronormative unconscious’ ideas and phantasies, so often dependent on splitting, that are attached to femininity and masculinity, especially in their classed representations. We also want to explore the ways in which the terms of gender are simultaneously fixed and fluid, binary and challenging of the binary, when we consider working class girls and young women’s relationships with their fathers and the connections that these may have with education and schooling.

Titus n’aimait pas Bérénice par Nathalie Azoulai

Reviews 209 is attracted to Pierre’s difference: his intelligence, his cultivation, his resistance to social expectations. Despite their intimacy, Pierre maintains Rachel at a social distance, claiming that marriage is banal. He makes a show of unorthodox principles that will later be invoked as proof of honest brokering. The birth of their child does not break Pierre’s resolve not to marry Rachel. The second relationship is that of the daughter and narrator, Christine, and her mother, redoubled in the early years by the presence of Christine’s grandmother. The narrator offers her self-portrait as a child at the hub of a near idyllic family life. Moreover, Christine is sheltered from any sense of privation or lack of privilege. She is an unequivocally beloved and affectionate child, almost excessively so. Unconsciously, the child reenacts gestures specific to her father, such as admiring and caressing her mother’s beautiful hands. These moments in the text announce the triad that the three characters will become. In a third major development , Christine is introduced to her father, who spends long weekends and vacations with her alone. Like Rachel, Christine is drawn in by her father’s knowledge, urbanity, and privileged social milieu. For some time, the narrative betrays nothing untoward in the father-daughter relationship. Indeed, there is room to imagine that Christine’s fascination with her father corresponds to a “classic” adolescent reorientation away from one parent (Rachel) and toward another (Pierre). The unwary reader may even be taken as much by surprise as is Rachel at the sudden and tardy revelation of Pierre’s long-standing incestuous episodes with his daughter. The story gives short shrift to the years intervening this discovery and the fourth relationship, which is more accurately a reevaluation by Christine, the adult child, of her relationship to her mother. Christine attributes full responsibility for her victimization and its consequent psychological damages to her mother, accusing her of willful ignorance. The unraveling of this last relationship and its deep connections to the parents’ fraught couple is where the title resonates most clearly and has its greatest emotional weight. Relatively spare and understated in style, Angot’s novel nevertheless achieves a level of complexity and intensity that rises well above easy moral judgments. Lawrence University (WI) Eilene Hoft-March Azoulai, Nathalie. Titus n’aimait pas Bérénice. Paris: P.O.L, 2015. ISBN 978-2-81803620 -4. Pp. 320. 18 a. Titus quitte Bérénice. Alors que la pièce de Racine tend vers cette séparation, l’annonce donne à Azoulai matière non à une tragédie moderne sur l’amour et le chagrin mais à un roman—couronné du prix Médicis—où elle revisite et imagine la vie et les pensées, les désirs et les tiraillements de celui que Rimbaud a appelé “le pur, le fort, le grand” (14). Bérénice délaisse le “babil de convalescence” (11) de ses amis et se plonge à corps perdu dans une œuvre reflétant ses humeurs successives, convaincue que si “elle comprend comment ce bourgeois de province a pu écrire des vers aussi poignants sur l’amour des femmes, alors elle comprendra pourquoi Titus l’a quittée” (18). Bérénice s’efface devant le jeune Jean, enivré de grammaire à l’abbaye de PortRoyal des Champs. Au contact de ses maîtres et du médecin Hamon qui dispensent cours de latin et observations sur le fonctionnement du corps, le futur tragédien peaufine son apprentissage de la condition humaine mais demeure fasciné et perplexe devant la souffrance de Didon, si contraire à la retenue et la rigueur jansénistes. Son départ pour Paris l’éloigne de Dieu. Il découvre dans les salons les plaisirs lettrés auprès de Boileau et de La Fontaine, et les plaisirs charnels auprès des actrices et dans les cabarets. L’orphelin puis le provincial désargenté et sans statut font d’abord place au poète qui grâce à ses odes gagne une pension, puis au courtisan qui se rapproche tant de Louis XIV qu’il le suit dans ses campagnes militaires et devient son historien, et finalement gentilhomme ordinaire de la Maison du...

Father-Daughter Succession Process in Family Businesses: Current State of Knowledge and Future Research Challenges

Succession belongs among the most discussed research topics in the family of business research. At the same time, the literature has been relatively silent on father-daughter succession despite the increasing academic and popular attention focused on female leaders worldwide. This article presents a systematic review of 20 studies focused on issues related to father-daughter succession. We identified three basic prerequisites of a successful succession: father-daughter relationship, successor’s perspective, and development of successors. In light of these prerequisites, we will summarize and discuss the findings. We argue that the research on father-daughter succession is still relatively fragmented and lacks an overall direction. Therefore, based on the systematic review, multiple directions for future research are suggested.

Intergenerational Links in Victimization: Prosocial Friends as a Buffer.

This study investigated whether having friends who engaged in more prosocial than antisocial behaviors buffered the associations between family-of-origin aggression and later victimization. Adolescent participants (N=125) and their parents reported on different types of family aggression in early adolescence. Approximately 5 years later, adolescents reported on their victimization experiences with dating partners and friends, and their friends' prosocial and antisocial behaviors. Only father-to-child aggression was significantly associated with dating and friend victimization, with stronger risk for females' dating victimization. Moreover, having friends who engaged in more prosocial than antisocial behaviors had both a direct inverse relationship with dating partner victimization. This also buffered the risk for dating victimization associated with father-daughter aggression. Findings suggest that greater attention be paid to the father-daughter relationship and to the importance of having friends who engage in prosocial behaviors in the prevention of adolescents' victimization.

“It’s Not Just Your Dad, It’s Not Just Your Coach…” The Dual-Relationship in Female Tennis Players

Tennis has been identified as an ideal context for examining the dynamics of parenting and coaching relationships (Gould et al., 2008) but coaching dual-role relationships remain unexplored in this sport and related investigations only included volunteer coaches (Jowett, 2008; Harwood & Knight, 2012). An open-ended interview approach was used to examine how female tennis players previously coached by their fathers (professional coaches) before competing in college tennis perceived their experiences with the dual-role relationship and the coaching transition. A holistic narrative approach was used to reconstruct retrospectively the stories of the participants’ experiences and understand their development. Despite some beneficial aspects, a majority of participants emphasized their challenging experiences with regards to their needs to manage blurred boundaries, receive paternal approval, and endure their fathers’ controlling and abusive behaviors. Coaching transitions helped normalize father-daughter relationships and provided insight into the respective needs that were fulfilled through the dual-role relationships.

“I Want a Better Life for Her”: Father-Adolescent Daughter Relationships in a Minority, Low-Income South African Community

Although research indicates the importance of fathers in adolescent daughters’ psychosocial development, father–adolescent daughter relationships have been neglected in both international and local research. Furthermore, the relatively small body of research that does exist has mostly been conducted in North American and European contexts. Our study aimed to generate knowledge about father–adolescent daughter relationships in a minority, low-income South African community. In this social constructionist informed community-based study, we explored father–daughter relationships in 42 individual interviews with father–daughter dyads. This article focuses on a prominent theme in the interview data that revolves around fathers’ repeated statements that they wanted their daughters to have betters lives than they themselves had and the parenting strategies they reported to achieve this aspiration. We conclude that these fathers could benefit from reflecting on the apparent limitations of their parenting practices and from knowledge and skills regarding more effective parenting practices.

Algorithmic Problem Solving for Father-Daughter Relationships

The Summer 2015 issue of Ploughshares , guest-edited by Lauren Groff. Ploughshares , a journal of new writing, is guest-edited serially by prominent writers who explore different and personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles. Acclaimed novelist and short-story writer Lauren Groff ( The Monsters of Templeton, Delicate Edible Birds ) guest-edits this all-fiction issue. As Groff writes in her introduction, “I am searching for work that is written with blood or bile or choler, not necessarily sweat alone.” Featuring narratives that range from a woman falling in love with a dead man (“In the Flesh, We Shone” by Alex Shakar) to the effect a traveling circus has on an entire town (“The Miracle Years of Little Fork” by Rebecca Makkai), these stories explore humanity through the bizarre and unexpected. This issue includes new work from Lydia Davis, Daniel Peña, Helen Oyeyemi, Fiona Maazel, and more. The Summer 2015 issue also features Thomas Pruiksma’s Plan B essay about his first love of magic, a look at the prolific author Peter De Vries, and an interview with Nick Arvin, the Alice Hoffman Prize Winner.

Father and Daughter Relationship and Its Impact on Daughter’s Self-Esteem and Academic Achievement

Present study examined the father and daughter relationship and its impact on daughter’s self-esteem and academic achievement. Sample is comprised of total 321 unmarried adolescent girls aged 13 to 21 whose fathers are alive and they are living together. The Quality of Relationship Inventory, Rosenberg self-esteem scale were used to measure quality of father-daughter relationship and self esteem. Academic achievement was assessed through participant’s reporting on demographic sheet. It was a survey design, participants were asked to fill the above mentioned battery of tests including demographic sheet and researcher remained there to answer any query. For the analysis of results, descriptive and inferential statistics were carried out. The correlation between quality of Father-Daughter relationship with self esteem, academic achievement, found significant at 0.01 alpha level. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v4n1p311

From What We Eat to How We Are: Food and the Father-Daughter Relationship in Yiyun Li's A THOUSAND YEARS OF GOOD PRAYERS

In her book We Are What We Eat Donna Gabaccia points out that the food we eat helps define us, highlighting both our personal background and living environment. To Chinese people, food is even more...

Gender diversity and father-daughter relationships: understanding the role of paternalistic leadership in family firm succession

This article examines the impact of paternalistic leadership on the gender diversity of family firm succession. To date, few studies have focused on the role of gender in the succession process, or on analysing the transfer of power to the male/female successor. The aim of this article is therefore to understand the impact of the predecessor's paternalistic leadership style on the success of the succession process and how gender–related issues affect this. In particular, we focus on the father–daughter relationship. Using the concept of paternalism, we formulate three main propositions and propose a conceptual model that considers different types of paternalistic leadership styles as factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of success of the succession, according to the gender of the successor. Finally, we propose some future paths for the academic debate.

“La justicia más rara / del mundo”: Violated Daughter, Inviolable Law in Calderón’s El alcalde de Zalamea

Standing before the military captain who raped his daughter, the mayor of Zalamea sets aside his vara de alcalde and confronts his enemy “como un hombre no más” (v. 1296). The gesture underscores the complexity of the mayor Pedro Crespo’s dual identity as private citizen and public servant. More importantly, the scene demonstrates how Calderón employs a conflicted father-daughter relationship in El alcalde de Zalamea (ca. 1640) as a conduit to a larger discussion on the administration of justice in the dramatist’s historical milieu. Legal records of female victimization cases and a tradition of literary depictions of rape suggest that Calderón’s characterization of the daughter Isabel as blameless victim invariably forces her father to negotiate the demands of his private and public roles. As father, Crespo must avenge his family’s dishonor; as mayor, he is expected to exact justice while staying within the bounds of the law. Crespo ultimately has the captain executed, and his judgment is later rewarded by Philip II himself. However, despite the king’s apparent legitimization of the mayor’s actions, critical literature remains divided when it comes to deeming Crespo’s behavior an abuse of power or the triumph of the spirit of the law. The present study proposes that Crespo equally satisfies both his private and public duties, an outcome made possible by the mercurial distinction between revenge and justice that existed in Spanish law during the early modern period. I also argue that beneath the king’s acceptance of the mayor’s seemingly illegal actions lies a critique of the legal system during the reign of Philip IV, a period of competing jurisdictions and bureaucratic mismanagement that made swift and efficient judicial decisions “la justicia más rara del mundo.” (BB)

Constraining Constructions: Low-Income Fathers’ Perceptions of Fathering their Adolescent Daughters

Fathers have the potential to play an important role in the development of their daughters. Paternal involvement has been shown to significantly affect the emotional well-being of daughters during their adolescent and young adult years. However, internationally and nationally, research is limited in terms of the number of studies on the relationship between fathers and adolescent daughters. It is also mostly based on daughter’s reports and often does not include father’s perspectives. We interviewed low-income fathers who lived in a Cape Winelands community in South Africa about being fathers to daughters. A social constructionist approach to fatherhood informed this explorative and community-specific study. We used a qualitative design with semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis. Similar to other fatherhood studies, our participants’ constructions of fatherhood revolved around the roles of disciplinarian, provider, protector and head of the household. Traditional roles emerged not only for the fathers but also in their constructions of their wives and daughters. Father-daughter relationships are important gender construction sites that influence daughters’ future interactions and relationships with men and it is crucial that the reproduction of such traditional gender roles in homes should be addressed to empower women. Our findings also suggest that fathers tend to minimize physical demonstrations of affection towards their daughters and may need guidelines for appropriate interactions in this regard.

Editorial: Father Connections

South Africa celebrated twenty years of democracy in 2014 following more than 100 years of colonization and institutionalized discrimination through Apartheid. A ‘broken’ family structure is one of the pathetic legacies left by political instability in post-colonial and post war countries globally. This phenomenon of broken families is evident in South Africa following the period of discrimination against Black people and the systematic migrant labor system that was sponsored by and for the Apartheid government. The migrant labor system separated fathers from their families and men left their families in the rural communities to work in the burgeoning mines and factories in urban areas. The current democratic State has a responsibility to strengthen broken families through policies and intervention informed by research evidence. There is an emerging body of research on Father Connections in post-war and post-colonial settings. This special issue brings together eight articles on Father Connections in South Africa. The articles present data from diverse but interesting research; for example the piece by Nduna M and Taulela M focuses on the experiences of ‘discovering’ biological fathers for youth who grew up with absent and unknown fathers. The participants that the article draws from are young women from a small town, in Mpumalanga. Through narrative analysis, the article explores how young people deal with finding out who their biological fathers are. In the article by Selebano N and Khunou G, the experiences of young fathers from Soweto are explored. It is illustrated in this article that, there are strong ties between young men’s experiences and the community values, history and culture where they experience fatherhood. The article by Langa M interestingly looks at narratives and meaning makings of young boys who grew up without fathers. Langa looks at how young boys can adopt alternative ideas of what it means to be a man in contexts that would otherwise be assumed to automatically lead to an embrace of hegemonic notions of masculinities. On a similar note the article by Nduna M focuses on experiences of young people who grow up without a father entering into endeavours to find and use their father’s surname. The article looks at how the signifying paternal ancestry is developed and maintained in contexts of father absence, through pursuing an absent father’s surname as the ‘right surname’. The article by Lesch E and Ismail A focuses on the significant question of the father daughter relationship and examines constraining constructions of fatherhood for daughters with a specific focus on the Cape Winelands community in South Africa. In Chauke P and Khunou G‘s contribution on the media’s influence on societal notions of fatherhood in relation to the maintenance system is examined. The article looks at how cases of maintenance are dealt with in print media. Franklin A & Makiwane M’s article provides a significant examination of male attitudes of family and children. This article begins to speak to the transformations of expectations of men in families. This transformation is addressed through a look at racially disaggregated quantitative data. Mthombeni A reviews a book, Good Morning Mr. Mandela by Zelda Le Grange where she examines some of the challenges of fatherhood in South Africa’s past and present.

Disrupted relationships: adult daughters and father absence.

Changes in family structures have resulted in many children growing up in non-traditional families, where their father is not resident in the family home. Father absence that occurs as a result of the breakdown of the parental relationship is associated with life adversity and less than optimal outcomes for children and adolescents. However, little research exists that explores this phenomenon from the perspective of the father absent young person. This phenomenological study was conducted in 2005 and aimed to explore women's perceptions about relationships with their fathers within the context of a father absent childhood. Nine women participated in this study. Findings revealed that growing up without their father present in the family home disrupted the relationship these daughters held with their fathers. Due to the perceived lack of interest these daughters felt from their fathers, they expressed feelings of hurt and diminished respect for their fathers. Furthermore, participants felt that their fathers were unable to provide them with the father-daughter relationship that they sought. The findings of this paper provide insights that can help nurses and other healthcare professionals to recognise the emotional impact that father absence can have on young women. Findings suggest a need for further research to gain greater insights into the experiences of family members who undergo disruption of relationships due to family breakdown.

GENDER CHARACTERISTICS OF PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS IN ADOLESCENCE

The primary aim of the study was to examine gender-specific parent-adolescent relationships characteristics. The article discusses the features of parent- girls and parent-boys relationship in adolescence, the specific image of mother and father in the context of parent-adolescent relationships. With the Scales “Adolescents about their parents” (L.Wassermann) and “Child-parent Interaction” (I.Markovskaya) main gender contexts of parent-child relationships are measured: mother-son, mother-daughter, father-son, father-daughter relationships. Boys indicate an increased directivity of their parents (foremost – of their father). Girls indicate emotional closeness, cooperation and harmony in the relationship with their mothers, rather than male adolescents. Mothers are generally more involved in the parent-adolescent relationship and seem to be more cooperating, but more prescriptive. Fathers seem to give adolescent less control, representing a greater degree of autonomy in relationships.

Crossover Effects Among Parental Hostility and Parent-Child Relationships During the Preschool Period.

Parental hostility may have widespread effects across members of the family, whereby one parent's hostility might disrupt the other parent's ability to maintain a positive relationship with his or her children. The present study prospectively examined crossover effects of parental hostility on parent-child relationship quality in a sample of 210 families. At child ages 3, 4, and 5, mothers and fathers completed questionnaires assessing feelings of hostility. In addition, mother-child and father-child dyadic relationship quality were coded at each age during naturalistic home observations. Results from structural equation analyses indicated that mother and father hostility were relatively stable over the two year period. Further, results were consistent with notions of fathering vulnerability, such that the father-child relationship might be especially susceptible to parental hostility. Possible compensatory processes, wherein mothers may compensate for father hostility, were also explored. Child and parent gender add further complexity to the results, as the father-son relationship appears most susceptible to crossover effects of parental hostility, whereas the father-daughter relationship might be somewhat protected in the early childhood period. Findings from the current investigation highlight the need for broader perspectives on family functioning, considering influences across family subsystems and the effects of both parent and child gender.

Father–daughter relationship and the severity of eating disorders

BackgroundMother–daughter relationship was the focus of studies on the development of eating disorders (ED) for many years. This study aimed to examine the association between the father–daughter relationship and ED and depressive symptoms. MethodsFifty-three women diagnosed with ED were compared to a psychiatric control group (n=26) and to healthy participants (n=60) regarding their perception of their fathers and the relationship with them. Assessments were done using the Parental Bonding Instrument, the Eating Disorders Questionnaire, the Body Shape Questionnaire, the Eating Attitude Test, and the Beck Depression Inventory as well as narrative-based methods. ResultsFathers’ negative attributes were significantly associated with ED and depressive symptom. Two profiles of father–daughter relationship were found, the “caring and benevolent” relationship and the “overprotective and avoidant” one. In the latter, patients displayed significantly higher levels of food-restraint, more concerns about eating and about their body shape and appearance, and higher levels of depression. DiscussionNegative perception of the father's parenting style as well as the quality of the relationship with him are crucial for the understanding of the development and persistence of ED. Therapeutic programs for ED should focus not only on the relationship with the mother but must also address the relationship with the father.