Last evening the 10 year old said, “Daddy, some day I hope I marry someone just like you.”
I’d been wondering when the gel was going to say something like that, given that her attachment to me is perfectly obvious to even the most casual observer. Nonetheless, it still took my breath away just a bit to hear it.
Now despite the title of this post, the Jungian concept of an “Electra Complex” – indeed, most psychoanalytic theory - doesn’t cut much ice with me. (While the behavioral patterns are obvious, I thik all that stuff about “penis envy” and resentment of one’s mother over “being born castrated” is a load of codswallop.) And far from thinking this kind of thing to be a behavioral issue or problem (which seems to be the popular conception), I instead see it as quite positive: I am absolutely convinced that the best protection a girl sailing into the stormy sea of adolescence can have in order to avoid running aground on its lee shore is a strong bond with ol’ Dad – all the love and trust and safety she needs without (to be blunt) the sex. Of course, it’s no guarantee of anything, but it will certainly better her chances of staying on course and emerging from the tempest intact.
Or to flip the concept around, “Oedipus-Shmoedipus. So long as he loves his mother!”
I single the eldest gel out here, btw, because she is definitely into the pre-adolescent stage now, but I fully expect that her younger sisters will head down the same path. Indeed, I have noticed an escalating tug-of-war over Who Gets Daddy of late. (How to allocate time fairly is something I worry about more and more.) It may sound just a bit hokey, but I am increasingly of the opinion that this is exactly why I was put on Earth.
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November 6, 2008 at 3:17 pm
The Abbot
I have two female cousins whose father was named Walter. They both married men named Walter.
Now that’s odd.
As for girls marrying their fathers, a lot of people say that my wife married a man, me, who is very much like her father. I think it normal for women to look for men who are like their fathers, if their fathers are men they admire and respect. And I think it just as natural, if a girl’s father is an abusive drunk, to marry someone the opposite of her father. I’ve seen instances of that, as well as seeing instances of women marrying men who are just like their abusive drunk fathers, which I see as a kind of despair — they seem to think, at some level, that that is all there is.
I married a woman very much unlike my mother; my mother, though she was always a good and kindly mother to me, does not possess much common sense. I looked for her opposite in this regard, and found it. I never experienced anything Oedipal towards my mother; from what I could see she made my father miserable. The last thing I wanted to do was kill him and take his place.
I think people make decisions for a lot of reasons; and psychoanalytical complexes are greatly overrated.
November 6, 2008 at 3:32 pm
jen
That’s very sweet, Robert. And I agree with you about fathers and daughters – as a daughter, I greatly admired my Dad (still do) and hoped to marry a man just like him. Of course, I ended up marrying a man much more like my grandfather, but he was a great man and influence on my life as well.
November 6, 2008 at 3:46 pm
beth
I agree with Jen that it’s sweet. I absolutely married a man like my father – and my mom shakes her head to this day wondering how there are two such men on earth.
That said, one of the best things my dad taught me from a very early age was how to be friends with men. (Not that I realized that at the time, but looking back you see it.) And being friends first certainly lays a stronger foundation for anything else that might follow.
I’m not sure that it works in the reverse for men and their mothers – I am the…what’s stronger than polar opposite?…of Tim’s mom. He loves her, certainly, but he’s said on numerous occasions that he would never have married someone just like her (and there’s nothing wrong with her…she’s just very much the damsel in distress, for which Tim has no patience.) Looking amongst my male friends, I only see men who married the opposite of their mothers, actually. Interesting.
November 6, 2008 at 4:09 pm
April
I give my Dad most of the credit for me getting through the tempest mostly unscathed. Having a friendship (of sorts) with him definitely helped. Plus, it helped me see what kind of personality traits I was (and was not) looking for in mate.
Once I did find the right guy, it was pretty easy to know he was the right guy. And yes, he is much like my dad…which causes my mom and I to both shake our heads at times.
November 6, 2008 at 9:03 pm
the Gripping Hand
Not hokey at all. Somedays, realizing that I’m responsible for raising a young man amid the sea of garbage out there is the only reason I don’t drive into a tree.