College Daughters' Relationships with Their Fathers: A 15 Year Study

Abstract

Data collected from 1990 until 2004 from 423 college women show that, although the majority felt they had a loving relationship with their fathers, the vast majority felt that the mother-daughter relationship was more communicative, more emotionally intimate, and more comfortable. Daughters and mothers knew one another better and were more involved in one another's lives than were fathers and daughters. Especially when the parents were divorced, the father-daughter relationship was more distant and more strained than the mother-daughter relationship. Daughters' perceptions of their relationships with their fathers and the issues or situations that created the most stress were remarkably consistent throughout the fifteen year period of this study. ********** What kind of relationship do most college women have with their fathers? How do these relationships differ from their relationships with their mothers? Have college daughters' relationships with their fathers changed significantly over the past fifteen years? That is, were there noteworthy differences between 1990 and 2004 in how daughters in a college course perceived their relationships with their fathers? In order to answer these three questions, I began gathering data from female students in 1990 when I created a college course that focused exclusively on father-daughter relationships. The course and its impact are described on my web site (wfu.edu/-nielsen) and in my articles and book (Nielsen, 2001; 2004 & 2005). The present article describes daughters' perceptions of their relationships with their fathers, identifies the major sources of stress and determines whether father-daughter relationships have changed significantly for female students taking my course during the past 15 years. Biased College Curriculum Let's begin with a disturbing reality: Most college textbooks tend to focus more on father-son and mother-daughter relationships than on fathers and daughters--and even then, to focus more on the father's shortcomings than his strengths (Booth & Crouter, 1998; Dienhart, 1998; Griswold, 1998; Lamb, 1997; Pruett, 1999). Similarly, while a number of colleges offer courses on mother-daughter relationships, to my knowledge I am still the only professor in the country who offers a course exclusively devoted to father-daughter relationships. Given this bias in the curriculum, it is not surprising that college educated professionals who work with families often pay less attention to fathers' relationships with the children than to mothers' relationships--especially when the children are daughters (Baker & McMurray, 1998; Beale, 1999; Carr, 1998; Fagan & Hawkins, 2003; Long, 1997; Phares, 1999; Waiters, 1997). Excluding or ignoring fathers is even more likely when the parents are divorced (Amato & Booth, 1997; Brott, 1999; Nielsen, 1999; Warshak, 2002). While college courses need to focus more on father-daughter relationships in order to prepare students for their future jobs and to give young adults a more balanced, more informed perspective on their own fathers (Nielsen, 2005 a), public schools also need to pay more attention to the father's involvement in his daughter's life (Nielsen, 2005 b). One reason why father-daughter relationships receive less attention in the college curriculum and in many professions can be traced to the early part of the twentieth century when there was growing concern about the loss of manliness in our society. Throughout the 1950s there was a growing concern that boys were becoming too feminine as a result of being raised by overly protective mothers. Given this fear, fathers were urged to be more involved with their sons as a way of protecting the manhood of the next generation (Bederman, 1995; Griswold, 1993). But as we will soon see, the idea that fathers are more important and more necessary to their sons than to their daughters may not yet have disappeared. …

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