Daddy love.

[snarkbillie]

I've seen 4 fundies and 2 fundie-lites on my FB today talking about how their dad was their "first love". I'm majorly squicked out. Where does this come from?

[Koala]

I have no idea, but it's very concerning to me. I've also noticed (and seen it pointed out here) that it often seems to evolve into some weird thing where the adult daughter practically takes the place of the mother/wife. Squicks me the hell out.

And don't even get me started on this date shit. Why do we now have to refer to outings with our children as "dates"? I see it on fb all of the time. It is not cute.

[tropaka]

Anyone remember the book "Daddy Dates"? Then there's the whole purity ball thing. Yes, it's totally creepy and inappropriate.

ETA the Daddy Dates guy seems to have dropped off the web for about a year or so....wonder what happened...

[Hisey]

I think they should let their daughters love their daddies without inserting all this dating terminology that the kids don't truly understand.

The purity ring creeps me out because it is all about controlling the daughter's sexuality under the guise of "protecting" her. I'm glad to hear that so many purity vows are eventually broken. Good!

[Anxious Girl]

Whenever fundies say stuff like that, it creeps me the fuck out 'cause it sounds like the dads brainwash their daughters into thinking that being in a romantic relationship with their dad is a good thing 'cause at least it's not some unknown heathen.

[JeanneD]

One possible derivation:

God as Father ==> Father as God

God as Love ==> Father as Love

It's poor theology, but there ye be.

[snarkbillie]

One of them in particular was talking about how at her wedding her "first and last true love" her "daddy" walked her down the aisle. I think if I was her husband I would be thoroughly squicked out, mostly about the "last true love" part. Is she going to stop loving her husband at some point or is he not a "true love" like her daddy is? I don't understand.

I would be squicked out if my kids described either of their parents as their "true love". Yeah, they love us, but not like that. Ick.

[JeanneD]

Taken to an extreme, you get nutty events like this one treasuresfromashoebox.blogspot.com/2012/07/haleys-covenant-ceremony.html

(link goes to a 'covenant ceremony' which looks a lot like a little girl marrying her father). It's been discussed before on FJ (viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11732&hilit=covenant+ceremony)

[ErinIsSik]

While the whole fundie logic of "daddy dates" and "first true love" squicks me out too, I know a lot of non-fundies who have "dates" with their kids. They are no where near as creepy, and it's not always daughter/father, just wanted to point out the common language.

[fundyfunland]

Taken to an extreme, you get nutty events like this one treasuresfromashoebox.blogspot.com/2012/07/haleys-covenant-ceremony.html

(link goes to a 'covenant ceremony' which looks a lot like a little girl marrying her father). It's been discussed before on FJ (http://www.freejinger.org/viewtopic.php ... t+ceremony)

Ugh! Shudders. That was one creaptastic ceremony! ANd yes, this daddy as first love thingy, is really repulsive! And as the other poster pointed out (and I'd not thought about this before), the daughters being trained to be homemakers and essentially take over mommy's job...leave only the physical relationship b/t husband and wife untouched by these godly daughters.

[DifferentGurl]

Also, do some of these fundie daughters say that they want their SO to be like their daddy?

As for calling dads "true loves"....that's sound so incesty.

[fauxmenno]

Do these people not understand that there are different types of love and that familial love is DEFINITELY not the same as spousal love? I mean, I love my parents, but it is totally inappropriate to refer to your dad as your "true love". icky icky icky

[Aisling]

Of all the bright sparkling varieties of creepiness in fundiedom, the daddy/daughter obsessions are up there in the top ten for me. This just makes me so effing uncomfortable. There is absolutely no need to refer to your parent in the way that you refer to a life partner. It's totally blurring the boundaries of what they both are. The fact that these girls are using the daddy worship terminology so young, makes me wonder how the hell they could ever have a healthy adult relationship, because from the word go there is no differentiation made between the man who is your father-figure and the man you have a mortgage,sex, and children with. IMO it just adds a whole extra layer of vulnerability to these girls.

I mean, I love my dad, he is great, we are really good friends and we happily hang out with each other, as I do with my mum as well.

But if I started referring to him in icky fundie ways, it'd be a race to the bathroom to see who would be the first to throw up :?

[skrmom]

It's hard for me to imagine any of this. My father was not a 'daddy'. He was very cold and distant and had a violent temper. I said as little to him as possible and had very little do do with him. I did not want the 'father-daughter' dance at my wedding so I kept the reception very simple to avoid it. I certainly wasn't 'daddy's little girl' growing up. I have no happy memories of him. We lived by a military base and I envied the kids whose dads would be away for months at a time because I thought all men treated their families like my father did. I can remember going to the lake with a friend and her family and she asked to stop and get french fries. I was scared-but he didn't go into a violent rage because she asked for something. We stopped at a drive in and had fries! I was scared to ask my father for something I needed.

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

It's hard for me to imagine any of this. My father was not a 'daddy'. He was very cold and distant and had a violent temper. I said as little to him as possible and had very little do do with him. I did not want the 'father-daughter' dance at my wedding so I kept the reception very simple to avoid it. I certainly wasn't 'daddy's little girl' growing up. I have no happy memories of him. We lived by a military base and I envied the kids whose dads would be away for months at a time because I thought all men treated their families like my father did. I can remember going to the lake with a friend and her family and she asked to stop and get french fries. I was scared-but he didn't go into a violent rage because she asked for something. We stopped at a drive in and had fries! I was scared to ask my father for something I needed.

My dad was, to a much smaller extent, like yours (he's mellowed out so much in his old age though that I can hardly believe he is the same person). And I remember having the same experience a few times, witnessing my friends say "hey dad, can you give us a ride to the mall?" or "hey dad, can you pick me up a Coke while you are at the store?" and literally wincing, waiting for the dad to start screaming about how son or daughter was ungrateful, demanding, etc. When it didn't happen, I was STUNNED.

[browngrl]

To me the word dating implies a romantic/sexual relationship and "daddy dates" sound incestuous to me. Even the whole "Jesus is my boyfriend" squicks me out. It makes me think of Zeus and his sexual hijinks with humans. Fundies sexualize everything - they seem obsessed with sex. All that repression I guess.

[ILoveJellybeans]

It just sounds wrong, like the pictures at those purity balls where it looks like a load of old men and their new child brides.

[cindyluvs24]

It's hard for me to imagine any of this. My father was not a 'daddy'. He was very cold and distant and had a violent temper. I said as little to him as possible and had very little do do with him. I did not want the 'father-daughter' dance at my wedding so I kept the reception very simple to avoid it. I certainly wasn't 'daddy's little girl' growing up. I have no happy memories of him. We lived by a military base and I envied the kids whose dads would be away for months at a time because I thought all men treated their families like my father did. I can remember going to the lake with a friend and her family and she asked to stop and get french fries. I was scared-but he didn't go into a violent rage because she asked for something. We stopped at a drive in and had fries! I was scared to ask my father for something I needed.

Oh boy, when I read stuff like this I get so sad. I think I was lucky. My father was an SOB but at least he took off and we didn't have to deal with him.

[Emme]

Taken to an extreme, you get nutty events like this one treasuresfromashoebox.blogspot.com/2012/07/haleys-covenant-ceremony.html

(link goes to a 'covenant ceremony' which looks a lot like a little girl marrying her father). It's been discussed before on FJ (http://www.freejinger.org/viewtopic.php ... t+ceremony)

What. THE. Fuck.

That's awkward. That's really really awkward. It's also the LAST thing my parents want for us. They want us to be independent and make our own choices. They've raised us well, and trust us to make good enough decisions (I may date some meh guys but I'd never marry them). I'm tight with both my parents, love them tons, but they raised me to be my OWN person. When they became empty nesters this year after my sis went to college, my cousin was like "Oh, is it going to be hard for you to have no kids in the house?" to which my mom said "Are you kidding? It's fucking awesome! We love you all, but go do your own thing, you're real people now! It's great!"

It's just weird that these parents don't want their kids to be their own people. The whole transferring authority thing? She's a person, not a car!

[Swamptribe]

Do these people not understand that there are different types of love and that familial love is DEFINITELY not the same as spousal love? I mean, I love my parents, but it is totally inappropriate to refer to your dad as your "true love". icky icky icky

This. In the Fundyverse, there are no degrees of things. In other Fundy writings we also see that they confuse sex and love as one and the same. Which frankly, adds to the degree of ookieness with the whole "I lurvs my daddy" thing.

In the Fundyverse, everything is black or white. They do not have suitabilities or shades. Love for god is the same as love for husband/wife/father/mother/children. The husband is the head of the wife/family, as god is the head of the church; the Church is the family. Love and sex are confused. Especially when children are not allowed to develop healthy outside friendships and romances.

[DistantStar]

I remember my dad taking me on special outings, though I don't remember them being called dates -- but if they had been, it would have been in a totally non-fundie sense. We were very close, though again not in a creepy fundie-incestuous sense. It truly angers me that they take something that can be so wonderful, a good father-daughter relationship, and twist it into this creepy psuedo-marriage thing. I loved my dad. I still love my dad. (He died 20 years ago this year.) But not That Way, for God's sake.

Love has so many more dimensions than the ones fundies credit it with. They're so shallow.

[freejoytoo]

For all fundies talk about the world being too sex-filled, they sure are obsessed with it, and very unhealthily too.

I love my father and we are very close, but the idea of him being like my first boyfriend makes me want to vomit, and I'm sure he too. I don't understand this fetishising of father/daughter relationships: the dates, the purity dances, the promise rings. It's incestuous. My father has never really cared about my sister and I seeing boys from a reasonable age, has always been happy to hear about us having relationships and would likely be revolted at the thought of 'safeguarding' us, whatever that means. He raised two women, not two pseudo-child girlfriends.

[VooDooChild]

Of all the bright sparkling varieties of creepiness in fundiedom, the daddy/daughter obsessions are up there in the top ten for me. This just makes me so effing uncomfortable. There is absolutely no need to refer to your parent in the way that you refer to a life partner. It's totally blurring the boundaries of what they both are. The fact that these girls are using the daddy worship terminology so young, makes me wonder how the hell they could ever have a healthy adult relationship, because from the word go there is no differentiation made between the man who is your father-figure and the man you have a mortgage,sex, and children with. IMO it just adds a whole extra layer of vulnerability to these girls.

Boundaries?! It is clear that no fundie has boundaries.

This is just so squicky. Are all these people mentally defective? Or are they just not really deep thinkers that have been sucked into the whole Keeping-up-with-the-Christian-Joneses to be holier-than-thou that they just don't realize how .....er......off they come across?

[BoomerLynn]

For all fundies talk about the world being too sex-filled, they sure are obsessed with it, and very unhealthily too.

I love my father and we are very close, but the idea of him being like my first boyfriend makes me want to vomit, and I'm sure he too. I don't understand this fetishising of father/daughter relationships: the dates, the purity dances, the promise rings. It's incestuous. My father has never really cared about my sister and I seeing boys from a reasonable age, has always been happy to hear about us having relationships and would likely be revolted at the thought of 'safeguarding' us, whatever that means. He raised two women, not two pseudo-child girlfriends.

This. It's great for a father to spend quality time with his children, but the whole Daddy/daughter date thing is just creepy. What's worse is that they are so holier-than-thou about it. They act like everyone who is not like them must have horrible relationships with their parents. I have a great relationship with my dad (my mom too) and always have. Quality time with him was spent sitting by his side while he was working on our car and explaining to me and showing me what he was doing. When I was 16 and had my own car that turned into him teaching me basic maintenance and simple repairs. It was watching tv together, or wandering through a store together. I would never trade those memories for purity rings (really wtf?!) or purity balls (had I mentioned going to something like that he would have taken me for a psych. evaluation.). His outlook on sex was abstinence until marriage but once I was over 18 it changed to "I don't want to know" lol. I was free to disagree with him and did so plenty of times usually followed by intelligent discussions (I even got him to change his opinions on occasion). There was no talk of safeguarding or protecting my heart or whatever. It was talk about how to be strong and independent and not needing to rely on a man to take care of me. He wanted me to be able to stand on my own and taught me how. His health is failing now and I spend more time worried about him and scared that he won't be around much longer. Reading about these fundie dads makes me realize how lucky I am to have the father I do.

[shesinsane]

I blame the patriarchy. The father is the head of household, when you home church that makes him the head of the church as well. The children are rasied with "Daddy" having the final say in everything. If this is your world, wouldn't it make sense to brownnose/kiss up to Daddy? You're one of a flock of children, and if you're an older girl you're helping to raise a flock of children, being the best Daddy worshipper can bring you special privledges the other kids don't get.

I too am grossed out by the purity pledges to let Daddy guard their virtue until it gets tranferred to a Godly husband. But in a system where a woman's worth is measured in what she can give to a man (girls are virtuous women in training, women are helpmeets and babymakers) it makes sense to strive to please the head man. I can never find the barfing smiley when I need it, but I'd put it here.