A good Daddy influences his children by both example and teaching. A girl learns how a woman should be treated and a boy learns how to treat women. (and a bad Daddy has a negative impact in this area but that’s not what I talking about today.)

A “Daddy’s Girl , confident in her father’s love, becomes a confident, self-respecting woman. I’m not too sure that a “Momma’s Boy” takes away anything positive from that relationship at all.

I do know that girls will often seek romantic partners who remind them of their Father. Now if a girl had a “Good Daddy” then she will seek a man who respects her intelligence, is supportive and considers her an equal partner. If she had a bad daddy, then she will think that’s the way a woman should be treated or she will seek someone like him and try to gain the love and approval she didn’t get from her father.

Obviously Daddies have a huge impact on their sons as well – he is the role model his son will emulate, or rebel against.

I see more lasting damage done by bad mother’s than bad father’s. I loved my father and was a “Daddy’s girl” but in retrospect he wasn’t the greatest parent either. With one exception, all the men I have been seriously involved with were just like my father. And like my father they all respected my intelligence and competence; they also were emotionally distant. I joke with my husband that when he dies my father and Nick, will be waiting for him, card table ready, chess board set up; the three of them would have been bosom buddies had they all lived at the same time.

I have known people who got past bad fathers but I have never met anyone who has satisfactorily resolved their issues with bad mothers. I have known people who were crippled by their love for their mother but haven’t come across it as much with fathers.

I totally disagree with parent worship – just because people reproduce doesn’t make them “Mothers” or “Fathers” and the cult of the mother makes me livid. Nothing can send me into a insane rant quicker than someone saying “But she’s your Mother”. BFD .

So does “good Daddy/bad Mommy” equal a fairly well adjusted person; does “bad Daddy/good Mommy” equal a fairly well adjusted person? If you can’t have two equally “good” parents, which parent should be the “good” one?