Change Your Brain Every Day - Daddy Issues: How Can They Affect a Child?

Episode Date: May 27, 2019

The relationship a child has with their father is extremely important to their early development. An abnormal or nonexistent relationship with their dad can have detrimental effects on how they end up developing relationships with others. In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss the family dynamics that tend to cause daddy issues.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Hi, everyone. Welcome back. So this week, we are talking about daddy issues. So thank God it's not me this week. We already talked about

my dad. I'm done. So we're going to talk about just something so common to so many people, daddy issues. I guess we'll talk about mommy issues another time. Well, so we were sitting around Easter and virtually everybody who was there had daddy issues. How many people don't? I mean, it's crazy, right? So fathers are very important to your development. They're very important to your self-esteem. I once heard it said, you just sort of expect that your mother will love you. So the real test is whether or not your dad does on how you end up feeling about yourself. And the same is true for whether you're a boy or a girl, a man or a woman, your primary relationship with your father really does matter. And we spent a whole week talking about your dad.

And some people were probably wondering about my dad, who's a character, to say the least. He's the embodiment of the American dream. Right. He's tough, though. Grew up from very poor immigrant parents. Grew up in Flint, Michigan. I'm glad he's not there now because of the water crisis that was there. But they were very poor.

Although, when you're poor, he said he never knew he was poor. Right. Because he was like everybody else in the neighborhood. He had a very high work ethic. He actually went to work when he was 12 years old in a grocery store, also delivered papers. Isn't that interesting? My mom's also, my grandparents were Lebanese immigrants. And so my mom grew up

very poor and same thing that same work ethic so just very interesting huge and then he met my mom when i guess he was 20 she was 18 they were married in two months or something like that and he went to work and when he wasn't working he was having having seven children. And so I asked my mom, I said, didn't you know how that happened? She wanted all of you guys. See, that's huge. She said she wanted a whole bunch of playmates. She got them. She was a great mom. She's still a great mom. She's a great mother-in-law. And as much as I love my dad, and he's going to be 90 soon, he's one of my best friends besides you. But he didn't get an A for

being a dad. He was gone. And when he wasn't gone, he was just sort of not that nice is what I remember. Um, and critical. I remember telling him I wanted to be a psychiatrist and he asked me why I wanted, why I didn't want to be a real doctor. Um, and when I was 18, Vietnam was still going on and I had a very low draft number and I said,

you know, I think I'm going to join. And he said, Oh, you can't do that. Right. And so of course I then did it because I wasn't that smart. And so I know what it's like to have daddy issues as many of the people who are here.

So let's give them a question to start with and then something practical to do at the end. So the question that came to my mind, maybe you can say what's on your mind, is how do you see the way that your relationship was with your father? How do you see that it has affected your life? However it is that you visualize it, how do you believe it has affected your life? How would you rather it be? Is that a question for me? No, it's for the audience. Okay.

Well, let me answer it. Well, maybe not because I think it helped me. I work really hard and I don't see that as a down thing. I've always seen it as a positive thing because I'm doing something purposeful. But it's like, well, I'm not going to be like my dad who never went to a baseball game or a basketball game or anything like that. So I was way more present but more lenient with my children than perhaps I should have been looking back on that. Because you wanted to be the opposite. Because I was reacting against how he was. And sometimes people go too far.

Like I did with my mom. With that. So you want to ask yourself, what impact did your relationship with your father have on you? Okay. So I like that. So in my relationship with my dad, the way I saw it, I didn't believe that it was going to affect my relationships going forward because I was too young to really understand. So I cut my dad off hard when I was 18. Didn't talk to him again for many, many years and not knowing how that was going to affect my relationships. And so my, my vision of men

was sort of unknowingly affected by that. My, my connections, my ability to connect and commit. So just like I walked away from my dad, it became easy for me to then, if something's not going right, or I believe that something's headed the wrong direction, bye-bye. It's just. Yeah. That explains the first 18 months of our relationship. But when I healed that relationship with my dad, when I got therapy for that, when I healed it, I went, oh. I used to think it was just a bunch of psychobabble nonsense. Like, oh, your relationship with your dad. That primary relationship probably had nothing to do with the person you became. But it was true. It did. So reflecting on it and then asking yourself,

was it helpful? Did it serve you? Was it in your best interest? Along with that is also birth order issues because that really plays into your relationship with your father. So you're an only child. Well, I have two half-sisters, but they're 10 years younger. Right. But that's a very special place to be. So the special parts of a family is you're the oldest, the oldest girl, or the oldest boy, and the youngest. And when you're one of seven and you're third, you're sort of screwed if you have an older brother and a sister. Who's in the middle. Yeah.

And so wanting attention. But what's interesting about middle children that a lot of people don't know is that most of the revolutionaries in the world, people who can push against authority, they're not only our oldest children. They tend to our oldest children. They tend to be middle children. That's so interesting. Because they're pushing against the status quo as a way to get meaning and independence and so on. So I will hold on to that for me. But I think birth order matters.

I remember struggling for attention, trying to get attention, trying to get attention because I was alone a lot. I mean, like not getting alone a lot. I was a latchkey kid, um, with a single working mother who, you know, worked three jobs. So I was alone a lot. So always trying to get attention and trying to achieve and trying to be good and trying to get straight A's and try, like trying to do the good girl thing to get attention. And when it didn't work, so to speak, my mom adored me, but she was just busy.

When it didn't work, I just remember like, okay, fine, bye, I'm going to do my own thing. And just sort of disconnecting from all of it. Another interesting part of daddy issues is how old was your dad when they had you? See, that's what I was going to say about your dad. Your parents were both very young, and your dad was working hard to make something of himself and feed his family. So that had to affect how he interacted with you guys. Yes.

No, he's a great grandfather. And we often, I would tell my children just like- That's like my mom too. I'd be like, this is not who he really is. That's my great grandfather. And we often, I would tell my children just like- That's like my mom too. I'd be like, this is not who he really is. That's how my mom too. When I had my daughter- It's like, don't believe this. Right.

But in fact, you should believe it because as he got settled, as he became- More successful. More successful, he had more time to reflect on what was really important in his life. Well, and he was able to act on it. And was I different at 25? I'm still in medical school. Then I was, for Chloe, for example. I'm glad.

See, people- So there are times I wish I had had Chloe when I was younger because of the energy, right? Being able to be a young mom and, you know, being kind of crazy. But then I look at my mom who had me very young. And I'm actually glad overall that I didn't have Chloe too young. It's one of the reasons that I value health so much, why I work so hard. It's staying healthy because I'm an older mom.

I had her when I was 35. So because of that, it's important to me to stay healthy. But me at 25 versus me at 35. So because of that, it's important to me to stay healthy, but me at 25 versus me at 35, yeah, no, I wouldn't have been a good mother at 25. I mean, maybe I would have, maybe I would have made me change. You would have been a great mother because you have a very good soul. Yeah, but I wasn't ready. And I knew I wasn't ready. We would love for you to write down the one thing you learned from this podcast and share it on whatever your social media platform is, hashtag BrainWarriorsWay. And also at BrainWarriorsWayPodcast.com.

Feel free to leave a question and Tana and I will get to as many as we can. Stay tuned. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.