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Little Girls Who Live Without A Father

Decent Essays

Little girls who live without a father do so not only due to death, abandonment, or divorce, but also due to physically present fathers but who are emotionally absent, or ill over a lengthy period of time in some way (clinical depression, terminal disease, etc.), or because the father is a workaholic, or because in some fashion the father is a disappointment to the daughter, as might be the case in a weak or ineffectual father. Such differing types of absence in the girl 's life may have major consequences of varying kinds, since a healthy emotional and socio-psychological developmental trajectory in the early years of life does require some type of positive paternal role model.

Seeing the Self Reflected
Optimally, a little girl needs to see herself reflected in the love she sees for herself in her father 's eyes. This is how she develops self confidence and self esteem. This is how she develops a healthy familiarity with what a positive expression of love feels like. This is how she develops an appreciation for her own looks, her own body. This is how she develops what Jungians would call her 'animus, ' her counter-sexual self; her masculine self, which will help her be proactive, productive, and creative in the outer world as she grows into adulthood.

If, however, the little girl does not have such a relationship with the father, if she sees rejection or emotional coldness or withdrawal in him, or if he simply is not available at all, her sense of self will be tainted,

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