Fathers and Self-Esteem

(To Feel part 3)

I have been thinking a lot about self-esteem and self-image lately and one thing that came to mind was something my father used to say. In the middle of a periodic talk about courtship/dating/relationship-with-the-opposite-sex/etc he would say something like: "Girls date because they are looking for an ego boost and affection. They want to feel special and they want to think that they matter to someone. The place that they should be getting this is from their fathers...."
Similar inferences may be gotten from courtship/Patriarchy books like: "So Much More"

The general knowledge on this subject is that most women have self-esteem problems and that other people can help solve, or at least be a balm to these wounds.
The problem is how people try to fix in, and especially how in Patriarchal/QF circles these issues are passed off/ignored/called something else/or dealt with wrongly.


I asked Mrs. G about whether she had heard or read anywhere the "daughters should get their emotional cups filled by their fathers" line and she said she had.
  All the helpmeet-daughters and that big bad box of emotional incest and whatnot aside; one of the biggest disconnects I find between this lip-service and reality is that for all their talk about being there for their families and ruling and loving their children: fathers do a lot to tear down their daughters self-esteem instead of building it.

Just in the last two weeks that I have been working on this series, I found a half-dozen daughters siting examples of their fathers being negative about their person, or intelligence, or experience.
Anne from the Quicksilver Queen:

"He rarely ever complimented his daughters. He destroyed my self image by making comments like ‘you should watch your weight’ and ‘you probably don’t need a second helping, right?’ and ‘you better be careful when you’re pregnant…some women take the opportunity as an excuse to eat whatever they want and pig out and get really fat’. It hurts when all you wanted was his approval…for him to be proud of you…and he’s always critical of you, your opinions, thoughts, feelings, emotions, appearance, and everything else you can think of..."

And from Permission to Live:

"My parents still acted as though this was up to me, but it had never truly been an option. My Dad told me I would be allowed to take online courses IF I managed to complete my two years of Latin and Greek, plus Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus, and Biology. He explained that the only way I would be smart enough to keep up with college level courses was if I completed all of my home school and 'applied myself for once'...
College was not going to happen, I just wasn’t smart enough."

Labels like this stick for so much longer than they should. My father also wanted me to 'watch my weight' and would come into my room some afternoons and tell me it was "exercise time". (ie: get up now and get out into the yard and run around because I dont think you have burned enough calories today)
Except, the funny thing was that he wasnt at home during the day and never knew what exercise I did or didnt get. He just saw me as fat.
He would tell me at birthday parties (when I got served a larger slice of cake then maybe someone else got) "A minute on your lips, forever on your hips" and once even said outright that guys would never marry a larger girl if they could get a skinnier one. 
He also wanted me to have nicer skin.  He offered a couple times to have me be a guinea pig for an acne product they were testing at a college (heard it advertised on the local radio station).  He offered to buy a sample of proactive and while he didnt comment on it, I know that he wished I wasnt as be-pimpled as our family genes and my skin-type had me be.

Is it any wonder I still feel fat to this day?  Whenever I look in the mirror the first thing I notice are my hips and the second is the profuse red dots all over my face.  Even my mother (now into her late 40s) has acne regularly.  I just feel like I cant be pretty while I have hips and my family's face.
Honesty, instead of making their daughter secure and emotionally stable at home, I think a lot of Patriarchs end up so crippling their girls self-worth that instead of looking for it elsewhere they are assured in their hearts that it cannot be found in them and they dont think anyone else could find it even if they looked.
Now that I am a rebellious, wicked daughter and left his home, I have the freedom (if I choose) to go out and date.  Surely someone out there might find me attractive and/or marriageable material....right?

Yeah..... no.  I dont have the self-esteem to sell myself to other people, be it for a job or for a relationship.
I dont see myself as beautiful or possessing the qualities necessary to be or do things.
By default.
I am trying to overcome it, but you never realize how deep a sapling has its roots sunk into the ground until you attempt to pull it up.  Like a dandelion, it grows back from the smallest pieces of leftover and when you turn around is in full bloom.

Maybe we are always looking for attention and an ego boost.  But crushing (or attempting to crush) the part of me that feels and wants and needs that is not going to help the 'problem', much less fix it and give you the perfect daughter who doesnt date and doesnt 'give her heart away' to a strange guy in return for affection and time spent together.