The Daddy‘s Girl Quiz

Are you, or is someone you know, a daddy’s girl? Take this quiz to find out and keep reading to discover what it means and what to do about it!

Do you frequently give your husband or romantic partner unasked for advice?

Do you pay the bills, not because handling finances is one of your gifts, but because you only trust yourself to get it right?

Do you do anything because you only trust yourself to get it right?

Do you monitor his conversations (he may not get something right!)?

Do you take out the garbage, mow the lawn, or fix things around the house, not because you love it, but because if you want it done, you have to do it yourself?

Do you carry the financial burden for the family and resent it?

Do you interpret what he says to the people he is talking to (even though you are all speaking the same language)?

Do you second-guess most of his decisions and choices?

Do you routinely clean up after him?

Do you do anything on his behalf that he could take care of himself, not because you want to make a gift of it, but because you are afraid to rock the boat by asking him to take care of it himself?

Do you pick lint off his clothes?

Do you scold him and you mean it – it isn’t playful teasing?

Do you correct him?

Are you willing to put his issues and private information out there in public while you guard your own?

Do you make him wrong every time an action or word of his makes you uncomfortable?

Are you jealous of his relationship with his mother?

Do you feel like his sex slave?

Do you accommodate his needs first and resent it?

Do you act like or feel like his servant?

Does he abuse you or threaten to abuse you if your do not take care of him when and how he wants to be taken care of?

Do you act like or feel like the children’s servant?

Do you give your son(s) attention, love, and affection that you do not extend to your daughter(s)?

Do you feel as though your husband is an extra child for you to attend to?

Does he have affairs that you choose to forgive repeatedly?

Does your father confide things in you that he expects you to hold in confidence and not share with your mother?

Does your father or mother lean on you for support in ways they should be getting from their partner?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, chances are you are a daddy’s girl. If you answered “yes” to any of these questions in regards to your wife or romantic partner, chances are she is a daddy’s girl.

Daddies’ girls, either by serving or dominating the men in their lives, believe they get their fulfillment from taking care of the men in their lives. The phenomenon is birthed within the family.

Daddies’ girls show up in a variety of ways in society. Some were once tomboys and, as adults, are some of the most capable people on the planet for getting things done! Some daddy’s girls are dominating and bullying. They require their nearest and dearest to meet their expectations or pay the consequences. Others are quite submissive, even subservient. They make sure everyone else is taken care of before they take care of themselves.

The thing that unites all daddies’ girls is the belief that their fulfillment comes from taking care of the men in their lives. The submissive ones take care of their men by serving them and making certain they are happy. The daddy’s girls who are dominating and bullying, take care of their men by bossing them around, actually. Their husbands may seem beyond hope of improving, but the dominating daddy’s girl will do her best to shape him up and make him a better man! The daddy’s girls who have successful careers and are very capable may find that they either keep their men at a distance or do not have romantic partners in their lives at all because they don’t have time for the way men have always either pulled on them or pushed against them.

Most daddies’ girls are very capable women, whether they are remarkable professionals, submissive partners, or dominating. Daddies’ girls get things done! The problem lies within their personal and romantic relationships. They believe that fulfillment comes from outside them, through taking care of the men in their lives. This belief is born in the complex relationships little girls have with both their mothers and their fathers.

When a little girl is born, in most cases, her mother takes care of the majority of her needs and desires. The hand that rocks the cradle does rule the world when that world belongs to her infant daughter. At some point as a toddler, a little girl sets her eyes on the one who is very different from her and her mother: daddy! At this point, she moves out of the sphere of influence of her mother into the sphere of influence of her father. This is a good thing! Such a movement gives girls moxie and pluck they might not naturally express.

Ideally, when a girl becomes a pre-teen and teenager, she is invited to rejoin the sphere of influence of her mother where she learns to find fulfillment from within herself. If a young woman doesn’t rejoin the sphere of influence of her mother, she remains in her father’s sphere of influence and becomes a daddy’s girl.

The reasons a girl does not rejoin the sphere of influence of her mother are complex; in part, because dad doesn’t even have to be present for a girl to be in his sphere of influence and reluctant to leave it! An absent father can create longing in a little girl to the point where she will imagine a perfect father, what his expectations of her would be, and spend her life attempting to fulfill those. She might find a replacement in a father figure; trying to become the daughter she hopes he would want her to be if he were, in fact, her father.

For little girls with fathers who are present, if their mothers are daddies’ girls and their fathers are mama’s boys, their parents only know how to teach the daughters to be daddies’ girls. For some little girls, daddy’s praise and admiration or his dismissal and disappointment can be so seductive that the daughters will refuse the mother’s invitation to return to her sphere of influence, if she issues it.

As we said earlier, these little girls grow up to be powerhouses of capability, even if they grow up to be the submissive type! The problem lies with how they treat their men. They treat their men like little boys.

Whether you are dismissive of your man because his little boy traits get on your nerves; or you are childlike because the consequences of being your own, adult woman are severe; or you boss him or nag him to make him a better man; the relationship no longer works for you. It doesn’t work for him either. Your relationship that began with such chemistry and promise has denigrated into a relationship passion cannot thrive in.

The first way to begin to get the passion and love back is to stop treating him like a little boy. He is a grown man who can take care of things on his own. The second thing you need to do is find out how to get fulfillment from within your own self.

Women express their femininity with men but they refresh their femininity with other women. You need your girlfriends and you need quality time with yourself. You have spent a lifetime believing your fulfillment comes from taking care of him. It takes discipline and self-honoring to learn how fulfillment comes from within you!

If you are married to or in a relationship with a mama’s boy who is abusive, you must take steps to protect yourself. Suddenly turning him loose to take care of things on his own could have negative consequences for you. Talk to someone you can trust, whose behavior will not clue him in to the fact that you have taken this person into your confidence, and get help from outside your relationship.

When you practice not treating him like a little boy, he may not be immediately grateful to be treated like a grown man! If you are a daddy’s girl then you are likely in a relationship with a mama’s boy. Dancing the new steps of treating each other as real adults may be awkward at first. Nevertheless, as the love, joy, and passion return, you will see that the payoff is worth the effort!