Daughters

Every time I hear the John Mayer song ‘Daughters’ it really makes me think. Just recently I heard it again and was struck by the first verse in which Mayer explains how he can’t seem to make the relationship he is in work out and realizes that the woman’s previous emotional scars may be what are deterring the relationship rather than anything he is doing wrong.    

When asked about the song Mayer said that it was born of an experience in which he asked himself how he could love this woman and found the answer was that he could not “because someone else didn't before” him.  Mayer was referring to her father and said that her lack of trust came from her “daddy issues.”

I have worked for many years in the mental health field, particularly with young woman and it is sad how often these “daddy issues” do exist and how affected we are by the family we grow up in.  One girl in particular who I was working with, sent me a song that I had never heard before and told me that this song summed up her “attitude problems.”  She was a teenager and was more closed off than even most teenagers.  The song was called ‘No Daddy’  by Teairra Mari. When I listened to it that night, I felt a softness for the girl in my heart that previously had not been there. I asked myself the same question as Mayer; how do you trust when you have never learned how?

Mayer's chorus is simple but cuts us to our core:

Fathers, be good to your daughters

Daughters will love like you do

Girls become lovers who turn into mothers

So mothers, be good to your daughters too

There is only so much we can do about the hands we are dealt growing up, but as a parent myself now, this song reminds me of the great responsibility my husband and I have and the fragility of our children's hearts in their formation.

A male friend of mine used to work on cars as a young man.  He said that the walls of the garages he worked in were always plastered with scantily clad women.  This never bothered him...until his daughter was born.  He said that everything changed that day.  The next time he was in one of the garages, he couldn't help but think of the women on the walls as someone's daughter.  This bothered him because he knew that he didn't want anyone looking at his daughter like that some day.  As he said, "he was ruined!" Ruined truly in a wonderful way though, and as the Good Lord would have it, he is a great father to three beautiful daughters now!