Let your daughter talk to her mom for as long as she wants
Not too long ago, when my daughter would show up at my house, she would want to call her mom immediately. She’d call at the end of that day and several times in between. Then one day, she tried to call her mom but was met with voicemail. My daughter dialed her number repeatedly and left numerous increasingly distressed messages. I became worried as I didn’t want my ex to think there was something wrong nor did I think this kind of compulsive behavior to be helpful. Eventually, her mom did call back after nearly 2 hours – an aeon in my daughter’s mind. I couldn’t understand the desperation especially when she just saw her earlier in the day! After managing through the hysterical 2 hours, I decided to put some parameters in place. My daughter can place or take calls anytime except when it’s meal time, bathroom time or bed time. And if she gets voice mail, she leaves a message and waits. Mom could be busy, she’s in a meeting, she’s in the subway, or she’s in the bathroom. Just wait. The same is true for when she tries to call me too. Because I don’t answer, it doesn’t mean I am never going to answer. I will call back.
Young girls need their mommies. As a baby, she needed her mom for all sorts of physiological creature comforts. Milk, warmth, safety, et cetra. Most dads like me only play a minimum role in this time of early development. This bond between mother and baby is rarely (if ever) broken and fathers who realize this, know their initial role and don’t take it personally. I imagine that as my daughter grows older and becomes independent, this bond only becomes thinner and finer until it just becomes a whisper of a thread, but it will never be broken — nor would I want to affect it in anyway. Understanding this and letting my daughter maintain and nurture this bond in a two household family is crucial. She knows she has no barriers of access to her mom when she’s with me. She needs to know that just because she’s physically with me doesn’t mean she’s disconnected for her other parent.
In a two household family, my daughter knows that just because she’s physically with me doesn’t mean she’s disconnected from the other parent. Ironically, even though my daughter can talk to her mom freely and for as long as she wants, her phone calls are short and really characterized as checking-in. It never turned into what I thought might be hours of phone time racking up minutes or long distance charges
It also helps my daughter’s self-esteem in that I am not controlling her access to the other parent. Denial can create a longing and ultimately a dependency with an inability to let go. I got more than a passing grade in PSY-101 in college to know that if I repeatedly control my daughter’s expressions, a couple of negative things can happen. First, she’ll stop asking me to call her mom and so I’ll never really know her true feelings. Over time, she could withhold other things from me. Second, because of this unexpressed desire and unresolved longing to connect with her mom, it will detract from the focus she’ll have when she’s with me. Ultimately this robs me of the quality time she spend with me as the other parent is frequently on her mind.
In many ways, her maturity progresses along the development model proposed by Abraham Maslow who in 1943 outlined “A Theory of Human Motivation.” The most widely known aspect of this work is the hierarchy of needs. Like building blocks, physiological needs are the most basic and essential. As first graders, your daughter has progressed far along this ladder already with achieved milestones of love and belonging. They are now working on self-esteem. These steps can’t be skipped if your child is to attain higher forms of expression in creativity and morality. The beauty in this model is that I don’t need to achieve mine, in order for her to achieve higher levels of awareness.
Who knew building self-actualization could be as simple as letting her talk on the phone? The ironic thing is that even though my daughter can talk to her mom anytime and for as long as she wants (especially when we are on vacation), her phone calls to her mom are short and really characterized more as checking-in. It actually never turned into what I thought might be hours of phone time racking up huge minutes or even long distance charges.