父女之间的隔阂 Why Father-Daughter crave closeness but struggle to connect?

Growing up, Melissa Shultz sometimes felt like she had two fathers. One version of her dad, she told me, was playful and quick to laugh. He was a compelling storyteller who helped shape her career as a writer… Some of their most intimate moments came when she cut his hair; it was, she said, “a way to be close without talking.” He was there for her in hard times, too. But she told me their relationship could also be turbulent. The other version of her father was “dark” and would “get so angry” that he seemed to lose control. He would freeze her out for months at a time if she challenged him. He’d call her names, even in front of her own kids. He died when she was in her 30s… Now in her 60s, Shultz told me she still mourns the relationship.

在成长过程中，梅丽莎·舒尔茨有时觉得她有两个父亲。她告诉我，其中一个版本的父亲风趣幽默，爱笑。他是个引人入胜的故事讲述者，帮助塑造了她作为作家的职业生涯……他们最亲密的一些时刻是她给他理发时。她说，那是“一种无需言语就能拉近距离的方式”。在困难时期，他也会陪伴在她身边。但她告诉我，他们的关系也充满动荡。另一个版本的父亲是“阴郁的”，并且会“变得非常愤怒”，似乎随时会失去控制。如果她顶撞他，他会连续几个月对她实施冷暴力。他甚至会在她自己的孩子面前辱骂她。他在她30多岁时去世了……如今已经60多岁的舒尔茨告诉我，她依然在为这段关系感到哀伤。

Shultz’s story may sound familiar to some other fathers and daughters. In the 1990s, the journalist Victoria Secunda wrote in her book Women and Their Fathers that “enriching attachments” between dads and daughters were “astonishingly rare.” … Two decades later, the psychologist Peggy Drexler wrote that daughters were prone to using the refrain “I love my dad, but …” Evidence of a dad-daughter divide crops up in more recent research on families, too. Fathers and daughters are more likely to become estranged than other pairs within the nuclear family. According to a 2022 study of national longitudinal data, roughly 28 percent of women in the U.S. are estranged from their dad; that’s only slightly higher than the 24 percent of sons… but significantly higher than the 6.3 percent of children of any gender estranged from their mother.

舒尔茨的故事可能会引起其他一些父亲和女儿的共鸣。在20世纪90年代，记者维多利亚·塞昆达在其著作《女性与她们的父亲》中写道，父女之间滋养型的依恋关系是“惊人地罕见”的。……二十年后，心理学家佩吉·德雷克斯勒写道，女儿们极易把一句话挂在嘴边：“我爱我爸爸，但是……”在近期关于家庭的研究中，父女之间存在隔阂的证据也屡见不鲜。在核心家庭中，父女比其他关系组合更有可能走向疏远。根据2022年一项对全国纵向数据的研究，美国大约28%的女性与父亲疏远；这仅略高于儿子的24%……但显著高于与母亲疏远的子女比例（无论性别，仅为6.3%）。

Even in cases where contact isn’t completely cut off, father-daughter relationships tend to be less close than other familial bonds. In a 2010 study, adult daughters reported feeling less comfortable discussing personal issues with their father than they did with their mother, and relying on their dad for “instrumental support” rather than emotional care. Linda Nielsen… has called it the weakest parent-child relationship. Of course, plenty of women have a close and loving relationship with their father. But the research is clear: Many do not. This tension hurts both fathers and daughters. Women’s bond with their dad may be linked to the quality of their mental health and romantic relationships… Dads and daughters who grow apart speak of immense pain. Each craves closeness, but neither side seems sure how to get there.

即使在联系并未完全切断的情况下，父女关系往往也不及其他家庭纽带亲密。在2010年的一项研究中，成年女儿报告说，与父亲讨论个人问题不如与母亲讨论时自在，并且她们更多地依赖父亲提供“工具性支持”，而非情感关怀。琳达·尼尔森……称其为最脆弱的亲子关系。当然，许多女性与父亲有着亲密而充满爱的纽带。但研究表明：许多人并非如此。这种紧张关系对双方都是一种伤害。女性与父亲的纽带可能与她们的心理健康和恋爱关系质量息息相关……那些渐行渐远的父亲和女儿都表达了巨大的痛苦。双方都渴望亲密，但似乎都不知道该如何抵达彼岸。

At the root of the modern father-daughter divide seems to be a mismatch in expectations. Fathers, generally speaking, have for generations been less involved than mothers in their kids’ (and especially daughters) lives. But lots of children today expect more: more emotional support and more egalitarian treatment. Many fathers, though, appear to have struggled to adjust their daughters’ expectations. The result isn’t a relationship that has suddenly ruptured so much as one that has failed to fully adapt. While reporting this article, I spoke with a dozen college-educated women, most of whom told me that their bond with their father lacked depth: Their conversations stayed superficial and could feel awkward, and their dad hardly ever showed vulnerability. Several said they feared their father’s anger. Others told me they rarely hugged. Few regularly had one-on-one time with their dad.

现代父女隔阂的根源似乎在于期望的错位。总体而言，几个世代以来，父亲在孩子(尤其是女儿)生活中的参与度一直低于母亲。但今天的许多孩子期望获得更多:更多的情感支持和更平等的对待。然而，许多父亲似乎难以跟上女儿们的期望。这导致的结果并不是一段关系的突然破裂，而是一段未能完全适应变化的关系。在撰写这篇报道时，我采访了十几位受过大学教育的女性，她们中的大多数人告诉我，与父亲的纽带缺乏深度:交谈停留在表面且时常感到尴尬，父亲几乎从不展现脆弱。几位受访者表示害怕父亲的愤怒。其他人则说他们很少拥抱。很少有人拥有与父亲单独相处的固定时间。

According to some researchers, that lack of quality time together—particularly in childhood—is an acute factor straining father-daughter bonds. “Parenting time is closely related to the quality of your relationship with that parent,” Nielsen told me… The 2012 study found that by age 17, girls were averaging less than 30 minutes a week one-on-one with their dad, while boys got more than an hour; fathers and teen daughters hung out less than any other familial combination…. Will Glennon, a writer who interviewed hundreds of fathers for his 1995 book, Fathering, told me that many dads also distance themselves from their adolescent daughters. Most of the fathers he spoke with were uncomfortable watching their girls go through puberty. That stage felt volatile, and the dads had “no idea” what their daughters were dealing with—so they withdrew.

研究人员认为，缺乏高质量的相处时间——特别是在童年时期——是造成父女关系紧张的一个关键因素。“育儿时间与你和这位父母的关系质量密切相关，”尼尔森告诉我……2012年的研究发现，到了17岁，女孩平均每周与父亲单独相处的时间不到30分钟，而男孩则超过一小时;父女成为了陪伴时间最少的家庭组合…….作家威尔·格伦农为撰写其1995年的著作《为父之道》采访了数百位父亲，他告诉我，许多父亲也会疏远青春期的女儿。他交谈过的大多数父亲面对女孩经历青春期都感到不自在。那个阶段感觉极不稳定，父亲们“完全不知道”女儿在经历什么——所以他们选择了退缩。

For the nearly one-third of American children whose parents divorce, the time deficit can be especially profound… One 20-year study measured the quality of relationships between fathers and their adult children post-divorce and found that three times more daughters than sons felt that the bond had significantly deteriorated. A family therapist… told me that in her practice, divorce and affairs are among the most serious factors harming father-daughter relationships. For much of history, until women married they largely relied on their father for material support. The bond between them tended to be based on a sense of mutual duty, and daughters were expected to be deferential. That changed over the course of the 20th century. As more women attained higher education and achieved financial independence, the traditional basis for father-daughter relationships eroded.

对于近三分之一父母离异的美国儿童来说，时间赤字可能尤为严重······一项长达20年的研究衡量了离婚后父亲与成年子女的关系质量，发现认为父女纽带严重恶化的女儿数量是儿子的三倍。一个家庭治疗师告诉我，在她的执业经验中，离婚和婚外情是伤害父女关系最严重的因素之一。在历史的长河中，女性婚前很大程度上依赖父亲的物质支持。他们之间的纽带往往建立在相互的责任感之上，并且女儿被期望是顺从的。这一切在20世纪发生了改变。随着越来越多女性接受高等教育并实现经济独立，父女关系的传统基础瓦解了。

Today, children generally desire more closeness with both of their parents well into adulthood…. “What generates closeness is another person’s vulnerability,” Coleman explained, and dads may not be ready for that. Nearly all of the women I interviewed described a painful discordance with their dad…. “I’m just like, Show your emotions,” Claire, a 43-year-old educator living in France, told me. Her mother died by suicide 20 years ago… and she longs to talk about her with her father. Min, a 29-year-old who grew up in South Korea but now lives in London, also told me that her dad rarely asks about her life… He instead focuses on supporting her with practical matters… “He’s quite patriarchal; he’s very male-orientated,” she said… which she attributes in part to South Korean culture. She told me that their differences can lead to “cultural clashes”.

如今，成年子女普遍渴望与父母双方都建立更多亲密感。……”产生亲密感的前提是另一个人的脆弱，”科尔曼解释道，而父亲们可能还没准备好。我采访的几乎所有女性都描述了与父亲之间令人痛苦的脱节。…… “我只是希望他‘展露一点情绪’，”住在法国的43岁教育工作者克莱尔告诉我。她母亲20年前自杀离世……她很渴望能和父亲谈谈她母亲。29岁在韩国长大、现居伦敦的敏（Min）也告诉我，她父亲很少过问她的生活……他只专注于在实际事务上支持她……“他非常有家长制作风;极其以男性为导向，”她说……她将这部分归因于韩国文化。她告诉我，他们的差异会导致“文化冲突”。

For Nielsen, dad-daughter tension has an obvious solution: more quality time together…. More fathers seem to be changing their lifestyle to make time for their kids, daughters included. Even between daughters and fathers whose dynamic has become intensely strained, Nielsen has argued that relationships can—and do—recover. For Melissa Shultz, healing came posthumously. In the decades since her father’s death, her anger toward him has softened… she has come to empathize with him. “He had a lot of pain as a child, with his parents.” For Joshua Coleman, who spent years estranged from his adult daughter, reconciliation came sooner. To rebuild trust, he told me, he learned to stop defending himself; he came to understand that demanding that his daughter respect his authority only drove her away. He saw a need to become more egalitarian and “soft.”

对尼尔森来说，父女关系的紧张有一个显而易见的解决之道：增加更多高质量的相处时间。……越来越多的父亲似乎正在改变他们的生活方式，腾出时间陪伴孩子，包括女儿。尼尔森认为，即使在关系变得极度紧张的父女之间，关系也是可以——并且确实能够——恢复的。对梅丽莎·舒尔茨而言，疗愈是在父亲死后到来的。在父亲去世后的几十年里，她对他的愤怒软化了……她开始同情他。”他小时候和父母在一起时承受了很多痛苦。”而对于曾与成年女儿疏远多年的约书亚·科尔曼来说，和解发生得更早。为了重建信任，他告诉我，他学会了停止自我辩护；他开始明白，要求女儿尊重他的权威只会把她推开。他意识到自己需要变得更加平等和”柔软”。

He saw a need to become more egalitarian and “soft.” When she was open to seeing him again, he let her set the pace. Slowly, he says, they found their way, not just to civility, but to something rarer: genuine closeness.

他意识到自己需要变得更加平等和“温和”。当女儿愿意再次跟他见面时，他让她来掌控节奏。他说，慢慢地，他们不仅找到了礼貌的相处之道，更找到了一种更为珍贵的东西：真正的亲密关系。