A journey into myself during the Fathers and Daughters class.
In reading Women and Their Fathers, I found Victoria Secunda’s concept of the “maverick daughter particularly fascinating. In this paper I will offer my analysis of this concept and examine behaviors that I can readily identify with.
To examine the concept of the “maverick daughter” you must first define the word “maverick.” Most people are very familiar with the meaning of “daughter”, but may lack a clear understanding of the word “maverick.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines “maverick” as “an independent-minded person who refuses to abide by the dictates of or resists person who resists adherence to a group.” Secunda, citing Webster’s, defines a “maverick” as “an individual who refuses to conform to his group.” I looked the word “maverick” up in Roget’s Thesaurus as found the words, nonconformist; misfit; eccentric; outcast; radical; individualist; and oddball, to name a few. The basic underlying theme is the same, the “maverick” is someone who clearly stands apart, willingly, from the rest. Therefore, a “maverick daughter” could be defined as a female child who does not fit into the familial group (or any for that matter), or conform to the rules. However, the concept goes much deeper and farther than that.
In Women and Their Fathers, Secunda offers the following quote from Dr. Augustus Y. Napier, which clearly defines the true meaning of the “maverick daughter,”
“Beneath the surface. . . . there is a strong, gutsy kid. . . . I have a special fondness for the rule breaker. She takes a stand against the forces of conformity and coercion. . . . These kids. . . . stand up, they speak out; they declare themselves.”
So there has to be more to these daughters who are headstrong, tough, and definitely different. In her book, Women and Their Fathers, Secunda offers a better description of just what makes a “maverick daughter” tick, she writes,
“The maverick daughter is always unusual, the triangular peg that does not fit into the square hole...... The female maverick’s problem is not so much that she is different; her trouble is that she isn’t easily accepted, a condition that she often brings on herself, with considerable help from the culture..... They have definite ideas and are not a bit reticent about expressing them. Not for them the fate of their paler, more fragile sisters, who go belly-up at the first sign of trouble. Yet paradoxically the maverick wants nothing so much as to belong.”
So how does a sweet innocent little baby grow into this defiant rogue? Are they born that way? Did terrible things happen to them while they were growing up? Is it their temperament, birth order, or closeness, or lack of it thereof, to their fathers? The answer to all of these questions is yes. All of these things play a part in the making of a “maverick daughter.” Secunda states,
“How mavericks cope with their uniqueness depends almost entirely on the “group” into which they are born—that is, how they were treated in childhood. Some maverick daughters come by their unconventional ways honestly. They view the world through a different lens and are entirely at home with their atypical selves.”
She further goes on to explain,
“Temperament, of course, has everything to do with the maverick’s fate in the family. Some children are out of sync with the rest of their kin. The maverick’s innate boldness and quirky curiosity are likely to set her apart from the start.......Perhaps the best explanation for the maverick’s temperament is that she is probably what Dr. David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates call “Apollonian.” This personality is in constant and often circuitous quest for self, in restless pursuit of identity and individuality. The researchers write,
“[The Apollonian wants] to be what he is meant to be and to have an identity which is uniquely his. His endless search most often causes him guilt, believing that his real self is somehow less than it ought to be. And so he wanders, sometimes spiritually, sometimes psychologically, sometimes physically, seeking to satisfy his hunger for unity and uniqueness.”
Another explanation as to why a female infant develops into a “maverick daughter” could be that they have brothers for siblings instead of sisters. Secunda illustrates this in her book by reporting, “One of the startling findings in my research is that over 80 percent of the maverick daughters in my sample had brothers. No other group had so lopsided a sibling history.” If these daughters were first born and had younger brothers they were the center of attention until the “boy” was born, and up until that time they had been their fathers, to quote Secunda, “.....potential protégées, but with the arrival of a second born—a boy— their fathers changed their paternal tunes.”
With regards for those daughters who had older brothers, Secunda writes,
“As for those maverick daughters—the majority— who had older brothers, the heirs apparent had already cornered the market on paternal favoritism by virtue of birth rank and gender. Mavericks were born into the breach, constantly trying to measure up to, or be the tag-a-long of, their big brothers.”
“Maverick daughters” have another common characteristic among them, it is the fact that their parents’ marriages are far from harmonious, and many have divorced. This produces a feeling of alienation in the “maverick” and unfortunately they are viewed upon by their parents as a “problem child.” Secunda speaks to this as follows:
“Problem children” often have the bad luck to be born at the worst possible time of their parents’ lives—during the breakup of a marriage or a parent’s serious illness or unemployment. Or they are the “wrong” sex. Such children are often unwanted kids, symbolizing one or more areas of stress, rather than joy. The unhappy result is that in childhood many mavericks did not have a reliable ally in either parent.”
While reading Secunda’s book, I discovered that I fit the definition of a “maverick daughter.” When I was born my brothers were 10 and 12 years old at the time. My father was 41 and my mother 31. I was a complete “surprise”, and one which my mother did not want. My father doted on me for the first few years of my life, forcing my brothers to take me with them everywhere, even on dates, which my brothers resented, and they made sure I knew that they did so. My brothers even went so far as to tell me that my father favored me and spoiled me, which I could never quite grasp as the truth since he was as hard on me as he was on them, sometimes even more so.
As I grew older, and more difficult, my father would tell me things such as, “Why can’t you be more like your brothers?” Or “You should start acting more like a girl!” But the one thing I remember he told me the most was was “Can’t never could!” I always remembered that through everything and I believe to this day that you can do anything if you try.
I never got along well with my mother, who was a functional alcoholic throughout my childhood. She would work all week, then on her days off be a mean drunk. She was horrible to my father and me, and I hated her for it. As I got older, I would have to carry her to bed, when she fell asleep on the couch, because my father was disabled and could not do so. I never knew what real “normal” was. I had my own reality, and it served its purpose and kept me sane. It was only after many years of counseling and self awareness that I came to forgive my mother and let go, of some of the behaviors that made me a “maverick daughter.”
I have always been the rogue, the “difficult one”, the “problem child”, the “brat.” I have never fit in, even with my own family, and have never been satisfied with the way things are. I have had cursed love relationships and family relationships. Secunda points out that “maverick daughters” are victims of incest. In fact this seems to be a prevalent theme throughout her description of the “maverick daughter.” However, unlike many “maverick daughters” I was not a victim of incest, although I was molested by one of my brothers’ friend at age 5 and my uncle, by marriage, at age 7, both of who I cared for and trusted very much. I did not tell my family about, and never my father, until I was 30 years old, for fear that they would not believe me.
Another of Secunda’s “maverick” characteristics are hostility and being “the scapegoat.” I can readily identify with these characteristics since my family seems to thrive on making me the center of all of their negative attention, and I seem to be as volatile as a bottle of nitroglycerin. (Unfortunately, I have passed these things onto my son.)
After reading this book, I have a greater understanding of myself, my mother, and my daughter. I would like to finish with one last quote from Secunda’s book, Women and Their Fathers, because to me it sums up the way I felt for all those years,
“I remembered as a kid thinking God had made a mistake. I was supposed to be a boy. I didn’t feel like I was a real person. I always felt I wasn’t normal, that there was something intrinsically different about me, a wall between me and the rest of the world. It wasn’t until I joined AA that I found out my childhood was normal —for alcoholic families.”
Though I have never been addicted to drugs or alcohol, or attended an AA meeting, I still identify with the person, “Dulcy” who made that statement to Ms. Secunda, when she was interviewing “maverick daughters” for her book.
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