Daddy

The person who tucks you in at night and scares off the boogie men from the closet. The person who holds the seat of your bike when you are trying to learn to ride. The person that pitches 50 thousand balls to you so that you can hit the game winning homerun. The person that is there consoling you when you strike out. Thanks Daddy for teaching me to be a great Daddy, I know my munchkins appreciate it.

On the flipside of Sixty4bit's dad.....The person who is never there when you are growing up. The person who cheats on his wife and is an alcoholic. The person who dies from his alcoholism and leaves you feeling guilty for so many reasons. The person you recognize when you think about all of your idiosyncracies. The person you wish you could have known as the man he was before he died the alcoholic he became.

The active pederast in unnatural sexual relations. (Often humorously) "You smoke my tobacco, hit me with your work and duke me in (lead me into) your swindles (difficulties). What am I, your daddy or something?"

- american underworld dictionary - 1950

To Iceberg Slim and his contemporaries, this was a jivespeak term for what a whore called her pimp. It was not coincidental, as a pimp strove to be a source of love, acceptance, fear, punishment, and most of all control in the lives of his whores.

Daddy is what I call my daddy. Sound useless? Well, yes, but let me clarify. I have 3 fathers. Impossible? I know. Again, give me a chance. My mom was married when I was born. Fairly normal. Here's the twist. Her husband is not my biological father. That's another person entirely. So, she and Jerry (her first husband, my formerly-legal-father) got divorced. I don't remember this. Then she got married again. I do remember this, I was about four and a half. This man, Jack, is my daddy. He is the one who raised me, who was there for me, who told me bedtime stories.. he's my daddy. The reason I make this clarification is that he wasn't my legal father until I was 8, and he isn't my biological father. I know my biological father (my father), and we're friends, but he's not my daddy. My formerly-legal-father.. well, I don't like him at all, but that's another story.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that "daddy" doesn't always mean someone who had anything to do with your creation. It's someone who supported you, and acted as a true father.

I am inclined to agree with sarahh. My biological father ceased being my daddy when I was 11 years old and he told me to stop calling him.

I didn't find my Daddy until I was 16 years old. The husband of a woman my mother worked with, Walter had no children of his own. He never would, as he was really unable to deal with children so young that he couldn't have an intelligent conversation with them. (Younger than 9 or 10, roughly.)

I, on the other hand, was perfect. He got an instant teenage daughter without the messy business of raising one. And I got a Daddy who really loved me and cared about my well-being.

Now, though I am 500+ miles from him, Walter is still very much my Daddy. He keeps in very regular contact, making sure I am sleeping/eating right, doing well in my classes, taking my meds, etc.

I get the additional plus with this of being spoiled rotten a few times a year. *grin* There are advantages to being an "only daughter" to a sci-fi con goer.

LM

In theatre slang "Daddy" is the stage manager. The use of this term in this way dates back to 1859 (see the OED)

That's why if you ask an old time actor "Who's Yo Daddy?" he'll point up. (not to god to the booth, mind you.)

Any man can be a father, but it takes something special to be a Daddy - stolen from Father's Day cards, coffee mugs and t-shirts everywhere. Very cliche, and very true.

Also a poem by Sylvia Plath, of which standard Canadian copyright laws say I can have up to four lines of...

"And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you."

no, she's not canadian but i am

Dad"dy (?), n.

Diminutive of Dad.

Dryden.

 

© Webster 1913.