Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Grown women and "Daddy"

In my experience, "Daddy" is a term for one's father that is used by children, and once a person gets a bit older, he's "Dad". It's not a term that a grown woman would call her father. However, in stories Lois always calls her dad "Daddy". It grates on me every time I read it because it makes her sound like a little girl or just plain whiny.

Do you writers have her use the term "Daddy" because that's what she calls him on the show, or is that the term you would use for him yourself? Is it a regional difference, an East-Coast thing perhaps, for grown women to call their dad "Daddy"?

IIRC, I have never written a Lois/Sam interaction, so I am not a "Daddy" user in fanfic. I think I only once called my own father "Daddy" as an adult; it was in the conversation in which he told me that he had terminal cancer. I'll freely admit that the shock of the news made me regress emotionally for a few minutes to the extent that I used the childhood epithet.

FWIW, I spent my entire childhood in upstate New York and had been living in Maryland for a bit over a year when he broke the news.

Joy,
Lynn

I would suspect you had a reasonably fulfilling relationship with your father. One where you grew from childhood to adulthood with him in your life.

Lois did not have that. Sam only seems to have attempted to re-connect with Lois recently based on the series and the fanfiction generated here in these forums in her late twenties and pretty much botched that until she was probably 30. Lois never got to grow up with her father as he left when she was very young and she had to grow up and play mother to Lucy. Emotionally she never progressed past that time in relationship to Sam as she was physically growing up.

I certainly have no professional training so this is just my way of seeing the situation.

Mike

Was just about to post...exactly what Mike said. Well, he said it much better than I would have, but the gist would have been the same - I always saw it as another indication of the emotionally stunted relationship Lois had with her father.

So...what he said.

LabRat

I've usually have Lois refer to her father as "Daddy" but only when speaking to him (because she did on the show). Otherwise she refers to him as her "father", not "Dad" as that implies a closer relationship. Doesn't he call her "Princess" or something equally horrible?

I haven't seen this in RL. Often you see it in American films or television shows where the rich (usually) fathers call their daughters "Princess" and the spoiled daughters who can get anything they want out of their fathers "Daddy". Personally, I think it's insulting to both parties to imply that the daughter never grew up and to treat her accordingly.

The worse use of the name "Daddy" is by Marilyn Monroe in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (which we just watched last week). Love the film (especially Jane Russell), hate that THIS is the name Marilyn's character calls her *boyfriend*.

EDIT: In full disclosure, I do sometimes call my husband "Daddy" but only because that's what the kids call him. My daughter is 9, my son 6. Usually, I call him by his given name, though. But I would *never* call my father "Daddy" unless being silly or sarcastic. He's "Dad".

Interesting take, Mike and LabRat. (Mike, you are correct that I did have an excellent relationship with my father.) It definitely makes sense.

Virginia, you are right; he does call her, "Princess."

I just searched the transcripts. Lois call Sam "Daddy" in RfaH, HiWtHI and INPY.

Joy,
Lynn

Also in The Family Hour... I assume Rfah is Requiem for a Superhero.

Mike

Thanks for your input. So it sounds like you guys have Lois use the term because that's the way she addressed Sam in the show, and it was probably used there to highlight their dysfunctional relationship. Gotcha.


I'm sorry about your dad. Given all the emotions of the moment, I can certainly see someone calling her dad "Daddy" there. Thanks for sharing your experience.


I call my husband "Daddy" when my kids are around, too.

Oops. Yes, Mike, "RFoah" should have been "RFaS"; I was flashing back to the movie title.

Thanks,
Lynn

I use "Daddy" in my fics mostly because Lois did use it, several times, on the show. (Same with when I have Sam call her "Princess" - it was on the show.)

However, at 31, I can say that I use the term "Daddy" as a term of endearment, though not quite often. My Dad is usually "Dad." But I'll use Daddy sometimes. No real reason for it. I just do it sometimes. Sometimes I'm trying to be super-sweet (about to ask a favor, like can you come help me get my tractor-mower fixed). Sometimes I use it when not even speaking to him directly. (So, Mom, I was wondering what to get Daddy for Father's Day.")

I use Daddy a lot at home now, because of my girls. Although, half of the time it's "Daddy" and half of the time it's "Dada." (After all, my girls are only just going to be 9 months old in a couple of days.)

To add to the above, I want to clarify:

I had the exact opposite relationship with my father than Lois did with hers. My parents are still married - grew up in a house with both of them, Dad was very present and supportive.

Reading the script for Requiem I noticed that when Lois first meets her father she is in full reporter mode and calls him Dad. Later when the situation he was in became more apparent and she began to relate to him as daughter she called him Daddy.

Just thought it was interesting.

Mike

Ah, Mrs. M, I think you're over-generalizing. I've written a few times where Lois thinks about her dad (but I've never actually written them together) and I can say without qualification that I've never had her call him "daddy." "Dad" or "father," but not "daddy." Yes, the show did have her call him that, but it never quite felt right to me. With the exception of 'Requiem for a Superhero," I find Sam's portrayal irritating to the extreme. The educated, busy, aloof, yet looking to make a connection, characterization feels right to me. I love Harve Presnell as an actor, but I hated the way Sam was written in the last two seasons. They made him a buffoon and I still find that unforgivable. But I digress... :P

If Lois had been younger when her parents divorced, I could buy the argument that she was stuck in some kind of regression where Sam was concerned. But she was a teenager -- and an independent teenager (if you accept as canon her moving out at 17), so she hardly seems the best candidate to be a daddy's girl.

My parents divorced when I was 10. I think I stopped calling my dad "daddy" around that time (maybe a year or two later), but definitely by the time I was a teenager. It had nothing to do with the divorce (which wasn't acrimonious like the Lanes). For me, it was simply a natural extension of growing up.

But, as always, everyone's mileage varies.

Interesting topic.
Well put, Sue. Yes, Lois had a strained relationship with her father. It didn't even bother me, in fact pleased me, when they switched actors to Harve Presnell. I always loved him and his wonderful voice in movies. He seemed like a big teddy bear.
It seemed to me that toward the end of the series, Lois was a little more affectionate (or maybe even tolerant) of her father.
Our daughter of 51 years still calls her father Daddy. She writes that on cards too. It's an affectionate way of harking back to her younger days. Daddy enjoys it too.

Artemis

You got me. I almost hedged and wrote "usually", but I went for the hyperbole.

I have been digging a bit on this but am having difficulty finding any story here where Lois directly calls Sam anything but Daddy. I as mentioned in the Series and the episode of "Requiem for a Superhero" she directly calls him Dad early when she is trying to keep emotional distance between herself and Sam but later when she abandons that idea she calls him Daddy. I guess it has to do with the relationship the individual author is attempting to convey.

That concept does not bother me because I lived in the South for nearly two decades and the girls/ladies always referred to their father as 'Daddy' even when they were in their 50/60's (the daughter). The kids also always call my wife and I 'Mr Mike' and 'Mrs Cathy' and many of the ones we remain in contact with still call us that to this day and the 'kids' are nearly 40...



Mike

Ah, so it is a regional thing. I'm not sure how that plays into Lois using the term, though, since she's not from the South.

Thanks for all your responses, everyone. Sometimes I run across things repeatedly in stories that I don't understand, like words being used in a strange way or unusual phrases that I'm not familiar with, and I wonder whether it seems odd to me because it's a cultural difference or a regional difference, or what. Even moving from the West Coast to a couple states over, I've noticed that people talk a bit different from me, let alone people from the East Cost, the South, or farther away like England or Australia. It's all English, but it's certainly not all the same.

Just caught this post, and would like to actually congratulate mrsMxyzptlk on this catch. I *never* liked that they had Lois call him "Daddy" in the show, and even though I've never written a direct scene between the two of them in a story that I can recall, whenever I have her mention him (or think about him), I usually refer to Sam as "father" or occasionally "Dad". Coming out of a frighteningly similar situation, I personally will admit that I can't find myself ever in a situation where I would call my father "Daddy" and the only times I'd used it in the past was when I really wanted something (sweet talk him into an ice cream before dinner or something). But I was also younger then.

It's likely just an issue of the way the individual writer views the term. To some it may seem natural, or simply affectionate, or fake or what have you. And also it probably was used (originally/in the show) to demonstrate how Lois has a stunted relationship with him-- but again, I personally never felt that was an accurate representation of Lois.

That's just my two cents though.

Not for us. We live in California. It's just an affectionate thing.

Artemis