One of the best indicators of how great a role a father will play in the family is the mother's relationship with her own father.  A father takes a walk with his young daughter, and the mother feels envious, because she never had that with her own father.  

And if in the bargain, the mother always felt that she could never do enough to please her own mother, she may view her female child as a way to redress all the losses of her own childhood.  She looks at her daughter and sees herself.  The daughter can become the mother's opportunity either to make up for the past and right previous wrongs or to exact retribution for her losses.  

Mothers are in a very influential position to determine how their daughters will respond to Daddy.  A daughter may feel that she needs permission from her mother to have a relationship with her father.  Some mothers do not give this permission, to the detriment of the daughter.

Mothers often become emotional "gatekeepers" for their children.  This is their way of feeling, and indeed being, powerful.  Mothers are fully aware, even if only unconsciously, that they are perceived by their children to be powerful when in their roles as mothers, but as weaker in their role as wives.  

But this "mother power" can come at a price, because mothers are often the targets for blame when the children turn out badly.  Most fathers in our culture are largely absolved from accountability.  Mothers sometimes contribute to that absolution of the father by making excuses for the emotional and physical absence of fathers, and thereby encouraging their daughter's unrealistic idealization of them.  By "covering up for Daddy", a mother can rob a daughter of her ability to really know her father.  This can trap the daughter in a kind of limbo, somewhere between the dream and the truth.  The best situation is when the daughter can "dethrone" her father and see him realistically as a whole person, and a composite of both good and bad qualities.