Although the singer has never mentioned physical abuse in her family, she had mentioned that her father was a disciplinarian and her stepmother was hard on her. Author Lucy O'Brien wrote in her book "Madonna: Like an Icon" that the song stemmed more from the emotional neglect that Madonna faced, with her father locked up in grief after Mrs. Ciccone died. When he married again, his new wife was wrapped up with her own children, so the older kids were often left to their own devices. O'Brien believed that for this reason, Madonna's girlhood would have been without much joy, and that "Oh Father" was a potent example of the singer using her imagination to escape from her troubled childhood, while blaming it on her father. Tony later said, "Maybe I'm not the greatest father in the world, but life wasn't easy for us, and Nonni nickname knows all of this."