The presence of a father in the home has a huge factor on teenage pregnancy.
"Yet even when these factors were taken into account, the study found that a father’s absence in itself seemed to put daughters at risk for having children early.
Girls whose fathers left either before they were born or up to age 5 were seven to eight times more at risk of becoming pregnant as an adolescent than girls living with their fathers. A father’s departure between ages 6 to13 suggested a two to three times greater risk of becoming pregnant."
Yes, it is part of it. but it is not all of it. Not even the greater part of it. Let me ask you a question: if the only contact a father has with his daughters, is informing them of the rules, and beating them when they disobey, would you say that is within the definition of the type of “involved” that is positive for the children?
That is why I say that rules and involvement are not directly related
No, different decisions don’t make someone a control freak. But I am of the opinion that Crafter_Man’s particular decision *do *make him a control freak. Not all decisions are created equal. I was objecting to your statement that a father who doesn’t control every little thing his daughter do is automatically not an ‘involved’ father, that he just doesn’t care.
How is providing condoms making a rule? My mom also bought Cheerios, but it wasn’t a ‘rule’ that I had to eat them for breakfast. The condoms were a suggestion and an attempt to avoid the common problem of teens who are to embarrassed to go buy their own birth control. There was no law laid down and no punishment associated with not using the condoms, so it’s not at all like Crafter_Man’s rules.
There’s nothing wrong with a father sitting his daughter down and talking to her about sex, talking about the possible ramifications, and suggesting that she may want to wait. Personally, I think that there is something wrong with laying down such strict rules for your daughters that they can’t even be in the same room as a boy without Daddy there until they are 18. What happens at 18 that will magically allow them to know how to relate to members of the opposite sex?
Teens who have a good relationship with their parents may well be less likely to get pregnant. But a good relationship doesn’t have to come from a strict ‘my roof, my rules’ type of father. I suppose it’s possible for those kinds of fathers to have a good relationship with their daughters, but in my experience as a teenage girl, that wasn’t the case. Those girls just learned how to be sneaky and learned that they couldn’t go to dad with a major problem because he would blow his top. And they saw sex as a ‘forbidden fruit’ type thing that was *way *more tantalizing because it was so taboo.
That is awesome of you. I must confess that I am more interested in preventing harm to my child than in preventing my child from doing harm to another person. I do not think this is a good thing (and obviously I do not want my child to do harm to another person); however, it is true (and I suspect is true of many parents).
Heh. Speaking as the mom of a 2-year-old, I would love to come to that day. I’m not there yet. Pregnancy and breastfeeding still loom very large in my mind, even though I’m done with both of them.
Well, that pretty much defines the breastfeeding period, right? For the first year of the Little One’s life, my husband could take off for a couple of days, but I could only take off for a couple of hours (unless I’d pumped, but that was a whole other mess).
And at that point the kid has probably bonded to the mom because the mom always has to be there, so when breastfeeding is over and dad tries to take the kid for three days without mom there, the kid is going to have a meltdown. (Not that we would have experienced this or anything. And we DO live together!) And that will exacerbate the problem. It’s really hard to make it equal even when you want it to be, and then when you add in the fact that most people have cultural attitudes that don’t play into that, it’s really hard.
I agree that I’d want to prevent either situation, but in a Skald-the-Rhymer type hypothetical where I had to choose between my daughter becoming a mother and my son becoming a father, I’d go for the son. I think most people would.
Pregnancy and breastfeeding can be a year, easily. For a teenager, a year is a long time.
Shared care like that can be very disruptive to the child - they end up living out of a suitcase, it’s harder for the parents to remember when to send in the PE kit, the baby/toddler doesn’t have a regular bedtime routine, potty training gets disrupted moving from one house to another, etc etc. It’s not just not practical, but not good for the kid.
And it requires the parents to live very close to each other, both of them in homes where they can look after a child, including a room for the child when it gets older. Teen parents probably do live pretty close, so that’s an advantage, but they’re less likely to have reliable personal transportation and extra bedrooms. Shared care requires excellent organisational skills resources which most teens don’t have.
There are reasons more people don’t do it, and it’s not just down to deadbeat Dads (or Mums).
And if one of them wants to go to college or move somewhere to find work rather than living on welfare, then they might well end up living far apart. That happens to adult parents, let alone teenagers.
I agree it shouldn’t only be directed at daughters; but I think there are practical reasons why people are more worried about their daughters.
If you aren’t biased in favor of your kid then then you aint much of a father. When I started dating I met the girls folks. I showed them I was a decent guy and aleviated some of their fears, it’s just the right thing to do. It’s bad enough the daughter is with an inexperienced driver so you want to show them you can obey the rules of civilized behavior at least. If they are dating then damn right it is the right time. What? You want they should introduce themselves after they break up?
And you claim I make assumptions. I didn’t force my opinion on my daughter. I taught her to evaluate and make her own decisions freely and I set an example by being a good man. From that she was able to choose someone with good values. Honestly, some of you folks have the strangest ideas. Just because a father doesn’t want his daughter to hook up with a spineless skulker you assume control freak instead of loving father. Quite frankly that says way more about you than it does me.
Which is a complete non sequitur to what I said. I think you have some very specific unjustified prejudices about what delaying meeting people’s families say about the characters of young people. To answer that with some weird aphorism about being biased in favor of your kid is just bizarre.
The issue isn’t what you want. The issue is how you go about handling it. Parading around demanding that other people meet your schedule about introductions and then drawing conclusions about whether this tiny bit of evidence amounts to someone not being good enough for your daughter is almost a classic caricature of a domineering father.
And, hey, yeah, you were the perfect young man, I guess. But different people are different.
Everything we do and say says something about our characters. You can’t get away from that. Particularly what we do. It is bizarre to think otherwise. When someone hasn’t the courage to meet the parents it doesn’t speak well for them in any way. Pull up and honk? What is your impression of someone who does that? We are talking dating in this thread not meeting in the halls. Non sequitur my ass. I’m the one being cogent
And the assumptions just don’t stop do they? I handled it well. My daughter handled it well for an inexperienced teen. My son in law is top notch. The proof is in the pudding. When they are on the phone that is the time for privacy but when it’s a date that’s the time for introductions. You obviously haven’t had a daughter if you think anyone is good enough for her but my son in law is the cream on the cream of all those not good enough. I like him immensely, hell, I love him. He showed the good sense to recognize how wonderful my daughter is and the courage to meet the man who had a hand in her upbringing. That’s character.
Gah. Perfect? Hardly. I wanted in my dates pants like any guy. You think I don’t know the guys who came to date my beautiful daughter wanted that? But they showed me they could respect her wishes by first respecting mine. People are different. I sure didn’t want my daughter to date someone so different they were incapable of treating her well. You want to trust your teens judgement but you remember how green you were at judging people at that age too. A conversation with the folks goes a long way in proving character, not all the way, but enough.
Jeez as a dad it is meant as a joke, lighten up FFS. All the people who say “I’m not a dad but” well you are not a dad so you have no clue what it is like. Our daughters will always be our little girls for ever, even though I have one that is at uni, independent, has a great boyfriend and is a strong powerful woman, in my eyes she will always be daddy’s little girl.
Girls and their dads have a special bond that as long as it is healthy is a pretty magical thing.
No, that’s within the definition of “fallacy of the excluded middle”. Crafter_Man mentioned setting rules (with which you apparently disagree), and you jumped straight to “has no other contact besides setting rules, and beatings”.
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How is providing condoms making a rule? My mom also bought Cheerios, but it wasn’t a ‘rule’ that I had to eat them for breakfast.
[/QUOTE]
Okay, my apologies. I thought when you said
No, someone said that parents who set the most restrictive rules have the daughters who take the most sexuals risks. You answer was non-responsive, and stated that fathers that are “involved” have daughters who delay sexual activity.
I asked what “involved” had to do with highly restrictive rules about social behavior. Again non-responsive, you said that parenting requires rules, a statement impossible to dispute that yet has nothing to do with my question.
You continue to think I am making an attack on Crafter_Man, which I am not. I have always, and continue, to note that setting highly restrictive rules does not make you an “involved” father on its own, nor does the absence of highly restrictive rules mean a father is not involved. In other words, they are not directly correlated. My original statement.
It’s obviously a joke, but there must be a reason that you only hear dads say it about their daughter’s dates. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a dad say that he can’t wait to meet his son’s date while he just happens to be cleaning his gun. Do they think that girls are fragile creatures that must be protected, but that boys don’t need to be protected? Or that girls are all innocence and only want to hold hands on dates, while boys are animals who want more?
I understand being protective of your children, and I think that some protectiveness is a good thing. But I understand the OP’s annoyance over treating girls like they need to be protected, but treating boys as real people who can handle themselves without pseudo threats of gun violence.
Exactly. Also, I understand that some girls like the “protective daddy” treatment, and it makes them feel good and loved. If this is so, then I’m not saying that Dad shouldn’t do it. And in no case am I saying that Dad shouldn’t be protective of his children (sons and daughters). But there are some daughters who don’t want this treatment, find it intrusive and insulting, and would prefer to be treated as mature people (at least as mature as the boys are allowed to be treated) who can handle themselves on a date without having their date/boyfriend being given instructions like he’s her babysitter and responsible for her. In this case, I think Dad should lay off the “protective daddy” act in front of the boy, and give the girl instructions (preferably before the boy arrives) about when to be home, where she can and can’t go, etc.
Are the instructions always going to be followed? Sometimes not. But what makes you think they’ll be more likely to be followed if they’re given to the boy?
Boys are untrustworthy sex fiends, so need to be threatened. Girls need protection from them. So the instructions are given to the untrustworthy sex fiends because…
No, it is the fallacy of the excluded middle, I am afraid, probably because you committed that fallacy earlier.
You said
To which I responded -
Then you responded with some silly thing about a father whose only contact was communicating rules, and beatings.
Because you are automatically associating highly restrictive rules, with making rules at all. Which is, as I said, the fallacy of the excluded middle.
Making rules and setting expectations is part, as I said, of being an involved parent. It is perfectly possible to set rules without those rules being highly restrictive. Setting rules is not the be-all and end-all of involvement - no one, not Crafter_Man and certainly not I - ever said anything of the kind. That’s something you threw out there, along with the mention of beatings.
If you would like to amend what you said, and say that making reasonable rules and setting expectations is part of being an involved parent, fine, but I said that upthread already. So we never disagreed.
I meant the rules about having boy/girlfriends over to the house and having them in our bedrooms. That doesn’t seem unclear to me, but I apologize if it somehow was.
Hey I treat my sons as men and my daughters as women. The sexes are different but the chances they have are the same. My daughters are all strong confident women [like my wife].
Please I thought we had matured from the 70s feminist mantra “we are the same” to a more post modern version “We are the same but different” view.
Sometimes as parents we do what is right and not what is popular.
