The best I could say about your wife’s reaction was that it was a bit quaint.
There are some less nice things I could say about it though. Let’s not dance around the issue - your wife somewhere in her otherwise rational mind believes that if others know your daughter goes out of town with gasp boys, she will be labeled a slut. Yup, just say it. Slut. That’s what “bad reuptation” means. A woman who lacks sexual morals and/or ethics.
And from what you have described, that is quite the furthest thing from the truth a person (parent or not) can imagine in this case. Ergo, any kind of person who would think your daughter was a nasty little slut, is not the kind of person whose approval should organize your life. Such a person obviously does not know your daughter or anything about her upbringing, and may safely be ignored.
Is there something in your wife’s past that is raising uncomfortable echoes for her?
If she’d been away in a similar situation and come back to find disapproving tongues wagging, or if she’d felt pressured into something while she was away, she may be worried that your daughter will experience the same.
Might be misguided on her part, but early sexual memories can have a powerful hold - especially if it wasn’t all roses ‘n’ rainbows.
You know, this seems reasonable to me. It’s okay for her to be bothered by it.
It’d really only be a problem if she was flipping out over this and trying to forbid it.
If I were you, I’d try to emphasize that neither of you can forbid this and it’s your daughter’s decision to make, but that you can understand why she feels uncomfortable about it. No need to try to argue with her that she should be okay with it. Not everyone has entirely rational feelings about stuff like this. A lot of people have different moral standards for their own kids than they had themselves or get more conservative with age. She might feel better just knowing you understand her concerns about it even though there’s nothign to actually be done about it.
(Although I do feel that, if you are worried about her reputation, you’re quite fortunate that she found a nice steady boyfriend rather than sleeping around with all kinds of sleazy losers).
To be fair, IMO if her parents are still supporting her, they do technically have veto power. She may legally be an adult, but in real life, whoever is supplying the money is the boss. That’s a valuable life lesson in itself.
So the real question is “Do you really want to be *that * Dad?”, which Dinsdale clearly doesn’t.
I think after a certain point, you can either respect your children enough to “let” them make their own choices, or you can decide that everyone will be more comfortable if you’re allowed to remain in your bubble where you can believe that your college-aged and older children are still dropping to their knees in prayer before they go to bed with freshly scrubbed faces and teeth, sober and alone at 10:00p. It’s not the option I’d choose, but it seems to work for lots of people, and I’m not mad at them for it.
My guess is that your wife doesn’t give a flying crap about what people will say or how this will effect your daughter’s reputation. She probably wants to hold on to “her baby” for as long as possible and the reputation thing is the straw she is grasping at to justify her reaction to herself and your daughter. It is the same reason my dad freaked out when he found out I was on birth control pills when I was 19. It wasn’t that he had any particular problem with 19 year olds in general having sex or people making responsible, adult decisions about their bodies and their lifestyles, it was that he had a problem with things that made him see me as an adult.
I wonder if your wife might be considering what would happen to the relationship with the BF’s family should she get pregnant. Although the burden would be mostly on your daughter, let’s face it…both their careers would be hampered, the BF would be expected to do the “right thing”, etc…accusations of entrapment, lives forever rerouted…I can see how your wife might be freaked on more than one front.
She needs to have faith in the daughter-unit’s ability to draw on her 20 years of being raised by you guys. I think reinforcing the great job she did will help your conversation a lot.
Yeah, I basically figure something else is behind her response. Tonight I’ll bring this up and try to figure out what it is.
My daughters have both been on birth control (acne) for some time, and some while back my wife told our doctor in our daughters’ presence that we support the prescription of any birth control they might request. And they are both getting their gardasil (sp?) shots.
With respect to double standards, just the other day I told my son that one of my main regrets about college was that I didn’t get laid more!
Tho this isn’t a bridge we need to cross as yet, I’m pretty confident my wife would agree with me in recommending an abortion. I believe BF’s family is religious (christian), if not bible thumpers. And politically they seem much more conservative than us.
One of my mother’s friends made the comment that while yes, intellectually she knew her daughter could be spending all her nights out partying (with boys) while at college, in practice she didn’t know the details and so didn’t worry. When daughter came home for the summer, she knew when her daughter wasn’t home at the parents’ bedtime and she worried.
Soon as I graduated high school, I started informing my parents of what I would be doing, not asking them for permission. It was never anything crazy - but I would say “I am staying over at bf’s house tomorrow” so they knew where I was rather than “Is it okay if I stay over at bf’s house tomorrow?” At 20, her informing you of her plans is all she should need to do, especially when it’s just spending one night with her boyfriend who you know. Mom needs to chill and not worry so much.
Hmm. That could be relevant. Does your wife, from her knowledge of BFs family, potentially think that they have strong views against pre-marital sex, and therefore might view the situation negatively?
Honestly, the only thing I can imagine your daughter getting a reputation for is being a normal young woman. As lavenderviolet points out, she’s not sleeping around with a bunch of skeezy meatheads; she’s going on an overnight trip with a long-term boyfriend.
I think that lavenderviolet also has a good point about people’s standards changing as they age. What was your wife like in college? Was she a virgin at twenty? How old was she when you two met? Heck, I met my future husband when I was twenty. Maybe reflecting on herself at her daughter’s age will give her some perspective.
Can you simply point out to your wife that your daughter is an adult and entitled to some non-judgmental privacy about her personal life? And that unless your wife perceives her as doing something that is worth staging an intervention for, the best bet with adult children is to give them advice but let them make their own mistakes.
If she has concerns about your daughter’s reputation and would like to give advice, perhaps she should be taking them up with your daughter. Not sure what those concerns would be when a 20 year old women wants to travel with her adult boyfriend - not letting Grandma know? Registering at the hotel as Mr. and Mrs.? Making sure that this boyfriend respects her enough to stick around once she puts out and she doesn’t end up being a serial dater?
It is kind of interesting, all the folk who have stopped in to poke fun at my wife’s reaction. Heck, I pretty much agree, as I don’t really know where she is coming from. Guess I need to ask her. :rolleyes:
But I tend to pretty much avoid such discussions whenever possible. Won’t everything just blow over if we just ignore it long enough?
Anyone else who wants to check in with their opinions as to my wife’s unreasonableness or my daughter’s virginity, feel free. But I’m not really interested. Instead, my concern is in how to best respond to my wife’s actions and statements.
