I think it’s extremely common, but inappropriate. I don’t like it when people treat beauty as a positive personality trait; adults often can hear such comments without internalizing them (though many can’t), but I don’t think kids really can. Not to mention that projection of adult sexuality onto children really skeeves me out.
Why?
My favorite niece, in addition to being cute as a button, is smart. Really, really, smart. During summer breaks while she was in elementary school, she used to come to me and ask me to make up algebra and geometry problems for her to do when she was bored, and she’s gotten better at math since then. We compliment her for that as well, though her great big brain is as much a matter of genetics as her beauty is.
Beauty is not necessarily equal to sexuality. Leaving aside the RhymerKids for the moment, I’ve always thought Meryl Streep was beautiful, but I don’t think she’s hot. The same is true of Alyssa Milano and Anne Hathaway.
It could be worse. Remember Sixteen Candles.
When I was a little girl my grandfather used to say I was going to grow up to be so pretty he’d have to beat the boys off the porch with a baseball bat.
Man he was *so *wrong.
Still, I don’t think that’s creepy, much less what the man in the OP said. Being beautiful is okay, really. It doesn’t make you a sexual object.
Which is funny, cuz as kids they looked like troll dolls. And not in a good way.
Looked? They still do! I never got why guys were so excited for them to turn eighteen. They’re hideous. It’s like getting hard watching the raccoons raid the garbage.
Not only is it not odd but I know fathers who recognize they will need to buy a baseball bat because their 10 year old daughters are cuties that will cause them problems down the road.
No, not unusual, let alone unsettling, unless there is a great deal more going on. I find it rather unsettling that you are mining it for meaning lo these many years later to be honest.
It doesn’t strike me as odd at all. I’m 52 and I think it all the time and there’s nothing smarmy about what I’m thinking. After you’ve seen a few hundred cute kids that grow up into beautiful young women, you see those traits in the young girls. It’s just a matter of experience, not carnal desire. I see the same thing in boys.
Like that. That’s totally messed up. If you don’t think your daughter can take care of herself, then the solution is not to build a fence around her, but to *teach *her to take care of herself. Let her grow up into a capable adult.
But would you actually say that to someone who makes an innocent remark like this? Because I’m another who has been guilty of pretty much an identical response to seeing cute children. I sincerely hope I haven’t offended or skeeved anyone out. :eek:
So as to the OP, no I don’t think it’s odd or out of line. Just a nice thing to say.
Or more likely, folks take the words on this page way to friggin seriously. 
Kids can grow to be attractive, Dads can be protective without misogyny, folks can express attraction on the borderline of inappropriate…it happens.
My light rail route stops off at the local Metro College…some kids there are right at the ragged age of 18. Admitting they’re ATTRACTIVE is just admitting that you’re not dead.
Looking at a 7 year old girl and seeing that she’ll BE attractive can be done without sportin’ wood.
Joking about leaving a gun by the door for when the date shows up doesn’t mean the Dad’s keeping his daughter chained to a pipe in the basement.
Folks in these threads can be far too literal.
Of course not. It just means he feels protective toward his daughter in a way that he wouldn’t if she were a boy, because as a girl, she’s not as capable of taking care of herself as a boy is.
Literally.
No need to project your issues onto every father out there. Unintentionally blank summed it up nicely.
They lived next door for two years. I don’t think not having a chance to talk is even true or particularly relevant. If they were boys, he certainly would have had a chance to ask what sports they followed. But since they were girls, all he really needed to know was how they looked. It’s depressing how much the way women are valued is based on their looks rather than their intellect or achievements. And attitude and demeanor sound like that other thing women are allowed to be: “nice.” Not that having some emotional intelligence is bad for anyone, but underneath the pretty and nice, women are complete human beings, just like men.
Yes, people make comments about how boys will grow up to be handsome, but not with the implication that it will be a determining factor of their identity. Just like talking about how well a girl does in school. It’s generally understood that it won’t interfere with her finding a good husband and raising some kids.
I *hope * some of my comments are coming across as horribly dated. But those are the underlying messages that make me not like remarks like the one in the OP.
Huh? There’s nothing odd about it at all. I would never say anything within earshot of the kids though.
There’s this 7 year old boy I know. Someone above used the words “glaringly obvious.” Well, it’s glaringly obvious that this kid is going to be whatever one calls a male knockout. His coloring is absolutely gorgeous. How could you not notice that?
Well, I hadn’t seen a younger cousin of mine for a year or so then saw him again when he was maybe 18. I exclaimed “Oh my god, you’ve turned into a hottie!!” 
Gee, you’re reminding me of that old joke:
Q: How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: THAT’S NOT FUNNY!
IOW, I think you (and the OP) are reading a bit of your own agenda into what really is an innocuous remark.
Actually, I thought *I *summed it up nicely.
To be clear, I’m not talking about every father out there. I’m just saying that the ones who make jokes about needing to fend off their daughters’ dates with a baseball bat, and don’t make the same kind of jokes about their sons’ dates, are implying that they feel their daughters need more protection. If they did make the jokes about all kids, boys *and *girls, then it would just be a joke about being an overprotective parent.
I’m not saying it’s malicious or misogynist, or that these dads think girls are less awesome than boys. On the contrary, they’d probably say their daughters kick ass, and they love them more than anything in the world, and that’s *why *they make the jokes about the baseball bats: it’s their way of saying they’d do anything to protect them. That’s sweet and wonderful. But surely they also love their sons, right? And would do anything to protect them, too? Then why no jokes about *their *dates? The only conclusion I can come to is that they feel their sons don’t really need to be protected in the same way.
But again, I really don’t want to hijack. This really seems like a totally separate thing from the OP comment (which is totally innocuous and appropriate). If you’d like to tell me I’m wrong, or that I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, or that I’ll certainly never need a bat to fend off anyone, start a thread or ask me to start one, and we’ll have a go at it.
I don’t find the OP’s father’s comment odd at all. Every once in a while I see a boy who I know is going to become a stud someday. That doesn’t make me a pedophile.
Because the number of girls that can benchpress 200 lbs are few and far between. Because Dads don’t like the thought of their girls becoming sexual things. Because the libido of teenage boys is legend and outstrips the development of their brains by several years. Because fear is a powerful motivator.
You understand that these are all blanket statements and as such aren’t worth much.
They have to protect the girls FROM the boys. THATS why it’s stated that way.
It does not, in any way, acknowledge that girls have raging hormones, too. OR that they might initiate something that would scar their Daddy’s impression of them, or a host of other loaded things.
Doesn’t make it right, doesn’t make it wrong. It just is.
And frankly, with single parents, joint custody, Bobby’s got two mothers, I wonder if it’s really a standard thing anymore.
I reserve the right to sit down with my Boys and say: “You sully her reputation and it’s not HER FATHER you need to worry about.”
Would that help even things out?