Please, oh please do not ask this in the thread - if you’re really interested, either open another thread or use PM or something - Trust me, the answer would derail the entire thing. Seriously.
By the way, I almost never make eye contact with anyone, which I know makes me seem “shifty eyed” to some. But I can not shake the feeling that by making eye contact, I’m implicitly threatening the person I’m talking to and inviting them to threaten me back.
The times I do make eye contact? When I’m angry and think I have the upper hand in an argument.
I don’t recall saying that. I don’t think you do either.
Sure you did. You made a point of mentioning that you had studied tae kwon do. If my mentioning my martial arts background means that I would attack anyone who dates my daughter, then so does yours.
Either that, or something as ludicrously stupid as what you said sounds different when it comes back at you.
Cripes, you people seem to be going out of your way to look as silly as you can manage.
Haven’t there been enough ridiculous misstatements made in this thread already?
Regards,
Shodan
**Underlining mine to indicate portion that **catsix is quoting in her post.
Um, because the thread is full of lots of highly protective fathers who are on the lookout for it? I will grant you that some fathers may be paranoid, seeing things that aren’t there, leading to false positives. But the fact that fathers were boys and young men working the angles on girls and young women back in the day means they should be able to recognize it.
Checks and balances—daddy should be checking with mommy to see if she’s noticing the same things or if he’s overreacting.
This really disappoints me. You quote one statement and leave out my clarification to make a straw man? :dubious:
News flash: there are some young girls who do NOT want to have sex. They don’t feel emotionally ready for it. They’re not yet comfortable with their bodies, maybe, or they’re skeeved by things boys might ask them to do or whatever. Even if daddy said, “Go ahead, it doesn’t bother me,” some STILL wouldn’t want to do it.
There are boys like that too.
Let me copy and paste that for you again:
Forget the “my girl is lily white” shit; if the father knows that his daughter is sensitive and in love with the boy and all that, he may correctly believe that she’s just headed for heartache. I can see why he’d want to protect her. How to proceed from there is difficult, but it’s a valuable observation and a place to start.
When I was in high school, I dated a girl who was very close to her father, wanted to please him, and I know he genuinely loved her. He did an excellent job of not interfering in our relationship. He spent time with her, and he knew she wasn’t the sort who didn’t just want sex. He would have loved her all the same if she had been the sort, but she wasn’t. And having dated her for three years, I can corroborate that she wasn’t.
Yeah, she was sensitive and he was a good parent who knew his kid—not for who he wanted her to be but for who she really was. If I had been a leering sort of guy, I wonder what he would have done. I’m really curious because I have a hunch it would have been excellent. Maybe the answer is in how they raised her** before **that point, i.e. maybe she wouldn’t have bothered with such guys in the first place.
And her parents probably reined each other in, privately—the checks and balances I spoke of—rather than resort to anything rash that would have driven her even closer to a “bad boy” if she had brought one home.
Returning to the question,
I wouldn’t know it because I don’t have a daughter. But I think good parents know such things. They spend time with their kids, let their kids be individuals, impart values to them, keep the lines of communication open, and so on.
And some good parents might just ask her. I dated one when I was 19 whose mother said to her, “Do we need to go to the clinic and get you some birth control?” Her mom had been pregnant back in the day when “good girls don’t,” so being a good Catholic, she married him and he beat on her for years till she finally overcame her desire for the church’s approval and divorced him. She was all about removing an unwanted pregnancy from the equation.
Again, you have stated that your intention was to convey the message that a large weightlifter with a black belt is keeping an eye out for her well being. What is the point of that other than to imply that you are willing to physically hurt someone who hurts your daughter?
Let me ask it this way: Short of the young man in question physically attacking your daughter in front of you, when would the weightlifting and judo come into play?
Jonathan
Dunno if your mom is naive, but I have heard that eye contact means different things in different contacts–much the same way that your mom was using it. And in Gran Turino, the Hmong girl explains to Clint Eastwood that everyone breaks eye contact with him at the party because eye contact is a sign of disrespect/aggression. The more you knoooooow! 
lobotomyboy–If I wanted “just sex” I don’t think I’d tell my parents…in fact, the times in my life when I have gone out and done dirty things with guys I barely knew, I made sure not to send a memo to my parents. Really, it would have been awful if they’d known.
ETA: My parents also think of me as a sensitive sort, and all that. And to some degree, I am. But sometimes I’ve just wanted things that are slightly nonkosher. But I don’t want to rock their world view by giving them the mental image of me blowing guys or getting felt up by people I’ve met twenty minutes ago. I mean, does any parent want that kind of mental image of their kids? It’s icky! I don’t want to think of my parents having sex either. They only did it twice–really.
He’s saying “Hey, if you need help defending my daughter from nefarious dastards, I got your back.”
-FrL-
So they’re mind readers? I don’t know how it is you think they’re going to spot it. Every teenager is horny. Even the ones who say they don’t want sex are full of hormones.
You want a father to check with the mother of his daughter to find out if the daughter is interested in sex, and this isn’t supposed to be creepy?
Which is in no way an argument for their fathers to start pulling out the handshake that is more firm than necessary and staring a teenage boy down like he’s a criminal.
It is, however, an argument for teenage girls knowing what they want and being capable of telling some boy whether they do or do not want to sleep with him.
I don’t really see a dilemma in ‘how to proceed from there’. You either tell her that you get a bad impression from this guy, and why, or you don’t. There is no need to act macho and threatening to the guy.
I have a hard time thinking of someone who has to be reined in as a ‘good parent’.
Assuming the girl was also your age, I can’t even imagine talking to my mother about that when I was sixteen let alone when I was ninteen. That’s the kind of thing that’s just not my mother’s business. Or my father’s.
Hey, I have a pretty great mom even though she’s kind of a clean freak and likes to always have those vacuum lines in her carpet, but really, she never knew anything about my sex life and still doesn’t.
I can’t imagine how any parents could be sitting around talking about what they think their teenage son or daughter’s sexual desires are and not have it be very inappropriate and creepy.
** catsix**, I have been on your side for most of this, but I have to take exception wiht this. Talking about your child’s sexuality is not necessarily creepy, but it will usually be awkward. Just like talking about their use of drugs or alcohol. From my person experience, I don’t trust schools to teach my sons everything I feel they need to know. I intend to talk to them at length about sexual hygiene, and responsibility. If I have a daughter at some point, I would do the same, although my wife may take point on that discussion. I do expect it to be mostly a one way flow of information. I don’t want to know about their masturbation habits, or need to know who they are attracted to. But I feel it is my duty to provide them the information they need to be responsible in this area as much personal finance. It is a real part of life and not some super secret area that must remain a mystery until you figure it out on your own.
Jonathan
As a parent of a 19 year old daughter, I can say that we have talked birth control. She is not actively dating, nor is she looking. Frankly, not all teens are just lusting to get some. But she knows my views: I don’t mind if you’re sexually active, it’s not my call. I do mind if you’re sexually stupid. I did leave her with a few condoms when we moved her into her dorm (I had been the one to drop off stuff at student health and there they were in a bowl, so I picked up a few). She does know about the various methods of BC. She told me that she planned to go on the Pill, if she started to date.
My boys are a slightly different story. I have also had the “don’t have stupid sex” talk with #1 son. I have also told him to be leery of any and all girls who claim to have BC covered and that he has nothing to worry about. Yeah, as if. We have condoms here at home and he knows where they are.
Our local public HS, so focused on education preaches abstinence. There is almost no info given out re BC, which is a crime in and of itself (but a different thread).
What else can a parent do? It’s out of my hands. This is all a part of them turning into independent people.
Well, there’s a difference between your kid telling you they want to go on the pill or knowing your kid is having sex and giving them condoms…and then knowing your kid is “only after one thing.” I didn’t mind my parents knowing when I went on the pill but I wasn’t going to tell them I was horny enough to hump anything that moved, etc. I think knowing the basics is fine, but I don’t think any girl is going to tell her parents that she wants to take on the whole football team, etc. Unless she’s Annabel Chong maybe.
I thought I already covered this…
They seem kinda transparent to me. But I don’t see them putting on their best behavior when they’re around me and my kids, since I don’t have any. YMMV.
Unwanted pregnancies or STDs…? I’m intrigued by all the herpes medication ads on TV. Sleep around and end up with that, ugh, you’ve got it for the rest of your life.
This has already been asked and answered. What some may have vented or jested about is no longer valid fodder, IMO. I stopped wondering “Why isn’t this funny?” some time ago, but maybe you missed it.
So good people never lose their composure, never overreact?
Both girls were my peers. I’d like to think that if I had a daughter she would feel comfortable asking me for birth control. I’d rather that than have her proceed without.
What you talk about with your mother depends on what the parent-child relationship is. My mom told me, when I was 22, that she regretted that neither she nor my father had explained the birds and bees to me. (Me, being a smartass, asked her what they’d like to know).
For me, it’s still partly a question of protecting the child. However, please do not construe that as “I must protect my princess!”
If my daughter (or son) were sexually active, I’d like to know they’re using BC and can make informed choices. E.g. they should know that being on the pill is great for preventing pregnancy, but not STDs. And ah, what if she forgets to take it one day…is she still protected? Hell, I don’t know that myself.
And God, please, I don’t want all the details: I just want the bases covered.
I love my (imaginary) children and want them to be happy. Maybe they have a sex drive that needs satisfying blah blah blah, but that doesn’t mean anything goes. Maybe they think they have to do it because “everybody else is doing it,” which wouldn’t be the right reason. Or that their “SO” is pressuring them…not right. Hey someone out there is doing the pressuring—maybe it’s my kid and (s)he needs to be told to back off. Maybe they need to know that sex isn’t proof of love. Maybe they need to be told not to discuss their love life with their 8 year-old brother.
Another part of the issue for me is that they may be writing checks for my body to cash. If my 16 year-old daughter gets pregnant, she isn’t economically equipped to raise it. The imaginary missus and I will be doing a lot of that job.
But I’m mostly concerned about them growing up too fast. I posted somewhere in these boards that when I was 16, sex sounded great but I knew I wasn’t ready. I acknowledge that bias.
It could be that my kids are more ready for it than I was, but it seems more likely that if I had five kids, two might be more ready, two might be like me, and one…not at all interested in sex. They’re individuals; why would I expect them all to be exactly like me? OTOH they’re my kids; why would I expect them to be nothing like me?
Once they’re legally adults I have no say in it, of course.
(wrong thread)
I needed a hard laugh and you came sailing in. God bless ya. Okay. I mentioned Tae Kwon Do- to THIS group, reading THIS thread- by way of informing the group reading THIS thread- that I had a point of reference when addressing your use of black belt in attempting to frighten men dating your daughter. Had I not, it’d have been completely reasonable for you to ask me how I could make any statements about martial arts since I don’t know anything about them. I do. Hence my statement. Which is a mighty far cry from intimidating teenagers with my weight lifting and black belt status. ( In the interests of honesty, I must admit I broke my back before I made my 1st Don Black Belt. But I was just a few months from testing. Still feel it was a fair thing to say but no- I’m not a Black Belt.)
I’m a Quaker and a devout pacifist. I never sparred. I was permitted to test up without fighting. So, your statement about my threats is kind of… wrong.
Cartooniverse
Try again, this time with the rest of post 201, where you have (apparently) twice missed the part where I made explicitly clear who my comments were directed at:
(emphasis added)
You do seem to imply that those who are disagreeing with you have one of those things wrong. Now, since I can’t deny not having children, the only part that I think applies to me is the “can’t get along with their fathers”. Which is not true, and it bothers me, rightly, that you lump me in that just because I disagree with you.
I get quite well with my father, who did not act at all like the parents being mentioned in this thread (and your posture). In fact, he told me why he didn’t act like that, and why he doesn’t agree at all with your posture. I have no kids, but my dad is (duh) a man, father of two daughters. And although I haven’t introduced him to any guys (because there are not any worthy to be introduced, IMHO), my sister has, in many occasions, including while she was in high school.
You do seem to imply that those who are disagreeing with you have one of those things wrong. Now, since I can’t deny not having children, the only part that I think applies to me is the “can’t get along with their fathers”. Which is not true, and it bothers me, rightly, that you lump me in that just because I disagree with you.
I get quite well with my father, who did not act at all like the parents being mentioned in this thread (and your posture). In fact, he told me why he didn’t act like that, and why he doesn’t agree at all with your posture. I have no kids, but my dad is (duh) a man, father of two daughters. And although I haven’t introduced him to any guys (because there are not any worthy to be introduced, IMHO), my sister has, in many occasions, including while she was in high school.
As I stated upthread in post 245, I never tried to act as the big protector. Nor did I ever try to intimidate my daughters friends. Maybe this is why they all liked hanging out at our house.
It probably is why they like being at your house. I’m sure they’ve figured out that if they are at your house, you will not treat them like pieces of crap.