But the clear evidence is that he’s not it, and neither are you. She hasn’t forbidden her daughter to see the guy, and the father now has little or no influence over the daughter at this point. It happened exactly as people in this thread said it would - blanket proclamations to a 17 year old don’t work in the real world. They just push the child away from the parent.
You think you would like him because you know saying it will push peoples buttons and get a flurry of attention. Fact.
To everybody else, I think the OP did ok. Tellingthe daughter she shouldnt see the guy would basically be telling her that things like these are not her decisions to make. Dios frothing aside, a 17 year old is just entering the adult world, and perhaps this should be her decision to make. She has to learn sometime.
You tell a child, “Dont touch”. You have told your daughter, “Dont touch”. Should you really treat her as a child at seventeen?
Tell her what you think, but this should be her decision, not yours.
FFS, why is *anyone *still replying to Dio? He is not and will never be objective when it comes to *anything *involving girls (i.e., females under the age of majority, i.e., anyone who vaguely reminds him of his own daughters). Just stop engaging him and then we can go back to having an actual discussion.
Totally disagree. There is a huge difference between ordering someone to do something and asking them.
Doing things that you may not be thrilled about, just because someone you care about asks you to, is also a part of the grown-up world.
I think this was a great solution. As a result of calm discussion, the daughter agreed of her own free will to take the relationship down a notch for 6 months in order to give her family a chance to deal with a difficult issue. That’s an adult thing to do, and I think she deserves huge heapings of praise and thanks for it, to encourage similar behavior if nothing else. Learning how to do this without (too much) resentment will be of great help in any relationship.
Now whether she actually abides by it or not, I don’t know. She may indeed do some more sneaking around and just be more careful. That’s universally part of being a near-adult, AFAICT. But she’s already gotten a large helping of shit over that, so hopefully she’s learned that it’s not a good way to go.
I think I would include in that praise and thanks the idea that, if she decides she can’t abide by the agreement, the decent and adult thing to do is to come back and re-negotiate rather than sneak around and lie, and that I would be open to such a discussion if absolutely necessary. That’s also something you need to learn to do to function in adult relationships anyway.
When I was 16 I dated a 29 year old for a while. We never had sex and my mom never knew. He had had a messed up life in his early 20s (drugs, etc) and was trying to get his life straightened out. He was going to community college and so he was sort of in an artificial “younger situation” so to speak. On my side, most of my friends were adults and that had been the case for years. I never really got along with other kids, not even when I was much younger. My 11th birthday party had one child at it, and all the rest were adults (and the only relative was my mom).
My mom would have flipped out if she’d have known, so she never did. Overall I think the relationship was harmless, however.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it, so long as he treats her respectfully and doesn’t use his age as a way of being controlling or emotionally manipulative. The chances are against this relationship being “the one” (or any other relationship she has at this age) so IMO I’d just let it run its course. I’d try to get to know the man in question as well as possible and try to keep the lines of communication with your daughter as open and trusting as possible so that you aren’t in the dark about what is going on. Make sure your daughter feels that she can talk to you about how things are going. If she feels you disapprove strongly, she is more likely to hide things from you.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I don’t give a shit about the law.
[/quote]
Except when it creates an arbitrary dividing line using age that happens to be one you approve of:
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
No, she’s a minor until she’s 18. I can and will decide who my daughters will date until then, and no predators need apply.
[/quote]
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
The hell I can’t. You seem to be confusing age of consent with age of majority.
[/quote]
Otherwise, why would 18 be your magical “She’s on her own” age, instead of 17, 19, 20, or 25?
It’s not my age. If it was up to me the age would be 30.
Yeah, that’s not creepy at all. :dubious:
It’s called a “joke.”
Ok, this is not funny and it’s just skeevy as hell. Grow the hell up: your daughters will be doing the beast with 2 backs with men (or women!) that you may not even LIKE or know about. They are their own people for Chrissake. You do not control now what enters their vaginas and you won’t throughout their entire lives. Question: would you rather she be dead than molested/raped/sexually active? 'Cause it sure sounds like you value Chastity above all here. Nasty.
A much healthier response would be to want your daughters to have sex when THEY think they are ready for it, to use contraception and protection in a mature way, and to make decisions regarding their sexuality without regard to expectations imposed upon them by their parents or family. IOW, they drive the bus.
You have NO business playing gatekeeper to their sex lives. Not at 17. The law may say so in some areas, but the 17 year old will have her own thoughts on that–and act accordingly.
I don’t have a hangup about them having sex. I just will not let them be molested by perverts. Those two things are not synonomous.
Molested by perverts? You really are reaching here. Didn’t you already get warned for that?
No.
Yeah, what part of PTIP do people not understand.
If you say so.
Keep in mind in Dio’s world, there is a clear bright line between 17 years 364 days and 18 years, and it is immediately visible to all and sundry. In Dio’s world, teenagers are incapable of convincingly lying about their age. In Dio’s world, anyone who is under 18 is a child with no judgement or moral responsibility for their choices.
Not that I’m not sympathetic with that viewpoint, but he is never going to moderate it or change it one iota.
Of course, in the real world 17 year olds have sex, legally and consensually, and don’t have to lie about their age.
In Dio world, they are locked up until their 18th* birthday, at which point they are magically able to make mature decisions with no preparation or experience.
*Or 21st, or 30th, or whichever age he’s currently rectally extracting.
ETA replied before Zeriel’s edit.
When I was 16 (?!) I started seeing a guy who was 24 or thereabouts.
I was the classmate of his brother - but his brother was “old for the class” and I was “young for the class” - so when he asked me out, he thought I was closer to 18 (I don’t think he thought I was 18, but 16 floored him).
We went on one date, he figured out how young I was, and we hung out as friends - for another long time. Sometime when I was seventeen we started dating. We never had sex. We broke up sometime after my 18th birthday because he was ready to settle down into monogamy and marriage (he married his next girlfriend and fairly quickly), and I was seeing three guys (one of whom I was having sex with) and more interested in being a college girl.
It wasn’t scary, or skeevy. Years later I ran into him and he said (despite having married someone else) that I was “the girl” and the problem was timing and he wasn’t patient enough to watch me date other people for a few years until I was ready. Nice guy, still married, has a few kids.
In terms of the relationships I had between 16 and 24 - that one stands out as one of the few really decent relationships I had. I’m glad it didn’t work out because I love my own husband and my kids…but I don’t think I’d have been unhappy had I made the choice to marry my “first boyfriend.”
(My parents loved him - in terms of most of the guys they met over the years, this was a guy they could understand. His family lived down the street, they were good people, we shared a common background.)
One of my good friends met his wife when he was in his twenties and she was sixteen. They’ve been married almost twenty years and are one of the happiest and best matched couples I know. At the time, I would have said it was a recipe for disaster. I’m delighted I was so very wrong. BTW, he also waited to consummate until her 18th birthday.
After a certain age point I hope the issue is more about the guy himself than a particular age. At 16 I was dating a 20 year old. He was on scholarship at an engineering school. My parents were a bit concerned but they welcomed the guy on the grounds that he was very smart and treated me quite well. We broke up. Eight years later I married his best friend who is also the same age and was also on scholarship at an engineering school.
There’s a huge difference between a 25 year old high school drop out who lives at home with his parents and the same 25 year old who has graduated from college, moved out and works a full time job. As a parent I would not be happy if my daughter was dating either guy. I’d probably discourage her from dating either man. But I hope we call all agree that the high school drop out is far more of a problem than the guy with the full time job and completed education.
They’re exactly the same. A 25 year old who hits on 17 year olds is an immature slimeball by definition. If he was mature and ethical, he wouldn’t be trying to fuck high school girls. It doesn’t make him less of a creep if he has a college degree.