I'm about to become a single dad to a teenage girl

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Here’s where I stand …

The divorce doesn’t really scare me.

Moving out doesn’t really scare me.

MaryBeth (my daughter) has just turned 13 and we gave her the choice. She’s decided that she’d rather come live with me.

This scares me.

She’s just turned 13. This is the time when everything girly starts to happen. I mean, what do I know about buying training bras and feminine personal hygiene equipment. Equpiment. Do they even call it equipment? Are there machine that you have to hook up?

Should I have a shotgun handy for when the boys start coming around?

Any advice on the solo care and maintainence of a teenage girl would be greatly appreciated.

2

Euty –

Oh boy. Are you in for it, or what? :slight_smile:

Is there a female friend of yours that your daughter knows and likes? Or maybe the mother of one of her female friends? Regardless of how embarrassed you may be about feminine hygiene products and undergarments, trust me, she’s even more unwilling to have you know anything about them. (Might not be a bad idea to have a box of pad – just regular size pads with wings, nothing fancy – in the bathroom where she’ll see them, so she doesn’t actually have to say anything when the crisis starts.)

Does your daughter strike you as fairly level-headed? If so, try to give her as much freedom as possible, until she actually screws up. Then you have a clear reason to become patriarchal that she can’t deny. Trust me, if you become overbearing/overprotectice for no apparent reason (which to a teenager is pretty much any reason at all short of ‘I totalled the car/ended up in the hospital’), you’ll just get resented and your daughter will start finding creative ways to get around you. (My bedroom window was a godsend for late-night exits and returns in high school and college. You don’t need to give her ideas.)

As for boys . . . Many kids these days are big on the ‘just-friends’ thing with members of the opposite sex, which is something I could never get through my mother’s head. Watch situations carefully, to be sure, but keep the knee-jerk reactions to a minimum. Suggest male friends come over to your house, rather than her going there, and make the rule that they may not be in a room with a closed door. That should keep things clean.

Good luck!

3

A Father’s Rules For Dating
(link removed - see below)

4

Oh, the hell with it. Don’t scare him.

Remember, buddy. When you buy the training bra the little bow goes in the front.

5

Equipment? Machines? ummmmmm, I’m thinking you need more than advice. :eek:

Anyway, I’m not a solo parent, but my Perfect Child[sup]TM[/sup] is this >-< close to turning 17, so I do have experience with a teenage girl. I’ve found that being open, honest, and available seems to work well. I answer all her questions the best I can, or I look up what I can’t answer. I have always looked for “teaching moments” - opportunities to broach subjects that are important but not easily worked into conversation. Plus I count the days till she can live on her own.

We’ve been thru several boyfriends, but she’s got definite plans for her future so she dumped the last boy when he didn’t fit in those plans. It helps that she has a goal beyond next week, and she looks at where boys fit into that goal. It also helped that her dad told her how teenage boys think.

Ah. parenthood…

6

reads the Rules beagledave, that’s hilarious. Euty, that is precisely what I meant by overprotective. :smiley: A fine example of what not to do (unless the guy in question has proved himself to be a jerk, in which case fire away).

7

I was once a 13 year old girl. Here is my advise:
1.) Buy her a box of tampons and a box of pads. Even if she hasn’t gotten her period yet. Don’t make her ask for them. Most humiliating experiance of my life.
2.) Don’t cross the dating bridge until you come to it. For some of us late bloomers, it really wasn’t an issue at 13.
3.) Get to know her friends. I don’t mean following her in the car when she goes to hang out with them, but make it clear that they are welcome over. This way, you know who she is with and where she is with a reasonable idea of what she is doing.
4.) If you don’t have one, get a cell phone for yourself. You can tell her it’s so that she can reach you wherever you are, but really it’s so OTHER people can reach you when she’s either on the phone or AIM. Which, if she is anything like my 17 year old sister, is ALL THE FREAKING TIME. (“Sorry, Mom and Dad, that you haven’t heard from me in a while, but the phone has been busy for three days. Straight.”)
5.) Daerlyn’s right-on about the rules. I was a total drama geek, and yet my father always imposed all these rules, and treated me with suspicion all the time. At one point, during a fight, I screamed “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I’m not snorting coke, I’m not dropping E, I’m not screwing the football team, I’m not cutting myself. A messy room is your worst problem with me? You don’t know how GOOD you have it!” He layed off after that.
6.) On a related note, pick your battles. Not everything has to be a life lesson. In my case, a messy room was just because I am a slob. Still am. I’ve gotten better, but I’m definately not neat. The point is, my parents spent SOOO much time, energy and groundings on the state of my messy room, convinced that it was a behavioral issue. It was just me being me. And my room was consistantly messy. The only result was that I began not to care about being grounded.
7.) Remember to laugh with her a lot.

Good luck, man.

8

I was once a thirteen year old girl, raised by a mostly single dad.

  1. Be open to answer any question, no matter how much it makes you wanna squirm, as honstly as you can. I have clear memories of my dad explaining to my sister what a blow-job was, it was very embarrasing, but he wanted to make sure she got the correct information, rather then some nonsense.

  2. I second the suggestion about have a female friend for your daughter to talk to about “stuff” , but if that’s not possible, be honest and research what you don’t know. When I told my dad I needed money to buy pads, he said he’d pick them up for me and I ended up with notepads instead of maxi-pads.

  3. My dad was an intimdating guy, he always insisted on meeting my boyfriends before they took me out. He could usually judge them correctly right away, and made sure he scared the crap out of them if he didn’t like them. I had one bf that was very disrespectful to dad, dad said " If you do that again I’ll beat the crap out of you" bf said “if you lay a finger on me, I’ll sue you” dad said" If I have to lay a finger on you, you won’t be around to sue me" Bf was much better after that.

9

beagledave, I removed your link and instead will include one that shows the author and copyright.
the 8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter (©1998 W. Bruce Cameron)

10

“get a cell phone for yourself”

I would get one for her, that way I can call her to find out where she is. Get one of those phones with a pay up front for minutes plan so she doesn’t over do it.

11

Don’t read that to mean that I, myself, would like to know where she is :slight_smile:

12

At 13 she may well have already gotten her period. Check with your ex if you don’t know and get the brand names of the products she uses. In fact, she’s will always be your daughter’s mother, so I’d try to maintain a reasonable relationship with her so you can get the information and support you need as a parent. And rememmber, if your daughter gets mad and shouts “I hate you! I want to live with my mom!”, that’s not an indication of her true feelings for you, it’s just the years/hormones takling.

StG

13

As a female who lived with my dad during my teens (though 15-17, not at 13), I agree to most of the above, but want to add:

Keep things absolutely as civil and open with your ex as you can. Your daugher has already had to “pick” once, don’t make it an all-or-nothing situation. Even if your ex was crazy (my mom’s diagnosis as bipolar didn’t happen for a few more years), do what you can to leave some kind of communication there. If y’all are in the same town, encourage your daughter to spend time with her mom.

Advice about some adult woman being available to her is excellent – but let her pick who that is. Not to be tacky or anything, your new girlfriend ain’t an appropriate choice. I don’t know what’s going on in your personal life, but if you could back-burner it for a while, it’ll help things tremendously. She’s got enough problems right now working out her own sexuality without having to deal with yours. (Not to hard to read between those lines, eh?)

Do stuff with her sometimes, like go to a movie or work on something around the house – give her an opportunity for her to talk to you without having to make a big deal about it.

Make sure she knows you love her.

14

The “Eight Rules” list is actually originally a “Ten Rules” list with may websites chopping off the last two to be PC. The last two rules are among the most important.

Here are the last two rules

Dad’s Dating Rules

(removed link - see below)

15

I have no advice as when my parents split when I was 16, I stayed with my mom. There was no choice, Dad wasn’t interested in either my brother or myself living with him. I just wanted to say good luck, you can do it.

16

as far as female things go, there have been quite a few threads here on that topic. you won’t have to go far to find the answer to just about any question she may have.

i’m sure the 2 of you will do great together. 13 is when strange and wonderful things happen in a girls life. just listen to her first, then tell her i’ll get back to you on that (put a time of your choice here), then you can totally freak out in the privacy of your own room, and get back to her with a decision.

17

Get really drunk (or pretend to) and then ‘accidentally’ tear her door off the hinges. Whenever she asks you to fix it, act embarassed and go away. This gives you a good excuse to keep her from being behind closed doors with boys without you having to experience the embarassment of asking her to leave it open.

Buy her really ugly clothes, feed her lots of fattening foods, and refuse to buy her acne medication. Teenagers are horny as hell but also very shallow - poor appearance combined with the proper personality (which we will get to) will keep her from having underage sex.

Try to instill a strong faith in some fundamentalist form of religion - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s based on a millenia-old morality and totally unrealistic. Take away all inappropriate reading materials, giving her nothing but Jack Chick tracts or similar writing to read. By this time she should be really resentful of her peers and will be quick to adapt a belief system that has them all burning in Hell.

Follow these three steps and you will have…shit, I don’t know, but it’s probably not getting laid.

18

I’d say it’s quite a compliment that she chose to live with you :slight_smile: . There has been good advice given by many posters above. And if a perplexing situation comes up, you can always turn to the Teeming Millions. I concur with “ask you ex if she has already started her period”. Be open & honest with your daughter (though I’m sure you must be already if she decided to live with you). Count to 10 & breathe before you speak if something makes you angry. And last but not least, remember that teenagers years can be a roller coaster but they too shall pass. Best Wishes to you & MaryBeth.

19

I don’t know the particulars of your family situation or what your daughter is like, but I remember what kinds of relationships I and my girlfriends had with our fathers at age 13 pretty well.

One thing that stands out in my memory is that the teenage girls with divorced parents often took advantage of the fact that their dads were WAY more lenient with them than their mothers were. They abused their dads’s more easygoing (or sometimes just plain careless) approaches to parenting and used their time at Dad’s house to go wild, because they knew that they weren’t likely to get caught, and if they did, that Dad wasn’t likely to punish them much, if at all.

Is it possible that your daughter has chosen to live with you because she thinks she’ll be able to get away with more at Dad’s house?

I’d urge you to try to avoid letting this happen. I had several female friends who spent huge chunks of time with their dads post-divorce at this age. All those dads were lackadaisical about parenting, and all those girls ended up with messed-up self-images, messed-up ideas about men and relationships, and messed-up futures in which they didn’t realize their full potential.

I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re ever questioning yourself, err on the side of being too involved and with your daughter, instead of not being involved enough. My own experiences tend to indicate that having a really involved dad is more important after a divorce, especially if he’s the primary parent.

And by “involved”, I mean as a parent making rules and staying informed about her life–not just as a buddy.

Should be obvious, I know, but I never personally met a divorced dad (and I’ve known quite a few) who didn’t make this mistake. She needs you to be the Big Bad Dad sometimes, laying down rules and enforcing them.

I’m not saying you should become a little Hitler, either, but I’ve never actually seen a divorced dad have problems in that direction. I guess it happens but others have already addressed that end of things.

20

I agree with getting pads/tampons ahead of time (assuming your daughter hasn’t already started having her period). Lucky me, when I started, it was in the morning, and my mom was already at work, so I had to ask my DAD shudder about what to do. He had to go call my mom while I sat huddled on the toilet waiting for a response, trying to stop my younger sister from knocking on the door, asking what was wrong. Lucky for us, we had pads in the house from when my aunt had come to visit (my mother had had a hysterectomy several years earlier), so things worked out ok (Dad didn’t have to go buy anything). I got to stay home from school, and my mom talked to me and basically took care of things when she got home.

SO, yeah, make sure there is SOMETHING around, even if its the big, uncomfortable bulky pads. It’ll be good enough until you can get advise/time to get something better :slight_smile:

And be willing to talk to her about anything and everything. My dad had a “no dating until you’re 36” rule, which obviously didn’t happen, but at the same time is a good indication about how uncomfortable he is with this kind of stuff. So I never talked to him about my relationships, or getting on birth control (not initially due to being sexually active, but because of painful, irregular cycles - even that was too much for him), etc. As a result, I am very close to my mom, and quite distant with my dad about anything “important”. So try and hide your fear, worries, etc and make it clear to her that whatever happens, you are there for her.

And give her lots of hugs. Hugs are always good :slight_smile: