Arright buddy, enough already. We each have one-year-old daughters. They spend at least five afternoons a week together while your wife babysits my little girl. Our wives are close friends, and we all get together at least one or two weekends a month. So can you please do me a favor? Stop acting like a grade-A douchebag every time your daughter comes near me?
I have no fricking clue what your particular damage is, but I have absolutely zero sexual interest in one-year-olds*****. When we’re all sitting in my living room, and your daughter toddles over and climbs into my lap, it’s really not necessary to run over and scoop her up, saying that “Daddy wants to spend time with you too, Sweetheart”. Yeah, that might fly a little bit better if you hadn’t been holding her for the past 20 minutes. What the hell? Are you thinking I’ll be so overcome with lust for your toddler that I’ll be forced to drop trou right then and there?
I mean, if you’re going to act this freakishly overprotective, at least try and throw a tiny bit of subtlety into it. But to immediately run over and say “Oh, hey, let me take her from you there” every time I pick her up? Dinkus, it’s becoming pretty damn obvious to everyone. Get some fucking help.
*****Yeah, yeah, I know…“what about lambs?”…ha ha ha, ok, there, that’s out of the fucking way.
I can’t really tell from your post what it is that makes you think he thinks you want to bugger his daughter. Maybe he’s just jealous that she likes you?
Seriously, though, I got that vibe (the “you must want to molest my kid” vibe) from one or two parents at the summer camp I worked at as a teenager and young adult. It was, hands down, the most upsetting, most insulting realization of my life to that point. Far more upsetting than the times people have intimated that I’m racist/dishonest/whatever.
Ok, point taken – I may have been a bit unclear on that. Suffice it to say, he’s put together a very obvious pattern of behavior:
If I pick up his little girl, he immediately comes over to “help me with her”.
If she comes over and tried playing with me, he’s right there calling her back over to him.
He was mind-blowingly blatant about it when he and I were the only two adults in the room with the kids (our wives were cooking). He had to ask his wife to come in and “help watch the kids” while he went to the bathroom. What the fuck?? He’s well aware that one person can easily handle these two kids for a couple of minutes. Perhaps it’s a “you had to be there” kind of thing, but his insinuation was pretty clear – “don’t leave him alone in a room with our baby”.
If this were a simple jealousy thing, that would be fully understandable, but it just doesn’t seem to be the case. He has no problem letting her play off on her own for 15 minutes, but the second she comes near me, that’s when he decides it’s time to come back over to daddy? Guy needs to get a fucking grip.
It’s awful that this guy feels that everyone is a potential child-molester and he definitely has a hang-up about it, but I blame the sensationalism that the media provides us that creates an atmosphere of terror in parents.
Everyone is afraid to show affection to a child for fear of someone turning them in for fondling a child. My husband was so freaked out by cleaning our infant’s “hoo-hah” (as he calls it) that I had to do it. He didn’t know if it would be seen as sexual in someone else’s eyes. He’s perfectly comfortable with her now, but it’s horrible that he felt shame for doing something a loving father would normally do.
Fucking Chris Hansen and his Dateline shows are part of the problem. There are so many “innocent-looking” men that get caught. And they are doctors, teachers, etc.–people that you wouldn’t think of as molesters.
I hope this guy does change his viewpoint, because he’s going to make his daughter fearful of men. Children pick up on things like that.
Has your wife noticed his behavior? Have you discussed this with her? Maybe this guy isn’t aware of what he is doing. If he is doing it intentionally I agree it is pretty damned insulting.
I’d say turn things around on him, perhaps then he’ll realize how stupid he’s acting.
Every time he picks up your daughter rush up and take her back. When you leave the room, ask your wife to come in and watch the kids even though he is in the room as well.
Or you can just talk to him about it openly. That wouldn’t be as fun though.
I was on the receiving end of this yesterday as I passed a family in a store and smiled to myself at how adorable the daughter was. When my glance passed over to the dad, he was giving me the hate stare.
It occurred to me that some people need to feel heroic, and so must create monsters.
“Look, is there any particular reason why you don’t want me picking up your child, and why you’re apparently uncomfortable if i’m alone in the room with her? Because your behavior is pretty fucking insulting.”
My husband had the same initial fear. I felt so badly for him, here is a loving Dad and is almost too afraid to care for his child.
He got over it, but still.
Let me just throw this out there. Now bear in mind, this is coming from a first time mom and as someone that was molested.
Have you considered his fear that his daughter being around another man will have her do things to you he has her do?
While my father was molesting me, he was very protective of me being in a position to “out” him in any way. When I was six at my birthday party at his house, someone told me to give him a birthday kiss. I was afraid at what “kind” of kiss they were asking for, my father reacted by giving me an ass whipping disguised as a birthday spanking.
That is a good point, but the OP says the kids are one. I suppose I don’t know much about kids, but if you are molesting a one year old, there really isn’t much they are doing to you. It’s mostly you doing things to them. Right?
I mean, how likely is it for a one year old to mimic stuff? Honest question. I honestly don’t know.
That’s pretty fucking disturbing, and in your shoes, I’d be talking to the guy. Talk to your wife first though - if she’s tight with the mom, you don’t need your wife blindsided by a “what the fuck is wrong with your husband?” chat from her.
I don’t know about a one year old, but a friend of mines two year old I am pretty sure has seen mom and dad have sex based on certain sounds and actions she mimics, or has seen such things on TV or wherever. But good call on the “dad may be the molester” angle.
