We have probably all encountered the jokes about fathers sitting on the porch with shotguns to ward off potential suitors or known anecdotally or from personal experience parents who disapprove of their kids’ relationship prospects, or of their son or daughter having a significant other at all.
This seems to be pretty strong across many different cultures - that parents’ protective instincts, or other factors, make their immediate, first, split-second reaction to finding out that their teenaged or early-20s son or daughter is dating someone to be a **negative **“No, this is a bad thing” response. The protective instinct appears to be to ward off suitors and clamp down, “no dating.”
And I wanted to ask Doper parents - when or if your teenaged or early-20s son or daughter is in a relationship, and you find out, what is going through your mind in that first second or few seconds? This is before you learn anything about who the boyfriend/girlfriend is, and what kind of person he or she is, or any other attributes about the S/O - race, background, religion, age, etc.
In our case we know who she is dating after a date or two, not really a SO. They become a SO slowly so no real reaction. We raised her well and trust her so if she is happy so are we.
We have 2 young teens, boy & girl, and both my husband and I LOVED when our kids got their first significant others. Starts early and innocent, but our 17 year old has a “serious” gf now. Makes me remember how exciting that type of thing was for me at that age and I am happy that my kids can enjoy the excitement of connecting romantically with another person. My husband feels exactly the same.
It’s probably relating to jokes about how protective fathers can be. How many times have you seen “jokey” pics of dad’s threatening violence vs moms? Google “dad’s protecting daughter” and again with mom’s. The tone is a lot different.
The overprotective dad joke might be funny to some, but often it’s creepy to me.
I have had varying reactions. She’s great; she’s a bitch; she’s dumb; she’s sweet; she’s perfect for him I couldn’t have picked a better SO myself. Etc.
I love my DILs as long as they are not making my sons actively miserable. If my boys are happy, I’m happy. I think I would feel the same if I had daughters–it would totally depend on the person. And I think their father pretty much feels the same.
First thing that goes through my mind is this question: Is our daughter consistently taking her birth control? She can be a bit forgetful. It is enough of a concern that we have recently talked to her about having a Norplant style birth control and re- emphasized that birth control pills/Norplant do not prevent STDs.
She has been raised well and has good judgement about who she might date. She will undoubtedly fall madly in love. And get her heart broken. Tough lessons that most of us go through at some point. But at her age it is not unreasonable to think she may be sexually active and she is too young to be a parent.
Usually a bit of dread about meeting the person, but it’s their choice, not mine. For many years, I dreaded meeting my daughter’s latest thrill, as she invariably picked looks over substance. She’s twice divorced and I lost count of the beaus that she didn’t marry. Now she’s in her 40s and has decided to pay attention to her self worth and independence. It’s a relief.
Yup. I’ve got two daughters–four and eight–so I’ve got a few years before this becomes an issue. I didn’t vote, since I don’t know how I’ll react; I suspect it’ll depend a huge about on the boy or girl they bring home.
Mostly I want to make sure my kids remain physically and emotionally healthy, and physically safe. Emotional danger is an unavoidable part of dating, I think; you don’t get the joy if you don’t open yourself to the pain.
So yeah, if they bring home a meth-head who posts jokes about bitches, I’m not gonna be a happy dad. But if they bring home a sweet funny kid, I’ll be a little scared and a lot happy for them.