I feel like fathers & daughters have a more “protective” relationship. I hear that some guys/girls have to ask “permission” whenever they’re interested in a girl/guy. I rarely seen this the other way around, like when a guy has to ask his mother, even though it probably does occur if your family is strict about dating.
So, what’s the main reason behind this? Does it all depend on how “deep” the relationship is between them? And how strict were your parents about dating?
Now, my parents never had a problem when it came to dating, but they always told me to aim for certain characteristics/traits in people, like basic intelligence/common scene & responsibility/respect & trustworthiness.
the male of the pair being somewhat in control of the female’s behaviour
the older one of the pair being somewhat in control of the younger one’s behaviour
Both of these patterns fit comfortably into society’s cultural stereotypes, so the father won’t be ashamed of exerting a certain amount of control over his daughter, and the daughter won’t be ashamed of being controlled. “Because he’s my parent” is the ostensible reason, but “because he’s male and I’m female” is lurking in the background.
What happens if a mother tries to exert an amount of control over her late teenage or young adult son. Well, we do actually have a stereotype about that, and I believe the words “Jewish Mother” encapsulate it - right? It’s recognised as a dynamic that might exist, but it’s not considered positively. So any individual mothers or sons will be less likely to admit that they are in that pattern - the son will be ashamed of being controlled, and the mother will be shamed for being controlling.
TLDR - I think you’re wrong about what happens, but right about what people will* admit to*
“More controlling” does not equal “stronger”. In fact, one problem with controlling parents is that they often find themselves having a “wet soap” effect, where the tighter they want to control their child, the more likely the child is to just jump away.
And I’ll see Aspidistra’s Jewish mothers and raise you Italian mammas, Spanish madres pulpo (octopus mothers)… The figure of the overly-controlling parent of either gender exists in every culture: some get a shorthand for it, some do not, and whether it’s considered more acceptable from one gender or the other varies by culture, but in general, well, we have that “overly” there precisely because it’s not considered either normal or acceptable in most of the Western world’s cultures.
Thankfully, in general, attitudes and levels of acceptance has changed, but growing up in the 60’s, my sisters boyfriends had to be Naichi (mainland Japanese), since they would take their husband’s surname and their children would then be 3/4 Naichi (I’m Okinawan/Japanese, a big no-no in the 40’s when my parents married). I don’t know the full story, but one of my cousins, who’s full Okinawan never married because her parents (primarily my uncle on my Dad’s side) forbade her marriage to a Naichi boy.
There was less pressure on the boys since we would retain the family name and I was much younger than my siblings when my parents would approve or disapprove of the girls choices. Even though I was in my early 20’s when I fell in love for the first time, I wondered if my Dad would approve of my local Chinese girlfriend. Nothing was ever said and we lived together for 10 years with my parents and my Dad treated her like his own daughter. And my brother’s wife is Okinawan/Hawaiian.
Edit: I know some Asian and Polynesian women who were either born here to 1st generation immigrants or immigrated here (to Hawaii) at a young age who have it ingrained into their mind that they must marry someone of their own ethnicity, preferably an immigrant from their parents home country.
I think that requiring my daughter to ask permission to date (or to date a specific boy) is not within my purview as a father, and I would never call such a requirement an indication of the strength of our relationship. Quite the opposite, actually.
As mentioned above, fathers know that teenage guys are horny, and want to ward those away from their daughter.
It’s much more culturally shameful for a guy to be viewed as a “mommy’s boy” (often derided as mabao in Chinese, for instance - “mother’s precious”) - than for a girl to have a protective father.
I agree with several other posters, that father / daughter relationships aren’t necessarily “stronger” than mother / son relationships, so much as there may well be a stronger tendency towards protectiveness on the part of fathers with daughters.
This much is certain, at least in American culture. Being called “daddy’s girl / daddy’s little girl” isn’t necessarily seen as a negative (and it may well be a term of endearment, in some contexts), but being called “mama’s boy” almost always is seen as a negative.
Conversely in Spain being called a “mommy’s/daddy’s son/little boy/daughter/little girl” is a huge insult regardless of genders involved. It means you’re a pampered little idiot who doesn’t merely expect manna to fall from Heaven but to jump directly into your mouth, and who will run to the mentioned parent for help as soon as anything doesn’t go your way.
It seems like most of these threads are regarding the negative aspects of father/daughter and mother/son relationships. I thought of the question differently.
My son and I were very close, but not in a weird way. When my son was born my grandma (dad’s mother) told me that a mother is a little boy’s first true love and a little boy is a mother’s last true love. She was right. My son called me every day just to shoot the breeze for a few minutes or he’d call to ask me, "Mom, what’s the name of that song…? or did you ever see the movie…? We just got along so well. We had the same taste in movies, music, comedy, etc. I’m close to my daughter but in a completely different way. There’s just a special bond between moms & sons and fathers & daughters. Dad’s want to protect their daughters. I think that’s a natural thing. Not a bad thing.
I’m 52. I have never heard of any of my cohort or our kids being so much as encouraged to seek permission to date, let alone date a particular person. You go with whom you want to go with. I mean, the concept is not foreign to me, but in my mind that’s a relic from 1950s and earlier. Oh, and the Mormon kids. Maybe it’s still a thing, but I’ve never heard of it.
I’m definitely a lot closer to my daughters than I am my boys. We can talk about pretty much anything, or spend hours not talking at all, and as soon as one of us pipes up the other knows exactly what the other has been thinking. I don’t have that with the boys, they are as clueless as I was at their age. As for dating, well, I’ve released a couple of quality, self-sufficient women into this world. If someone wants to disrespect either of them, my move is to step back. They can handle themselves just fine. The boys know that ‘no means no’, and that it’s a sign of weakness to get into a fight you know you can win. I’ve got their backs because I’m the dad, they might have mine if they’ve got time.
Oh, and I can’t stand my mom. Had not much use for her after around Kindergarten, and preferred her absence since before 5th grade. I just found her tiresome and insincere. Which she is.
This attitude is big in Hispanic culture, where my daughter had a group of friends who weren’t allowed sleepovers at 12, but their brothers were allowed to at 8.