Gut feeling: You’re a single guy and thus a threat to his marriage, it’s not about the kid.
Back when I was growing up, single dads were severely less common, but I clearly remember my mom not letting me stay over my friend’s house when only her dad was around. It didn’t screw me up for life, but I remember thinking even at that age it was super weird.
It is weird.
I worked with a young offenders treatment group on a project. The woman I worked most closely with counselled a lot of troubled kids. Her soapbox concern was older brothers in the house - she felt they were the most likely source of abuse at sleepovers. Not because they were more likely to have the inclination, but because they are more likely to have poor impulse control and the inability to view long-term consequences in the moment.
At the same time, it’s never a bad idea to be selective about battles. You could have done yourself and you daughter a great service by not pursuing it, at that time.
“She must have accidentally deleted it, I said. “No, she said her mom deleted it on purpose.””
^^ And this is why. If that information somehow trickled down, then the kids have already been involved.
Eh, in my experience it doesn’t take “super religious” to convince yourself that everyone in the world is out to kidnap, molest and murder your children. Our 24 hour news cycle, people flipping out over court cases happening 3,000 miles away and enough L&O: SVU reruns takes care of that even without Jesus being involved.
I’m sure it was pretty much an automatic response, but I think that answering “I’m sure you understand” in the affirmative was probably a mistake. You could imagine the conversation at their end after hanging up as “See, he didn’t even argue! I KNEW it!”.
Better to say “No, I don’t understand, but whatever”
It could be that so many of us have lived through molestation and sexual assault. Every female close to me has been a victim. I was molested by my father, my older daughter was drugged and raped at a party when she was a teen, my eight year old was raped by three boys. My best friend was raped, my other close friend was molested and her sister was actually impregnated at fourteen by her brother when he raped her, my grandmother was raped. . . it goes on and on. It’s hard not to feel a certain lack of trust in men with that kind of history and I know far too many women with the same stories.
I’m surprised that this has not been up (unless I’ve missed it) but this is not anything new - it’s a very well-publicized issue in the airline industry.
Well. I mean its a man. Its not like your daughter will have to deal with men ever.
If these assholes are going to make “men are evil, violent child molesters who can’t be left alone with a kid for one minute” sweeping generalizations, they should at least be fair.
For example, men who are serial killers are more likely to kill grown, or nearly grown women.
But women who kill? They’re stereotypically most likely to kill their own children, or to kill babies and toddlers at their home day cares. I know there are at least two famous cases of women who suffocated babies under their care, often several babies in a row.
I wouldn’t trust a women with my child for one second!
Why see an asshole? I don’t get it. Isn’t it possible this woman was molested, as a child? Has a niece that was just interfered with a week ago? Or she has severe trust issues, from some other trauma? Man, you people really seem to lack imagination.
Much more importantly, she’s a mother who is no doubt trying to do what she ‘feels’, for whatever reason, is right for her child. You have a child, would you send her off someplace you had a bad feeling about? I doubt it. Would you over ride your own gut instinct, to avoid offending some one? So as not to seem judgy? I doubt it. Would you like to be called an asshole simply because you failed to expose your own, possibly very private reasons, for doing as you choose? I doubt it very much.
She’s not comfortable with it. Right or wrong, why isn’t that enough? Ask any mother and you’ll hear them say, “I know it probably would have been just fine, but I just had a really bad feeling about it.” I think every parent has done this, at some time.
Why not choose to believe she must have her own reason, and leave it at that? Rather then getting all butthurt over some slight that may or may not refect on you at all. It borders on self absorbed to assume you’re the reason. You’re not. She’s uncomfortable, is the reason. It’s not you, it’s her. She has issues. (Y’know, like all of us!) Most times in life, when we think we know what others are thinking of us, it turns out they were not thinking of us at all.
Just another opinion.
That is terrible and I can understand you feeling that way. I find it hard to believe (and by that I don’t mean to imply that I think you’re exaggerating, just “hard to believe” in that it is so far removed from my life experience) that you and so many of your friends and family have been victims. But then I can’t even begin to imagine what goes on inside the heads of men who do such things, either.
I know it must sound very petty to you or anyone else in your situation hearing men complaining about being “victims” of mistrust, when it’s pretty minor by comparison.
It stinks you have to deal with this bias, Fubaya. How about if you get together with one of the parents for a cup of coffee and discuss it, while also showing that you are a resonable guy and fine dad?
Does it stink you have to do an extra step? Sure. Is it that big of deal? *It doesn’t have to be. *
If they don’t know you personally - so you aren’t hearing specific judgment about YOU, only their overconcern about sleepovers at single-dad houses - then you don’t have to take it personally and can show them a better way to approach it…
Best of luck.
My 6th-grade daughter has a friend whose family will not, with the exception of school, allow this girl out of the sight of her parents. She can’t spend the night, she has to be chaperoned by her parents to school dances… even car rides are forbidden if the parents aren’t driving.
It bothers my wife more than me. I’m of the opinion that we don’t know a thing about them and there very well could be something in their past makes these actions reasonable and that we shouldn’t take it personally.
Perhaps that’s the approach you ought to take, OP. 
I will note in passing, however, that at least here in San Antonio there is a difference between how Hispanics raise their kids and how Anglos do - the Hispanics tend to be much more protective of their children (especially their daughters!) than the typical Anglo parents are. The boys are able to do what they want, but the girls are subject to much tighter control.
One of the things I’ve found from knowing people and also reading about similar people is that many religious fundamentalists have sexual hangups. I’m talking about the people who think that if they let a ten year old girl out of the house with bare knees or wearing pants (i.e. allowing one to see the curvature of her groin area), it will cause all the good and honorable men and boys to have raging clues and become overcome with desire to love her long time. The result is that girls end up being dressed like Laura Ingalls. I have seen this in real life, it’s not as funny when you actually get to know these people.
I used to think that this was mostly a Christian fundamentalist thing, but it’s not. An ultra-Orthodox synagogue in upstate New York reportedly set up a gender segregated playground for little kids. Because there’s just something fundamentally wrong with a boy playing jump-rope with his sister.
The most disturbing thing about all this is that to even come up with such lunacy, they must be thinking about children in a sexual way.
I was a single dad, but I didn’t really encourage my daughter to have friends over. I understand why moms are wary even though 99.9% of guys are not child molesters. I really just didn’t want to be put in the situation of being accused of anything. Strange times we live in.
Luckily my daughter never pushed for sleepovers except one time one of her friends mothers, who I had never formally met, wanted me to take her daughter home to my house after a school dance for a sleepover. I think the mother just wanted to go out herself. I told her it wasn’t a good night for a sleepover but I was happy to give her daughter a ride home, which I did.
Be sure to warn them not to leave their cup unattended so nobody slips them a roofie.
Regards,
Shodan
Maybe the single dad was just an excuse, and the real reason the sleepover was nixed was the python in the pet store on the ground floor.
The religious thing might mean that it wasn’t that they were worried about the OP being a male alone in the house with their kid. Moreso that he was un-married. If they are super religious and the question was “Your daughter said she wants to sleep over tonight is that okay? Oh my wife? She’s out of town at her mother’s with my two sons?” It might have been different. Maybe.
Basically, if that was the angle, they don’t want their kid thinking it’s okay to have children out of wedlock. That’s a pretty normal thing and at least slightly less offensive then thinking your going to rape their kid before they back out of the driveway.
My mom won’t allow unmarried people to sleep in the same room in her house. For example, my (at the time) GF and I were spending the night there before going on a big family vacation. I slept in the living room, she got my old bedroom. We had been dating for 5 years and living together for 3. Didn’t matter, she just didn’t want us in the same room in her house. She’s done that for other people, no matter how long they’ve been together for…not married, separate rooms. She’s very much come to terms with ‘pre-marital sex’ and knows that people typically live together before getting married, but her house her rules.