To not want my 19 year old moving to Canada alone?

I love that quote, Havanananana - so very true

Another comes from Seneca: "I am not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land”

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s life.”

Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad - published 1869.

While not wanting to accuse the OP's husband of bigotry, "prejudice" and "narrow-mindedness" seem to fit.

I've already replied to this a couple of days ago but bumping as there's so much good advice!

Your DD should go to Canada OP!!

I didn't do BUNAC but I did do a 6 month placement in the US through CIEE. I remember only having enough money to buy the flight out, and hoping I'd earn enough to fly home.

As it turned out I earned enough to travel round the country for 6 weeks at the end, then fly home. I had the time of my life.

It sounds like the best thing your daughter could possibly do right now is to get away and do exactly what she likes. Your DH feelings are normal but he should not try to hem her in. She clearly has the potential to go far and would be utterly miserable if she stayed in your town just so please her dad. It’s a shame he can’t be proud of her while also being honest about his fears.

Your DH is in danger of jeopardising his relationship with your DD if he doesn’t wind his neck in.

Just thinking back to my own time doing Work America with Bunac. They got me a brilliant job in San Francisco and I moved there at your DD's age with a suitcase and the address of a hostel. Within a week I had a flat in Nob Hill (with a slightly bonkers older lady who wrote crossword puzzles for a living). Many of the crew at my job were Brits and we had a grand old time. Many happy memories. At the end of my trip my parents flew over and we road-tripped right across the US from SF to NY.

I hope you and your DD both get a lot out of this.

I think it’s a bit of that with DH. He was going on about ‘It’s them spoilt middle class kids who go travelling, not folk like us.”

I was a poor, WC kid when I did BUNAC. Becuase they help you with a visa, job placement etc you don’t need a lot of money - just a return ticket to show you could get home if you’re stuck. I worked and saved to afford mine.
TBH it’s very different to the gap holidays that many of my Uni friends took, building wall in African villages or wherever. You work and earn the money to travel around a bit with BUNAC.
Your DD sounds fantastic, and she should go. Her at home options don’t sounds great and will always be there when she gets back.

OP, I have a friend - late fortiies now - who grew up in a small Northern town. At about your daughter’s age, he conceived a plan to go to the US and work, travel, just get around a bit.

His father’s attitude was that he should stay at home and get a job, because ‘that sort of malarkey thing isn’t for the likes of us’.

His mother (local girl married young and pregnant twenty years earlier) said, Go! Go now! Get the fuck out of here!

He did. Eventually, so did his mother.

His dad’s still there, looking narrow-eyed at exotic vegerables.

I'm afraid I agree with@TheWestIsTheBest .
I think you do need to have serious words with him.
What kind of parent tries to prevent their child spreading their wings. Tries to tie them down to a small boring life when that is not what they want.
I also would be seeing him in a completely different light.
When he states that he doesn't get why she wouldn't want to buy a house in your town, point out he doesn't have to "get" it, he just has to respect her dreams and ambitions. To support her to achieve them. She is 19!! She needs to live a little before even thinking about buying property to tie her down.
If he doesn't stop with his knobish behaviour, he will loose her completely. Is that what he wants?
I

I’d do my due diligence but that sounds amazing. I did work America with Bunac at 20 with a friend, but there were others on their own (tbf was only a summer thing but I’m sure similar schemes exist for permanent positions). Everyone buddies up quickly

He’s creating an own goal.

If he is trying to make her stay, all he is doing is driving her away.

And if / as she will go come what may, why do all he can to make her leaving in bad terms?

Is it that he just can’t cope emotionally with the idea of her not being close? Is there anyone who can have a heart to heart snd listen to his fears and get to the bottom of it?

At this stage I would be having serious words with him. Who the hell does he think he is to dictate that your daughter should have the same small life that he is happy with? I'm afraid this makes me very cross indeed, and very grateful to my mum who encouraged me to move away from our rural country town. I am the only one in my extended family to leave, some of them think I am quite mad I know, but I couldn't be happier with the life I have chosen, and my mum is very proud of me. If your husband can't buck up his ideas, I'm afraid I would be looking at him quite differently if I were you. It is, after all, a parents job to encourage their children's dreams and aspirations, not piss all over them because they are too thick to imagine someone wanting to take a different path in life. I am glad you have come round to the idea, it looks like your daughter will need your support. I hope she has an absolute blast in Canada and doesn't move back to her home town after.

And then he responds that he doesn’t get why she wouldn’t want to be here

Same reason he doesn’t want to be anywhere else

... your daughter apart, what are you going to do now both your kids have left home? Because at 50 you have a lot of life left...

You can't fix your DH's attitude, all you can do is point out to him that we are all different, she wants to do this, she is going to do this, so he might as well be moderately supportive - because the alternative is she leaves on bad terms. But if he can't get out of his own head, leave him be, and focus on being supportive to her.

It sounds like a great idea, especially as it appears there aren't many opportunities for her where you live?d If she's practical and a self starter, and it certainly sounds like she is, then there will be plenty of opportunities for her in Canada to work her way up. There are plenty of careers that don't need formal qualifications.

I understand you are sad to see her go, but please give her your blessing - travel is the best education. Don't let your husband or anyone else pull her down, please - the world really needs brave and adventurous souls, and Canada is an extremely safe country anyway.

Who knows, maybe she'll have a brilliant career in hospitality and you'll be visiting her all over the world.

Lots of luck to her. You should be proud.

Our children are through us, not of us: she is now 19 and it's time for her to fly.

Our children are not our property. I would focus on supporting your daughter. This is also time for you too. I think you seriously need to evaluate your relationship with him.

As I said in my other post on page 21 "It's time for you too now"

I get aa I said about the area you come from. That doesn't make it right though what he is doing. It is emotional blackmail, coercive and abuse

I don’t know if my fear is rational or not

Totally rational. But not a good reason to stop her.

My daughter applied to university in Canada. I helped her with the application. Put hours into it. Was dead chuffed when she didn't get in.

I'm not proud of that.

I did one of these jobs as a teen and loved it, I still have friends I see all the time from those days.

[quote MiddayMass]@TheGirlCat.

If he lets her go without his blessing and puts a dampener on it for her I’ll be utterly devastated and I think it would affect us. He’ll be sat there twiddling his thumbs waiting for it to go wrong, why would he wish that on his child who wants to go and explore the world?

He’s saying I’m a hypocrite because I didn’t want her to at first either. But it’s different! I was just shocked and upset at the thought of her being miles away. But I know how clever she is, and she was so great at reassuring me and now I’m excited for her. He didn’t even give her the chance. I was scared of things going wrong, he’s scared of it working out.

I’ll mention that I want to try and put a bit of money away to go out there and see her at some point, but no doubt he’ll scoff. He’s tight with money as well. Luckily we both work full-time and whilst we go halfises on bills and rent, we don’t pool the remainder. I can save a couple of hundred a month. I don’t even know if he’d come with me, or whether DD will even welcome him.[/quote]
He's not going to put a dampener on it for her. She's going to be having too much fun to spend any time thinking about her small-minded dad back home.

You definitely should go and visit her on her own. If she's anything like me she'll be delighted to have her mum come over without her dad. I bet you have a much better time than you would if he was there too, grumping all over the place.

The president of the hospitality division of DH's company is on about $250k with no degree, just a lot of experience. She's 35. I don't think she even graduated high school. She's very good at her job, which is what counts.

Although it sounds like the OP's daughter has ruled out the US, so she'll miss those opportunities.

When I was 16, a school friend invited to join her and her family in East Africa. My mother, a widow with a lot of extended family responsibilities, encouraged me to go and paid my fare.
I had a fabulous time. Some of it scary (it was at the time of the Mau Mau independence uprising) but overall it was the adventure of a lifetime. It gave me self-confidence, determination, an enhanced curiosity about how and why other people behave as they do. 60+ years later, I'm still benefitting from that holiday.
Support your daughter, OP! Consider stepping away from your dreary, nay-saying "partner"?