Do you try and educate your daughters the reality of life with a man?

[WTFisgoingon987]

I have had a few honest conversations with my early teen daughter about men, what some of them do to women. Some more serious decisions but mostly about the mental and physical load of running a house. Do others do similar? Any topics I should cover? I am disgusted with the men of the world at the moment. I feel like I need to bubble wrap my child to protect her.

I think it is a bit naive to say 'well my daughter has a good example from her dad so will be able to spot bad behaviour'
Coercive control is insidious, and nowadays lots of men use their mental health as a weapon to carry out control, abuse and binning off the domestic labour, and if you are raising kind kids, it's very easy to see how a decent person would get sucked in by this and not be able to see what's truly mental health related and what's them being a twat. Adults can't see when they are being manipulated by someone with either legitimate or falsified mental health issues, or when they are enabling someone, so we shouldn't expect young adults to.
Also ffs noones saying 'teach your kids that men are awful' for God's sake, that's exactly the kind of thing that holds us back, it's not exactly hard to say 'some men are great like dad, some men are not great because of x, here's how we tell the difference'

Ŵe lost my dh when dds were 11 and 13 but I tell them to go for someone kind and helpful like their dad, not someone like my friend's dh who puts her down and leaves her to do everything. (He never changed a nappy and went off for the day doing his hobby after she had a c section)

Don't, unless it comes in the form of exposing her to lovely male role models who wouldn't dream of seeing women as less.

My mum did this for me and it just gave me this hideously low bar for men. All my first few relationships were terrible and I got with someone at 18 who was emotionally and verbally abusive. Pregnant at 19 because I didn't know how to speak up against him overriding a boundary I had set without losing the whole relationship. I just thought all men were like that and you couldn't hope for anything better so I didn't.

The problem is, so was my Dad and it didn’t strike me DH would be as much hard work as he is on this front. I’ve also learned, watching BIL and DH (with me) give a good impression of equal houseworkers until after a commitment is made, that it is more important to watch how much housework your FIL does. If he sits on the sofa being waited on, there’s trouble ahead…

And how many threads are there on here of women who thought their DHs were perfect and their “life partner” only to discover he’s been having an affair. Perfect modelling… until it wasn’t.

I think it is fair to say you never really truly know someone.

I also feel very worried about consent and sexual health because every single young man these days has grown up with porn - what does that do to their expectations?

Also the amount of hatred for women from Andrew Tate and the likes.

And just look at the number of women involved in the Gisele Pelincout trial and their poor jail sentences.

Society still very much supports men over women.

Add to this that everyone is on their best behaviour in the first six months of a relationship. Abuse can start invidiously, slowly over time and it’s not always easy to understand what’s happening especially when you are young.

So it’s important to be very aware and that’s tough when you’re just starting out.

This is our situation. The men in our family are lovely. Supportive, equal parents, pull their weight, nurturing, empathetic etc. But I’ve demonstrated and told my girls from birth about the patriarchy. The world is designed for men, and many men think the world revolves around them and their wants and needs.

They are adult women now. Beautiful switched on feminists. My pride is that they don’t fall for men’s bullshit and are willing to call it out. Equally they have lovely male friends and boyfriends. They expect high standards from men and they filter out the dicks and the red flags.

I feel happier knowing that the role modelling + the education will hopefully protect them from the worst of male behaviour, because they are empowered to not put up with it.

I think my son is more likely to benefit from this kind of talk than girls! My DD has the expectation that she will have a career and equal partnership. I think my son expects his future partner to do more of the life load - maybe because he has rather traditional parenting (though I was widowed when he was young I was a SAHP). I of course do everything now so he hadn't seen his father model how it might work even within this set up - his dad cooked at weekends and did the finances.
The reality is what they make it together surely. Don't put the onus on women like it's their sole responsibility to figure it out.

Good point. We should also be educating our sons too.

Of course you can't only rely on role models, you do have to talk to your child about this stuff. Boundaries, red flags etc.

But if you teach one thing and model another, the impact of those conversations will probably be limited. If you choose to stay and put up with a partner who doesn't respect you/doesn't pull his weight, you are also giving your child a clear message that, sometimes, women just have to suck it up. And that's what they will absorb, unless things are so obviously awful that they decide to treat your relationship as a model of how not to do it.

Mine had the opposite when he was the child. Made him determined not to be the sexist pig his dad is thankfully!!!

I'm more proud of the men I've raised and the way they treat their DW/partner.
I treated all three the same (1DD).

Why on earth would you teach your child to accept a poor partner?

We lead by example- DH is a fully equal partner and dotes on us both.

She is learning not to accept anything less.

You talk about what went wrong. You don't stay in those kinds of relationships. You model to her what women should accept and put up with. That's what she'll remember. That mum wouldn't have put up with that treatment so I won't.

Or, she'll see that its something mum accepted and therefore it must be "normal".

If you don't have the good male role model, you have to be who you want her to be.

I don’t think you can ‘tell’ teenagers about life they absorb it from an early age.
For example I have always been incredibly sensible about money, so talked to my DD’s about costs and savings from an early age.
They are now in their 29/30’s and both really careful, started saving as soon as they started earning and the only debt they have is a mortgage.
So what is your relationship like with her dad, do you have good boundaries? That will inform her about men.

Exactly. It doesn't mean that you've fucked up your children if you find yourself in an unhealthy relationship. However, what you choose to do about that relationship will teach them a lot.

My fil is waited on hand and foot 🙄🙄dh is the exact opposite so that doesn’t necessarily follow!

What do you do if you haven’t been able to model a good relationship to your teen DD? Whether you are still with that person or not?

My parents marriage was incredibly violent and abusive, for many reasons my mum couldn’t leave. I grew up very clear that I wouldn’t accept that kind of relationship.

My mum instilled in me a sense of independence, I understood from her the importance of being financially independent and being able to stand on my own two feet. I learned the many ways women do their best to protect their children when they can’t leave and, despite this, the harm done when they stay. I learned the many ways men can control women.

I spent much time in therapy unpicking the impact my childhood had on me, for better and worse, and am honestly able to say I forgive both parents while recognising the harm they did. When I separated from my exH I did so on my terms, in a financially secure position and we have a very amicable, supportive co-parenting relationship.

I’m not interested in another relationship just now but I recognise red flags a mile off and just won’t go there. It’s possible to come through the experience and do ok but it takes intention and work.

Just to add. I've also said to them they don't have to have kids as it's a big responsibility. I'm obviously not telling them they shouldn't have kids. I'm just saying it's an option not to have them.

No. Her dad is a good person.

That’s a good point. If a daughter has decent brothers and a decent father it seems a bit counter productive to be talking about the evil ways of men and what to look out for . The model for a decent man is living in their house.

As a 20 yr old who had a 'rude awakening" to men when she was 14, I'd say it's never too early to learn how horrible they can be.

If you know - or your daughter(s) know - young women around my age, all the better for them being able to tell of their experiences. I DON'T mean or hope that they can recount the sort of thing that happened to me at 14, but just their general encounters with men & boys.

I've helped other young women (not being pretentious, they say I have!) and could easily tell you or your daughter(s) what I experienced BUT obviously you don't know me from Eve and to take me up on that would be a definite no-no!

Also, it really isn’t so easy just to walk away from a bad relationship for multiple reasons once there are children. Many women have nowhere to go/no money to support themselves/live in fear of reprisal. If only it was so simple.

I talk to my son about fairness. He does a lot of the cooking and housework, for instance. He also voluntarily started paying more of the bills with his girlfriend when his pay went up. I'm very proud of him.

Arguably having only known good men can leave girls confused. I had a lovely first boyfriend then one who was pretty abusive and I was baffled as it was so far out of my experience. Didn’t settle with him though as
knew he was not husband material.

You're a SAHM, so I assume you have a partner who works? Assuming that's a male partner then she can see not all men are takers?

If a man posted about women the way you have about men there'd be hell on!