Would you say these parents were being unreasonable or a bit stupid?

[katemiddletonsnudeheels]

Another thread just reminded me of this - just wanted to get a 'MN' perspective.

On holiday in turkey with a teenage daughter (15) who is a bit self conscious. Teenage daughter is targeted by local men. Parents find it absolutely hilarious and roar with laughter every time this happens. Daughter is sexually assaulted whilst standing next to her parents on public transport and feels unable to tell them.

On final day of holiday local man asks daughter for date. Parents squeal with delight whooping and laughing (it isn't 'serious', they have no intention of sending daughter on date) but make daughter pose for a photograph with 'suitor.'

Are parents fucking stupid or what?

[blitheringbuzzards1234]

KateMNH, many of us have disproportionate memories of crap stuff as they're meant to help us cope with similar problems if they recur. I do sympathise. I suffered a 'small incident' with the headmaster at school when I was about nine, it hasn't had a dreadful effect on me overall, but when I told Mum, she told her friend who suggested that I might be 'romancing' (old-speak for making it up!) I think we've all moved on now.

[RaeSkywalker]

Poor you kate. What an awful thing to have happened.

I had an incident at passport control oh holiday once- a man refused to give me my passport unless I agreed to go an a date with him. My Mum came back for me, saw what was happening, found his manager, and the man was made to give it back.

[ForeverLivingMyArse]

It's an awful place, I've never been back. It was about 18 years ago I was there and i think that was early days of their mainstream tourism. I was always surprised it became so popular .

[OnTique]

I was on holiday with my parents at 15 and they allowed me to go out on dates with a man of 23 who was persuing me.

We were on holiday in Sicily. I got a lot of attention from all quarters and my parents were quite rightly having none of it. But he dressed nicely, had nice manners towards them and they were weirdly ok with it . I cannot imagine what they were thinking tbh. It is utterly inconceivable that I'd be ok with that now that I have dc that are teens.

One of the many double takes I do retrospectively about my childhood tbh although outwardly my parents were strict.

[OnTique]

We went to Turkey a couple of years ago with our dc and watched them very carefully. Weirdly it was my ds who seemed to attract the attention of one of the hotel staff who made my skin crawl. I'm not in any hurry to go back tbh.

[ChipperCharlie]

Idiot parents like this perpetuate the problem.

[StarOnTheTree]

The endless encouraging of boyfriends, talk about clothes and makeup as a way to attract boys in an entirely inappropriate way, and (in the limit) the sort of shit the OP posts about. It also appeared that the people who could see paedophiles around every corner were the same people who basically wanted to pimp their children to every passing boy. It's heteronormative, sees women as positioned only by their relationships with men, sends a message that education and achievement is secondary to "finding a man" and is generally vile.

This was my parents to a tee. It was hideous and I never did live up to their expectations. I had the only mother that moaned because I dressed 'too young'. In other words I liked to wear jeans and t-shirts as a teenager rather than pencil skirts and low cut tops, etc.

[balayage]

Sorry OP, it sounds horrendous.

I do know quite a few families where their (early/ mid) teen daughters attracted inappropriate attention on holiday and the parents seemed to encourage/ revel in it, as though their 14yo being danced/flirted with/kissed by a 30 yo (probably married) waiter was something to be happy about!

My dad was perhaps too strict when I was a teen (certainly I thought so at the time) but he always cut off anyone showing inappropriate interest/ asking questions like 'has Balayage got a bf yet?/ why isn't she wearing makeup/short skirts/ going (illegally) to the pub to meet boys' with something along the lines of she's a very clever girl who is going to a top uni, she hasn't got time for any of that nonsense .

I love my dad!

[blitheringbuzzards1234]

Is it any wonder we all imagine paedophiles on every street corner now when we look back at these ghastly experiences?

Off at a bit of a tangent here, at school when we studied Romeo and Juliet the teacher told us that people in hot countries 'grow up faster' and also 'living in more agricultural places/times' were more matter of fact about this sort of thing, after all wasn't the young heroine of the piece supposed to be about 13/14? I don't know what the age of consent is in Italy/Turkey, etc but it doesn't flippin' excuse it, does it?

When you're young and vulnerable being leered at or worse is horrible and you don't have the confidence to say, "On yer bike, Grand-dad!"

[Bolograph]

I was always surprised it became so popular

Sadly, there are people who would buy tickets to a resort in the middle of an active genocide provided it was sunny and the booze was free.

[Yellowsun11]

Awful . Poor you

If that was my daughter I would of protected her feelings I'm so sorry they weren't they for you x

[Kenduskeag]

Yes they were, BUT there've been a few of these lately - bringing up some parenting no-no from the 1970s and 1980s and phrasing it as if it had happened just last week.

Times have changed. To do it now would be shocking, because we as a society have had our eyes opened that these gropings and attention are not 'flattering.' We should be glad our dismal childhood experiences are unlikely to be repeated on the next generation, but I'm not sure it does much good to keep harping on about it like we can somehow change the past, or make ourselves feel better by painting our parents (those who were well-meaning at the time) of times gone by as pervy abusers.

[TimeIhadaNameChange]

I had an experience like this in my 20s. Was the organist at my mum's church - I was down for the summer so sang in the church choir. He took a liking to me and would put his arm around my waist or hand on thigh whenever he got the chance. I was too confused to really say anything (I am not the sort of person who attracts men) plus this would happen in front of others, often at church, so it felt even harder to say anything IYSWIM.

Anyway, he insisted on coming around to the house one afternoon to drop some music off (even though I pointed out I was passing the church later so could easily pick it up). I told my mother (who knew what was happening) I didn't want to be alone with him, so she stayed in. However, at one point she told him she'd been moving furniture around upstairs and insisted I took him up to show him. I tried to refuse but was over-ruled. He'd never been to her house before so wouldn't have known the difference. There was absolutely no bloody need to do this yet I couldn't get out of it. So, of course he took the opportunity and his hands started roaming.

I have no idea why she put me in that position. She treated the whole thing as a joke, despite knowing how uncomfortable I felt about him and that I'd been assaulted as a teenager so felt even more vulnerable.

Doesn't help you, but I do know where you're coming from.

[corythatwas]

Certainly when I was young all countries in southern Europe were like this, so it was nothing specific to Turkey, and my family travelled a lot off the beaten track. Difference was, my parents weren't clueless idiots.

Particularly remember one incident in Rome: small fat middle-aged man groped me on the bus (as men did in those days) and suddenly found himself surrounded by my tall broad-shouldered northern male relatives all looking down on him in a menacing manner. He didn't half cringe.

[sleeponeday]

That's really awful. I'm so sorry it happened to you.

[katemiddletonsnudeheels]

Ken, it was the late 90s.

[PersonalSpace]

They're cretins.

[PersonalSpace]

Sorry OP I hadn't read the full thread when I posted. Just seen they were your parents and have since passed away.

[carabos]

In Rome on holiday years ago, aged 17 or so, I was constantly touched up, leered at, whistled at. My mother went shouty crackers at the men who did it.

[IsItIorAreTheOthersCrazy]

Isn't it sad how many of us have had these experiences?

For me, I went to Egypt on a family holiday when I was 16. My sister was 14. The men were awful, they grabbed us and touched us and one locked us in a shop with my parents so the man could talk to my dad and introduce his sons (who were in their 30's ).
It was strange - at home our house was chaotic and my parents are big believers in instilling confidence and letting you learn but there, they kept those men away as best they could. My dad held our hands and even told one persistent man that I was his wife to get him to go away.

Your parents should have protected you OP. Sorry

[contrary13]

My parents were a bit like this - although not to the same extent as the OP's, it has to be said.

When I was 10, we went to Morocco - the first family holiday where it was just me and the parents, as my DBs were both out of the family home by then. On that holiday, several fully grown men offered to buy me from my father for X amount of camels, Y amount of camels, Z amount of camels... every time we went outside of the hotel as a family. Even now, 30 years later, my parents still laugh about it. I didn't find it funny in the slightest, though. I found it deeply frightening as a child and, now that I'm an adult and a mother myself, I find it deeply worrying that my parents both laughed and joked along with the strangers who had approached them in the streets to offer various camels for me!

My eldest DB wasn't amused when we returned home and I told him this... but then, he also wasn't very impressed by the fact that I used to escape the hotel each day (because I was bored and the parents were too busy sun-bathing or sleeping to actually watch/occupy me) and run around the small town unaccompanied. Fortunately, there were some kindly shop-keepers opposite the hotel whose wives/mothers used to keep an eye on me, and let me sit in the cool of their shops and watch the bartering between the tourists and the shop-keepers, and the hotel's security guards, after the second day, gave up returning me immediately to my parents and let me drink coke in the hotel bar... but, my goodness, as an adult, as a mother of two who have been 10... it makes my blood run cold as to how lucky I actually was during that month!!!

That was the one and only holiday I took alone with the parents. After that, I went with my oldest DB and his girlfriends, and was taught that when you're responsible for a child/young teenager, you watch them. But perhaps, my parents simply didn't understand that I was a child who wouldn't sit quietly in a hotel lobby for hours on end and do nothing. Because on previous family holidays, I had DB1 to watch me - who was 14 when I was born, and always the one I remember fishing me out of the sea when I got into trouble, or off mountain's goat tracks, or playing endless games of 'tag' with me, or football, or cards, or... well, just generally parenting me.

So, yes; your parents behaviour was odd, OP, but yours isn't an isolated case, I'm afraid. I suspect there's quite a lot of us whose parents just didn't seem to know how to interact with their own offspring on foreign holidays...

[Bolograph]

The men were awful, they grabbed us and touched us and one locked us in a shop

Sounds like a shit place to have a holiday. Still, it's cheap and sunny, which is the important thing, isn't it?

[Jordan1990]

I had a very similar experience, about 13 whole family holiday to turkey, went all inclusive and every time I got food cooked would arrive with roses my nan and parents thought this was lovely and sweet he was 21 and didn't speak a word of English. Came out to a local place with drinks with us and spent the entire evening pawing at me with everyone thinking it was just sweet that this man had taken an interest.taking photos etc and being told to put a smile on my face.
Laying on the beach and our drinks came with a message to meet xx on the beach while giving my family the look of death to say I wasn't allowed, sent me off down to the seafront to have a walk with this man in which he's walked in the sea with me and put his hand in my bikini bottoms and all sorts! Subsequently spent the rest of the holiday in hiding being referred to as the 'queen of darkness' due to my miserable face, fair enough to my family who hadn't realised it had gone that far but I wouldn't leave my girls alone with any man at that age!

Op I just think sometimes people haven't had a lot of experience with shit people and shit situations and are very naive about how these situations can escalate. I go with stupidity on my families behalf rather than bad parenting

[blitheringbuzzards1234]

Oh contrary 13, what a lovely brother you have, we could all have done with one like that when we were younger. It would have demonstrated just how protective/caring a young man can be, instead of being leered at, etc.

I think the camels business was considered to be hilarious because of the older generations belief that foreigners had 'their funny little ways.'

[QOD]

It's no different now

Went 7 yrs ago and would.never ever go again.
It happened in restaurants, hotel and market and they are disgustingly sexist