Is DH too overprotective of DD (14)?

[suri80]

Eldest DD (14) has currently barricaded herself into her room because DH will not allow her to go to a "hang out" at her friend's house. The friend is a boy from her school who we don't really know and apparently his parents are away. I tried to compromise by suggesting to DH he could collect her at 10pm if he was worried, but it turned into a huge argument between him and DD and now he won't allow her to go at all. He says it's because this boy has an older brother and no doubt there will be older boys there, alcohol and probably drugs He says he trusts DD, but she is too young for all this. Now he has stormed off to help his brother with something.
AIBU to think she could have gone for a while and DH is being over the top here? Or is 14 too young as he says? I'm not sure what to think anymore.

Bertrand I do know how it sounds when you put it like that and this was why I posted last night tbh.
In other ways, he's all for her having as many opportunities as possible. She went in a French exchange over Easter. She's going to Paris for the school activities week and then Iceland with the school just after term ends. So there's no holding her back in that sense. It's his insecurity really and yes, sexist views about girls being easily taken advantage of and needing to preserve their reputations, etc.

I would also say that, locally, the private school social scene has a LOT more drugs than the state school scene - more money, perhaps.

After reading your last post, I think your dh is a wonderful father and is doing his job as a dad and doing it well. There is nothing noble in being blasé about one's dd's teenage years and the issues around sex, etc.

I have a son and hopefully am teaching him to be respectful of the subject of sex, the responsibilities of it, to never pressure a girl in the first place, to respect all women, to be protective of a young teen girl's honor as I hope that teen would be protective of his.

Maybe your dh could sit down with your daughter and you and explain his reasoning, you might agree with him and you might not but you would at least understand. I agree with him. Supervision at a party or other get together that your 14 year old is going to is not unreasonable.

When I say honor I mean the dignity of themselves and their private and intimate spaces. It's not to be given or taken lightly.

I don't see your dh as being insecure or sexist. The opposite in my opinion.

"When I say honor I mean the dignity of themselves and their private and intimate spaces. It's not to be given or taken lightly."

And eating ice cream in the park in mixed company is a problem because...........?

trifle - but if they 'discuss it later,' unless one of them has changed their mind they are still going to be arguing, just at a different time?

You don't have to be someone's peer to disagree with them. That smacks of Victorian mine-workers tugging the forelocks to landed gentry.

Awwlookatmybabyspider - no, you don't 'have' to text your dad to tell him you're home safe at 41 years old. You have agreed to do so on the basis that it's something both you and he feel happy about doing, which is fair enough and completely your decision, although one I think 99% of adult women would find very unusual. However it is just that, a decision not a rule or an obligation. If you didn't text him there is absolutely nothing he could do about it.

It's also certainly not the way 'all dads' are with their daughters. Growing up, I knew that if I was ever in any real trouble on a night out, or at any other time, I could call my dad and he would come and get me, no questions asked. However as soon as I moved out aged 18 I wouldn't have dreamed of texting him each time I was home, and he wouldn't have wanted me to!

onceandneveragain

Well, you raise your children how you like. If I tell my DD enough is enough, I expect her to respect that. If that makes me akin to a Victorian peer (rather than a parent in a position of responsibility) then so be it. I don't mind that she disagrees; I mind if she doesn't know when to stop arguing the toss.

LBB, given that you posted recently on another thread about your disgust with gay male sex and with people who have multiple sexual partners, I suspect our view on 'private and intimate spaces' are going to be rather different.

So what, motherinferior? Are you trying to say you can dictate to other women their sexual preferences and boundaries or else you will label them? Bringing up my other posts so that you can get the others on here to be against me, you are manipulative.

I wouldn't let my ds1 do this when he was that age.
I don't think our girls should be treated any different, or that it's more important to give girls more boundaries.
Treat them both the same.

I am filled with the urge to send my lovely 14yo to commit public ice-cream eating in the company of the flagrant teenage lesbians in which her single-sex school abounds.

cowgirlsareforever you are reading into my words. You are so keen to ignore the fact lots of teenage girls are getting sexual harassment. Who do you think is doing this harassing?

I am not judging any one person or child. I am sure there are masses of lovely teenage boys out there. Now are you willing to admit there are some that are not so lovely?

So caution from me. Where my dd is concerned.

If you don't appreciate that, so be it.

Wow at the direction this thread has taken. I think we need to remember that our teens look to us for guidance on resolving problems....best discussed where everyone's opinion is given equal space.
if you over react on protecting your teens it is not been that being overly liberal. It causes problems if your teen's don't respect your opinion....once lost how do they distinguish between crazy over protective nonsense and genuinely dangerous situations because you react the same to both.

Afrobrown Rightly or wrongly I feel the aggression in your posts - taking the door off your dd's room probably scared the shit out of her. So she was aggressive with her Mum - you solved the problem using aggression and she has learned from that and maybe not the lesson you intended - has she has learned to be submissive when dealing with someone stronger than her, that men can physically control her space, that your wife needed a man's physicality to deal with a problem with her child? Who knows? But it doesn't sound like a controlled calm way to deal with a child who is not in control of her emotions....fire with fire.

I am not misreading anything Italiangreyhound. Neither am I 'ignoring' sexual assaults on girls. I believe the OP's DH is wrong to assume that his DD is automatically at risk simply because she in the vicinity of teenage boys.

"I am filled with the urge to send my lovely 14yo to commit public ice-cream eating in the company of the flagrant teenage lesbians in which her single-sex school abounds."

Can my lovely 16 year old boy come too? He's not absolutely sure about his sexuality yet -(I am- he's straight) -but he loves ice cream.

But some boys do behave badly towards girls and if you do not know the boys, you may find it hard to know who are trust worthy ones.
It's not up to the parents to judge which boys are trustworthy and which are not, it's up to the parents to empower their daughters to be assertive and make good judgements.
How are they ever going to learn how to judge a man if you insist on vetting and judging them first?

deckoff it is not creepy to raise my son to be respectful of others. You are a nut.

Absolutely spot on VoiceOfReason

Absolutely voiceofreason

it's up to the parents to empower their daughters to be assertive and make good judgements

This, absolutely. Going back to my own experience with teenagers, I think the majority of 14-year-old girls are perfectly capable of making these sorts of decisions, and the majority of those - when under pressure from the minority of rogue boys who try to encourage them into sex, drugs, etc. - would say "NO!". (There are exceptions, of course.)

The danger, as I see it, is that when parents try to take that decision away from them and treat them as incompetent children, some girls might be tempted to say yes in the (misguided) hope they will prove their parents wrong.

Far, far better to have a rational discussion with "what would you do if..." questions. I was doing this with our children from a very early age. (e.g. at a large railway station, DS1 still young enough to be holding my hand - "what would you do if we got separated?" ("Find someone in uniform", was the answer.))

With teens, it can sometimes be helpful to make it less personal by asking, "What would you do if someone tried to give your friend drugs/get her drunk, etc?" As I said upthread, it's teaching teens how to do risk assessment and management. Once they get used to doing it in advance, they will eventually become adept at managing risk in real time.

Blanketdog at no way did I use aggression or would I use aggression to my daughter, please refrain from making that your point. I spoke to my daughter to determine the problem and resolve it and was assured behaviour would change. When it escalates and the person it is aimed at ie mum is in tears and feels a failure as her daughter at a young age is extremely rude actions speak louder than words. The door was taken off whilst she was at school. As soon as she came in and saw the door off she knew why.

As I said when I was younger and rude to my mum I got a hiding from a fully grown man in my dad. Now if I had done that I would be wrong. A door off for a young child is nothing compared to that

Afrobrown I'm responding to your posts and the vibe they give, I don't know you but I gasped when you initially suggested that taking a door off the hinges was a good solution - if you don't like that honesty stop posting! My parents hit me too - they got no respect for doing so and I don't base my parenting decisions on the premise that "at least I'm not as shit as my parents were!" My parent told me that by not beating my kids they would be spoilt and ruined - how wrong they were and now they accept that behaving in a way you wish your children to behave creates better behaved kids.
Removing a door is an aggressive act and if you can't see that, I can do nothing to enlighten you but you have not convinced me that you are not using your physicality to discipline your dd who is naturally smaller than you, and not capable of defending herself - you have left her exposed and unprotected, again - what lesson has she learned?

My parents beat me and I thank them so clearly we are different. Removing a door is not aggressive especially when she is not in the house.

What is aggressive is telling your mum constantly that you hate her because she won't let you have what you want or telling her it's time for bed but when your dad says the same thing it's okay daddy.

There is no aggression in my house my daughter is the most precious thing to me aggressiveggressuon a real daddies girl.

Plus I don't think the door off was the right thing to do but it provided a good solution so this time I got away with it.

The fact that my daughter came in and saw the door off and immediately knew that her actions were the cause of this meant that she was aware that her behaviour was wrong.

On this occasion I was prepared to be disliked for a while if it meant that my wife wouldnt be spoken to like shit. Months on has my daughter been disrespectful NO.

You are acting like I nevery conversed with my daughter after the door was off. I explained why i did it spoke about her mum's feelings and her mum's crying. She cried said sorry we hugged but most importantly told her mum sorry.

This is my parenting style and it worked.