Catdaddy33

My daughter is a 14 yr old freshman and will be 15 this Nov was recently asked out on "date" for Sat afternoon movie. My wife will be the chaperone but the plan is to let them see the movie alone and ice cream afterwards. They both attend an academic magnet school and the encounters we've had with the young man have been positive (he was polite) so we're not worried that he's a troublemaker, and we plan on talking with his parents as well.

As a father, I'm not sure how to take all of this I remember when I was 14 and that scares me. There is also a since of loss since she I will no longer be "my little girl" as this and other boys start trolling by.

I'm trying not to freak out but dammit it's tough.... Any TFPers have any similar experiences?

abaya

Heh, I went on my first date when I was 14, with a 17 year old guy who ended up being my boyfriend for a couple of months (I was a sophomore, he was a junior)... two of my uber-conservative friends were appointed chaperones, and they came with us in the car and sat behind us in the movie. We didn't even kiss the whole time we dated, mostly because my mother was so paranoid and expecting him to be some serial killer (we were both church-going kids, which made it even funnier) that it totally freaked him out most of the time. She caught him hugging me tightly at a roller-skating rink event and that was the end of it.

So yeah, just don't be like that. Sounds like you are doing all the right things, anyway. My dad used to introduce himself to my boyfriends while holding a baseball bat that we made, which was more of a joke... but still freaked some of them out.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

lotsofmagnets

bolt on the chastity belt and tie her to a post in her room. no girl should date until she is 37.

__________________
mother nature made the aeroplane, and the submarine sandwich, with the steady hands and dead eye of a remarkable sculptor.
she shed her mountain turning training wheels, for the convenience of the moving sidewalk, that delivers the magnetic monkey children through the mouth of impossible calendar clock, into the devil's manhole cauldron.
physics of a bicycle, isn't it remarkable?

Leto

hahaha. The jarring part was in calling a grade niner a freshman. is this common in the US? I thought it was a university designation for first years or frosh.

But having said that, I know the only reason guys want to date girls. I would be investing in said chastity belt too.

Poppinjay

Yeah, we do the freshman-senior thing twice, only it's a bit more tenuous in college since there's no real course of study that designates such. You take classes until you're done. It takes four to seven years for traditional students, decades for others.

I was going to suggest getting a gun or taking out an ad in Soldier of Fortune, but if you're comfortable with caging her until 37, lots of magnets is right on.

I'm having a son, so my advice is going to be, "go get 'em!"

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

ratbastid

The father of a girl I dated in high school showed me his shotgun the first time I met him. Seriously.

Xazy

No daughter of mine should date til then, other girls I do not care as much about.

Baraka_Guru

Wait—what's a chaperone? Is that French or something?

Just kidding.

Hey, I thought the chaperone system died in the 19th century? I heard America killed it.

But, seriously, it all comes down to your daughter. If she's a smart, self-respecting girl (which I can only assume she is), you shouldn't have much to worry about, especially if you've somewhat vetted this gentleman.

Not all parents meet the boyfriend before they're an item. Not all parents ever meet the boyfriend.

__________________
"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. [...] In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer."

—"Politics and the English Language," George Orwell

"Humankind cannot bear very much reality."

—"Burnt Norton," Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot

jewels

You're doing all the right things.

All you can do is know that you've raised her with strong values and trust that she'll do the right thing. If you're close, get her to talk with you about the date after so she'll know she can come to you about anything.

__________________
Politics is applesauce.


- Will Rogers

twistedmosaic

I'm going with shotgun and shovel, with ramblings about how much I like driving my truck out into the desert alone on the weekends.

World's King

Keep her away from guys like me.

__________________
Stacks on deck. Patron on ice.
We can pop bottles all night
Baby you can have whatever you like
I said you can have whatever you like.

Catdaddy33

Thanks for the info, my wife will be at the mall not escorting them around so not a true chaperone thats the only word I could think of.

If it were up to me, she wouldn't date until she moved out of the house, but I was outvoted in that one. The shotgun approach would more than likely get me arrested at the mall, and that would be bad. I'm 6'1" and 158 lbs so I hardly look intimidating, but maybe I can hire some goon to intimidate...

I didn't meet my wife's parents until our 3-4th date, and the only reason I did was she was still living at home.

All in all, I don't think I'm worried about this particular date its just a huge step for her into adulthood and I'm the one that's not ready for it...

Jinn

Be comforted by the fact that it's still relatively benign. You won't want to know what she's doing and where she's putting things once she makes it to college.

I'm only joking with you because your situation scares the piss out of me, enough so that I pray that I never have any female children.

__________________
If you struggle with something your entire life, try harder.
Awareness without action is worthless, and failure is not an accident.

onesnowyowl

Yep, and get your wife to do the same. My parents were always my best confidantes (still are), and as a result, they pretty much always knew what was going on with me in high school. They trusted me to make good decisions, and for the most part, I did.

Just keep the lines of communication open, and try not to worry too much about it. Letting your daughter subtly know this is hard for you is not a bad move either; my dad always joked about greeting my first date with his rifle, and it let me know how much he cared. Strange, but true.

As for Jinn's statement above me: That's one of the main reasons my parents allowed me a lot of freedom as a teen--I had no set curfew and my parents allowed me to stay out all night for a couple things my senior year (like a rave in downtown Portland). They wanted to give me the chance to test my freedom with a safety net; I always knew I could call Mom and Dad if something bad happened.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

abaya

Okay, are men seriously that over-protective of their daughters, or are you all exaggerating in order to make us laugh? It's a little alarming to hear how many dads want to lock their daughters up and never let her anywhere near a guy until she's way beyond puberty... do you really all feel that way?

I grew up with an extremely over-protective mother (she was very scared about the prospect of me losing my virginity, starting at 14--not that she had to worry, I was 24 )... but my dad was really quite chill about the whole thing. Or at least, that's what he led me to believe. I never imagined fathers as being the ones to freak out about their daughter's virginity or whatever... at least not in this day and age. I know you all feel like, "I don't want her near a guy, because I remember what I was like at that age," but seriously... would you really let that fear get in the way of your daughter growing up and having intimate experiences? And do you really think that your daughter doesn't have the same desires that those boys do?

I guess what bothers me is the assumption that daughters are "sugar and spice and everything nice" for their daddies, while boys are assumed to be out for one thing only, and that girls would never think about rebelling. Bit of a pedestal, isn't it? Why not accept that your daughter is normal and will have human feelings and desires, just like your sons might, and that neither should be repressed/policed?

(This is not to say that you shouldn't educate your children about safe sex, risks, etc... but just to accept both genders as being sexually equal, and that girls have just as much curiosity about sex as boys do.)

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

ShaniFaye

well IM not a man and I want to lock up my daughter til she's at least 30

no way in hell would Manda have gone unsupervised to a movie at 14, she wont at 15 either....when she turns 16 she can date, alone, just like her mama

and then her mama will sit and think about ALL the things she did when she was dating when she was 16

and cringe in fear lol

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Daniel_

OMG - I hope my daughter doesn't meet a guy like me when she's the age I was. Urgh, I was evil and coniving, and I was one of the polite good ones...

__________________

╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

ShaniFaye

yeah and I was considered a "good girl" and there was no one more sneaky and evil than me lol

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

World's King

Quoted for Truth...

__________________
Stacks on deck. Patron on ice.
We can pop bottles all night
Baby you can have whatever you like
I said you can have whatever you like.

punkmusicfan21

Exactly, exactly, exactly! You aren't ready for it. But, the crux of this problem always being this, she is becoming a woman. Oops.

I guess you just have to trust that you did a good job raising her, and that you will continue to raise her in a fashion that is fitting to her age, and that she will continue to be a good person. If she is at a magnet school, I'd say she has enough pressure as is; let her go for it. Obviously she isn't a bad kid.

__________________
"So many years my heart has waited, and who'd of thought that love could be so caffeinated" - Taylor The Latte Boy (as sung to me by every person who ever order coffee from me)

krwlz

You never know about that gun approach. I had a girlfriend whose father did that to me. I asked him if I could see it, as my father had a very similar gun. I owned the next model up.

After a moment of awkwardness, her mother pointed out that I could probably shoot better than him.

As far as the daughter... I'm with the chastity belt and chains idea. Barring that... Trust is a tough thing huh?

__________________
"Anything thats wet and wiggles, I'll take it!"

FlatLand Flyer

I am not a father, but lock her up.

The moment you are living right now is pretty much the exact reason I do not want a daughter.

I know what I was like when I first started dating. I was completely shy and could not even talk to girls, or get their subtle and not so subtle hints. My first girlfriend was not a virgin and she was 15. She made all the first moves (and I mean all of them). She came from a semi-religious family, good parents, good student. We were fucking inside of two weeks and she had showed me her tits one of the first times we were alone together driving in my truck. I ended up marrying her. She is an attorney and a really good person.


All that said, I cringe thinking of my unborn daughter being like her mother.

Willravel

Why? Just because she's 14?

Catdaddy, you know that you've taught her well. She knows right from wrong. Give her some mace and enjoy the fact that she's turning into a young woman.

abaya

I still don't get it. So what, exactly, would you want her to be like? Mother Teresa? How about the rest of you?

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

FlatLand Flyer

Men are protective of their women by nature. At least I am. I don't want a guy making a move on my wife and I sure as hell do not want a 15 or 16 year old guy who's dick gets hard when the wind blows going after my daughter.

I know it is the natural progression of life, but don't as k me to like it.