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Father's role affects how teens approach relationships
CanWest News Service ^ | February 16, 2004 | DOUG FISCHER

Posted on 02/17/2004 5:20:41 AM PST by RogerFGay


Dad, it's time to talk dating

Father's role affects how teens approach relationships: study
 
DOUG FISCHER
CanWest News Service

Monday, February 16, 2004

I was 14 or 15 when real girls, not just the calendar pinups in my grandfather's work shed, began to agitate me so obviously my dad decided we needed to talk.

It's a safe bet my mother had told him our little chat should include details about sex, because when I assured him I already knew that stuff from school (and the schoolyard), the look on his face relaxed from horror into a mere grimace.

So, instead, he plunged determinedly into territory where he felt at ease, and where, as it turned out, he was an expert: how to treat girls.

Your guy friends, he said, expect to be jostled and poked and humiliated. How else can a fellow know his friends like him?

Girls, on the other hand, require kindness and respect. Sure, they want you to be strong and opinionated and funny, he said, maybe even a bit reckless. In fact, they expect it -- they've seen their own fathers in action. But girls also want you to show a soft side, that you care about their interests and feelings.

It was good advice, and about to get even better. Although girls rarely show it, he continued, they are torn up by all the same dating worries as guys: Will he like my clothes, my taste in music, my hair, my parents, the way I kiss?

Not that I believed a word of that last part. As a young teen I'd seen enough of girls, especially in packs, to know they were as insecure as that killer Uma Thurman plays in Kill Bill. And about as accessible. Forty years later, though, I know he was right.

Memories of that fatherly chat came to mind recently when I read about a North American study of teen dating behaviour in a U.S. medical journal. A survey of 3,500 teenagers revealed that one in five girls was physically or sexually abused by a date sometime in the previous year. That's nearly twice the rate of the 1970s and, according to the study's authors, linked in part to a decrease in the involvement of fathers in their children's activities.

"A majority of teens who reported ... difficulties in their dating life also reported that their fathers weren't there to offer advice or support," says Brian Goonan, a Boston public health psychologist involved in the study.

When taken separately, teenage boys whose fathers played a smaller role in their lives turned out to be more aggressive and less able to express feelings, the study showed. And without fatherly guidance, girls were more likely to pick creepy boys.

The reasons for the drop in male involvement are plentiful and complex, and no one is quite sure how the trend has influenced the rise in troublesome dating.

AWe do know that over the past 30 years, the number of children being raised by a single parent, mostly women, has tripled. And although schools have picked up some of the slack, we know lower church attendance means fewer teens are attending religious study classes where dating is - or, at least, was once - a regular discussion topic.

At the same time, more teens are taking their relationship cues from TV, movies and video games, where abnormal behaviour is regular fare, and often glamorized.

TV has also provided poor role models for fathers themselves. If you buy the argument that TV dads have been the most influential agent of paternal culture over the past 50 years, it's little wonder even more fathers haven't turned out to be ineffective, hapless idiots like the Tim Allen character on Home Improvement or Ray Romano on Everybody Loves Raymond.

According to the study, daughters tend to get advice from their fathers about dating more often than sons. The study found that while nearly one-quarter of fathers insisted they meet potential suitors before allowing them to escort their daughters, fewer than 10 per cent of boys said their fathers even asked about their dates.

Sometimes, fathers were a bit overprotective toward their daughters. In one case cited by the study, a Texas father - a 6-6, 300-pound former pro football lineman - invited every Tom, Dick and Jason over for a family dinner.

Later, he took each boy to his den for a Meet the Parents-type grilling where he asked the young man whether he was a virgin, where he was taking his daughter and with whom, about his driving record and condition of his car, the name of his insurance carrier, the church he attended, his Boy Scout rank, his marks in school and, most crucially, what the word "no" meant to him.

Another girl said that before every date, her father would get out his shotgun and cleaning apparatus and sit in the living room silently oiling his gun - in his undershirt - while the poor schmuck waited inside the front door for her to put on her makeup.

It's hardly a surprise these approaches turned off more than a few suitors. Still, while the screening annoyed the girls at first, as time went on several reported they felt most comfortable around boys who had passed their fathers' stern tests.

"Sure, some of this stuff is over the top," says Goonan, "but you can understand why it happens. Every father was once a teenage boy with raging hormones and wild ideas."

If memories of their own adolescent impulses are enough reason for fathers to counsel daughters, they make an even better reason to talk to sons, says David Krueger, a Toronto psychologist who specializes in teen angst.

His practice suggests sons whose fathers have discussed "dating protocol" with them generally experience more rewarding relationships with girls than those who stumble blindly through the early stages of dating.

Obviously, mothers also need to talk to their sons about dating and sex. But research suggests the message carries more impact when it comes from a man, even when he isn't the father.

"I can't even pretend to understand the pressures of being a boy on a date," one mother told a Philadelphia newspaper. "My boys need a man's touch."

Someone like my dad.

Ottawa Citizen



TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: fatherhood
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1 posted on 02/17/2004 5:20:42 AM PST by RogerFGay
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To: JimKalb; Free the USA; EdReform; realwoman; Orangedog; Lorianne; Outlaw76; balrog666; DNA Rules; ...
ping
2 posted on 02/17/2004 5:21:48 AM PST by RogerFGay
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To: RogerFGay
Another girl said that before every date, her father would get out his shotgun and cleaning apparatus and sit in the living room silently oiling his gun - in his undershirt - while the poor schmuck waited inside the front door for her to put on her makeup.

Today, this will get you arrested...

3 posted on 02/17/2004 5:27:41 AM PST by 2banana
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To: RogerFGay
"TV has also provided poor role models for fathers themselves. If you buy the argument that TV dads have been the most influential agent of paternal culture over the past 50 years, it's little wonder even more fathers haven't turned out to be ineffective, hapless idiots like the Tim Allen character on Home Improvement or Ray Romano on Everybody Loves Raymond."

The Fred MacMurray character (Steve Douglas) was a pretty good father model. There are bunch more, too. I think the point here is that hack commedians make for terrible TV dads. It's a Hollywood formula that has jumped the shark.
4 posted on 02/17/2004 5:38:54 AM PST by RunningJoke
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To: RunningJoke
I didn't think Tim Allen and Ray Romano were bad fathers. They are just more "traditional" in that they leave the housework to mom. Many working girl journalists today might not prefer that arrangement, but it doesn't mean that the men are bad.
5 posted on 02/17/2004 5:47:43 AM PST by RogerFGay
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To: RogerFGay
A very OFTEN neglected POINT, in WHY the flight of Mexican dads to find jobs in the USA is not only bad for Americans, but bad for those who traffic people, and bad for the mothers and children left behind trying to meet the very basic needs in a home. The absence of a dad, is something we will yet reap. The law of Reaping and Sowing.
6 posted on 02/17/2004 5:48:54 AM PST by rovenstinez
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To: RogerFGay
And without fatherly guidance, girls were more likely to pick creepy boys.

And become loser magnets. I don't know how many young girls (an women) I have seen who claim to want a nice guy and then date one creep after another. Possibly because they never had a father do the screening for them when they were young.

Every father was once a teenage boy with raging hormones and wild ideas.

Lord, ain't that the truth!

7 posted on 02/17/2004 5:52:23 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Even if the government took all your earnings, you wouldn’t be, in its eyes, a slave.)
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To: RogerFGay
Romano's character is an idiot. Tim Allen's character was just dangerous around tools. (It didn't help that his wife was leaning way left.)
8 posted on 02/17/2004 5:54:30 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Even if the government took all your earnings, you wouldn’t be, in its eyes, a slave.)
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To: rovenstinez
And the young Mexican boys are "sowing and reaping" as we speak.
9 posted on 02/17/2004 5:55:57 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Even if the government took all your earnings, you wouldn’t be, in its eyes, a slave.)
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To: rovenstinez
The absence of a dad, is something we will yet reap.

In Mexico it's becoming extreme --- in Mexico City there are thousands --- some estimate over a million street children. Abandoned women and children in Mexico aren't doing very well.

10 posted on 02/17/2004 5:56:02 AM PST by FITZ
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To: rovenstinez
P.S. I believe that the disproportionate number of males to females in the illegal alien Hispanic community is a leading factor in their disproportionate crime rate.
11 posted on 02/17/2004 5:57:15 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Even if the government took all your earnings, you wouldn’t be, in its eyes, a slave.)
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To: RogerFGay
My point about Ray and Tim was that they are sitcom formulaic humor, if you enjoy that, good for you.

Since, I've only watched both shows less than five episodes each, I have a restricted sampling on their fatherly skills. The jokes are unfunny the plots are transparent. I'd rather read a book.
12 posted on 02/17/2004 6:01:07 AM PST by RunningJoke
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To: RogerFGay
Another girl said that before every date, her father would get out his shotgun and cleaning apparatus and sit in the living room silently oiling his gun - in his undershirt - while the poor schmuck waited inside the front door for her to put on her makeup.

And the problem with this is...?

<|:)~

13 posted on 02/17/2004 6:09:28 AM PST by martin_fierro (I miss the Media Schadenfreude Ping)
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The Devolution of Dads

14 posted on 02/17/2004 6:11:08 AM PST by martin_fierro (I miss the Media Schadenfreude Ping)
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To: Blood of Tyrants
The crime rate in Mexico is higher though --- much is due to the destruction of their families and values and a lot of that is due to massive migration and abandonment of families.
15 posted on 02/17/2004 6:13:46 AM PST by FITZ
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To: FITZ
Fatherhood is more than a paycheck sent back home once a week.
16 posted on 02/17/2004 6:24:50 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Even if the government took all your earnings, you wouldn’t be, in its eyes, a slave.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants
Yes --- and very often the paycheck quits being sent back --- absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder. Around here it's not hard to see some of these women --- they'll tell you that first they had money being sent back, then they never heard from the father of their kids again, then they packed up, left their kids themselves and headed over the border to become maids and nannies --- taking care of other people's kids --- and their own kids ended up with no parent.
17 posted on 02/17/2004 6:32:51 AM PST by FITZ
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Comment #18 Removed by Moderator

To: RogerFGay
...a Texas father - a 6-6, 300-pound former pro football lineman - invited every Tom, Dick and Jason over for a family dinner. Later, he took each boy to his den for a Meet the Parents-type grilling where he asked the young man whether he was a virgin, where he was taking his daughter and with whom, about his driving record and condition of his car, the name of his insurance carrier, the church he attended, his Boy Scout rank, his marks in school and, most crucially, what the word "no" meant to him.

Sounds good to me!

Another girl said that before every date, her father would get out his shotgun and cleaning apparatus and sit in the living room silently oiling his gun - in his undershirt - while the poor schmuck waited inside the front door for her to put on her makeup.

This also sounds pretty good. My daughter, alas, does not have an involved father to give a dirty look to potential suitors. However, some friends of ours who feel very protective of her have offered to sit on the front steps of the house when she receives her first caller, cleaning their guns in their undershirts. They have rehearsed little vignettes, to wit:

"Hey, Joe, 'member what we did to the last kid who wanted to date Susie? That was pretty good."

"Aw, Billy, you shouldna oughta done that to that boy. He ain't never gonna be right in the head again."

"Oh, hell, there's more where he came from. Hey, boy, how fast can you run? Think you can run faster'n this bullet?" By this time, of course, the unfortunate young man would, in theory, be completely cowed and would promise devoutly never to lay a finger on Susie's pure self.

19 posted on 02/17/2004 6:37:34 AM PST by Capriole (Foi vainquera)
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Comment #20 Removed by Moderator


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