Baseball Bushy Beard Bandwagon

infielddad- I appreciate your responses here and I think they bring a lot of levity to the discussion. I see a fine separation between mentoring and instilling values in children and dictating their life decisions for them. The original example highlighted a parent dictating to his daughter that she couldn't see a person because the father didn't like his appearance at his first, initial look. To me, this is not parenting. This is authoritarian and dictating a person's decisions. I take exception to this. What you outlined, and TPM's sentiment about her daughter's current relationship, greatly differ from acts of dictating. I understand parenting and I understand protecting children. I don't condone the original, presented actions.

JH, to add some real levity.

Several years back, our daughter came to dinner with a then "boyfriend." He arrived with his hat on backwards and called me "Dude."  Turns out the hat was one of our son's favorites, which the "boyfriend" apparently had "obtained" at some earlier date.

To be honest, "Dude" was the least of that guy's problems that night, and later for our daughter when he left.  Our son, who you know, was less than pleased.

Many years later, amongst our son and his friends, the use of the word "Dude" causes uproarious laughter with references to our son's hat worn backwards at the dinner table, much to the "consternation" of "Dude."

BTW, he never called me "Dude" again or wore our son's hat backwards and apparently lost the "title" of "boyfriend" someplace in the process.

To be honest, we, including our son,  probably did "control" and were somewhat subtle in "dictating" that relationship.

To clear up any confusion the kid did come back in the house after turning his hat around and pulling up his pants. If he had any manners he would have taken the hat off. He lasted about a month when my daughter decided he was a moron. It also ticked her off she always made herself presentable and he didn't and didn't compliment her. She gave him the heavo ho when he told her to choose between travel softball on him.

 

When my daughter was a minor there were expectations that had to be passed to enter our house. This guy was lucky he encountered me first and not her mother. As an adult my daughter made a very good choice for a boyfriend and ultimately her husband. He's humble, yet confident. We have a good relationship. I know he respects me. But our relationship is very casual and close to what my relationship is with my kids.

 

If anyone has an issue with how we raised our kids, the best compliment of all was the one we received many times .... Your kids are always welcome in our house.

 

Note: Anyone who has not been a parent and claims they understand parenting has nooooo clue about parenting.

If this was actually true the world would be a boring, less interesting place.