i am simply hedging my bets here DD. i want my daughters to fall for a man who respects them.
and i would agree that the example i show them as far as how i treat my own wife (and them) is probably the determining factor as to which type of man they end up with.
I would have to agree with that!
Yeah. me, too. I just object to the context he started with.
in your experience i am sure that you have seen alot of men who are not respectful to women. each nationality will be represented i am sure.
but, what has your observations showed you would be the best chice, if you were trying to hedge your bets that your girls would end up with someone who would respect them?
By giving her the tools she needs to make her own intelligent choices, showing her that the world is not black and white, and assuring her that as long as she is truly happy, I will be pleased with her choices.
The whole problem with this inclination of yours is that it is a Fool's Errand. Too much of your effort will be spent on half truths and trying to make up for the mistakes we have made. You can not hedge your bets, in the way you are trying to, by marking illusory divisions between people (which may make sense to you) and disqualifying a few groups. Our job as parents is teaching them what we know (Facts! Don't offer too much of our own tainted interpretations of how the indisputable facts came to be!) and teaching them how to learn on their own, from their own explorations.
The important thing to remember is that, we can not predict whether our daughters will end up with an abusive jerk (because they come in all shapes and sizes, including tempting and "perfect" and abusive behavior may spontaneously erupt in an otherwise perfect person), but with a high degree of self-respect and a strong sense of self-worth, our daughters will be more able to break free from a relationship that is injuring them, whether the abuse is physical or emotional. Spending all our time with lessons about which divisions of people are more likely to be "wrong" for her is a waste of her attention span. The more effort spent building her self esteem and preparing her for accepting and shedding failures then moving on past them, the better off we will all be. But what the fuck do I know? I'm a rookie at the parenting thing!
I have a long way to go. Today, I was fielding questions about maturing, from a six year old's perspective. (This is a big deal! She has a hard time with the concept of 'growing up'. It scares the hell out of her!) She asked me today when she "will have bumps on her chest", after drawing a picture of her family, including the dog and mommie's noticeable "bumps".
