Damon Young may not be a dad yet, but he’s got some advice for his own teenage daughter, should he someday have one.
Originally appeared at Very Smart Brothas
You know, I’m not a dad yet, but I might be one day. If this day comes, there’s a 50/50 chance that my child will be a daughter, and I will do everything in my power to protect, love, and educate this girl. But, if she decides to cite a hug I didn’t give her in 2018 as the reason why she can’t find love in 2038, I’ll have one message for her: F*ck you
This disturbingly candid (or, would “candidly disturbing” work better?) example of the type of parent I’m probably going to be is the last paragraph of “Why “Daddy Issues” Don’t Really Exist” — an article where I argue that if every strange thing a woman does can be explained away with “daddy issues,” then perhaps they don’t exist. And, while “please don’t blame a hug you didn’t get in 2018 for your relationship issues in 2038” is definitely sage advice, I don’t think that’s quite enough.
Today, I’ve decided to share nine more bits of fatherly advice I’d give my (non-existent) teenager daughter if she actually decides to exist one day.
2. Just assume that every man you meet from now until you’re, I don’t know, 53(?) would sleep with you if given the opportunity
This doesn’t mean that every man you meet is going to try to. This also doesn’t mean that sleeping with you is all any man is ever going to want from you. There will be men who’d give their left testicle just for five minutes of your time. Men who’d build a bridge across Lake Michigan if that’s what it took to you see you. Men who will want to debate you, make fun of you, hear your opinions about “Amistad” and Meek Mill, build houses for you, sit in silence with you, lay next to you, travel with you, learn from you, teach you, learn about you, take you to IKEA, and grow old with you. But, the man wanting to sleep with you is the foundation for all of that, and you’d be wise never to forget that.
Shit, as much as I love your mother, you wouldn’t be here today if I didn’t want to tear her clothes off the first time I saw her at the Ole Country Buffet hovering over a plate of steamed broccoli while her thong was peaking out ever so slightly from her two toned silver vintage stretch pants church.
3. When in doubt, break up
Relationship drama is for grown ups. And by “grown-ups” I mean “old motherfuckers.” If you’re 21 years old, and you and your boyfriend are going through some serious adversity, break the hell up with him. No need to be “working through” anything if you’re still not even old enough to serve in the House of Representatives.
I know this seems cold, but your youth should be the time when you’re having as much fun as you possibly can, not losing sleep because some janky cat with lint on his lips is going through some depression and you don’t know how to help him. You really want to know the best way to get through to him? Say “deuces” and let him figure that shit out for himself.
4. Learn how to ***insert word that rhymes with “pastorgate”***
I’m telling you this now because you’ll likely be a much happier person if you’re able to, um, make yourself happy without the assistance of others. If you need more details, you should probably go ask your mom. Or one of your white classmates.
5. Eat your vegetables
I hate (most) vegetables, but your mom seems to love them. Since your mom is unfathomably attractive — and since unfathomably attractive women have (somewhat) easier lives — I’d suggest you start emulating her. Eat your veggies and shit.
6. When in dating doubt, always err on the side of making things harder for the guy
He needs to convince you that he’s worthy of being in your life, not the other way around.
7. When in relationship doubt, err on the side of making things easier
You have carte blanche to be a bit of an asshole while you’re single and dating. In fact, I encourage it. Once a guy has proven himself worthy and “won” you, though, you can start buying him gum and and sleeping in the wet spot and shit.
8. I know I’m your father and you love me and shit, but don’t try to date men like me
I’m an awkward asshole who only tricked your mother into marrying me because I told her the Sultan of Brunei is my second cousin on my dad’s side. Your best strategy would be to avoid all assholes, awkward and, um, unawkward, regardless of how attractive and “unique” they seem to be. You can usually easily spot them, too. They’re the ones who intrigue you and make you feel a little tingly because they literally do not give a fuck about you or anything you do.
I actually don’t expect you to follow this advice, but if you did it would save you a shitload of unnecessary heartache.
9. Throughout life, you’re going to meet women who say things like “I never really got along with other women.” Avoid these women the same way Antonio Cromartie avoids condoms.
10. Throughout life, you’re going to meet men who say things like “I’m not like every other guy.” If you happen across a man like this, kick him in the nuts.
[Editor's note: this post has been slightly altered from its original version]
Awesome photo (not of Damon Young!) courtesy of mathplourde
About Damon Young
This article, which did make me chuckle, reminds me a lot of what I hear from male friends about their daughters. They joke all the time about how they “know what men are like” and that’s why they are going to dig a moat around the house or put their daughter in a convent until she is 35. My brother in law was totally freaked out when my niece started dating, while my sister was blasé about it. When I was a teenager, my dad did everything he could to intimidate and scare off every guy who showed the slightest interest in me! My mom, on the other hand, talked to me about birth control.
So maybe men should be discussing why they have such negative views toward the young men who want to hang around their daughters… Are their feelings justified or not? What should a father do to keep his daughter from dating the “bad guys”?
I agree! I’d like to hear some input on that as well.
Not being a father myself, I can’t say for certain, but a few idea’s come to mind…
1st: Setting expectations low means one is less likely to get ones feelings hurt when those low expectations are met, and moreover, to feel special when the expectations are exceeded. It helps protect, emotionally, their daughters.
2nd: It has become unacceptable for a man to offer advice to a girl on how to protect herself, with it always being deemed victim shaming. Many men have actually fallen into the belief that it IS victim shaming, but it still remains perfectly acceptable to trash boys, and so, instilling a wearyness of boys produces similar results in the only way they are allowed.
3rd: They are daddies little girl, and dad doesn’t want to lose his little girl to some other man. Same thing happens with mothers and their sons (though it’s not as acceptable to talk about how bad women are, so you get less of the public women are bad/dangerous speach’s from moms, though if other moms are like mine, there were a few private examples).
I’m sure there are more I’m not thinking of. I also suspect this is a rather recent phenominon, at least to the degree and one sidedness of it all. I also suspect they aren’t concious choices.
On the flip side, what about all the slut shaming and slut/stud double standard I hear being blamed on men, when my personal experience suggests it is women far more than men that enforce that dynamic? Perhaps
Didn’t finish my thought…
Perhaps looking at why we are so willing to denigrate our own genders may help us understand why the other denigrates their own as well, and why those stereotypes are able to thrive so easily?
I actually did a psychological experiment on this exact “slut” issue. My results demonstrated that just as many men as women judge another woman as being a slut because of the number of men she has slept with. It did not matter if the promiscuous female was sleeping with lawyers, gas station attendants, gorgeous or ambiguous men. So, the idea that mostly women use the term “slut” to denigrate a competitor or increase personal self-esteem was false in addition to the idea that men don’t partake in the denigration. I was only able to remove the slut connotation from being used when I prefaced the description of the promiscuous female with, “it is encouraged in her society to have several sexual experiences.” When the female was described that way, her slut rating was close to zero. Our society simply does not like it when women have several sexual partners because we are raised to believe that women are supposed to be “pure” and therefore, save our virginity for someone “worthy” or “special”. Men, on the other hand, typically are not raised that way. We will not be able to rid this double standard until women and men are raised to believe that sex is not tied to self-worth, whether it be not sleeping around or having several sexual partners.
This for the U.S? Could it be different say in Australia? I hear slut mostly said by women when judging other women’s sex lives. The times I hear it said by men is sexual frustration at the fact she won’t sleep with him.
“The times I hear it said by men is sexual frustration at the fact she won’t sleep with him.”
That is interesting. Sort of a bit oxymoronic, really. Personally, I hear it said by men and women as a general insult and as an insult about a woman’s sex life.
You’re welcome to post a link to the methodologies and results of this experiment of yours, otherwise, it just sounds like a counter anecdote to my own. I’m also curious if you honestly believe that “slut shaming” is honestly limited to how many sexual partners a woman has had? Most women identified as “sluts” don’t demonstrate any kind of indication on how many partners they’ve had. It’s not like they walk around with a glowing neon light above their head with their sex partner count.
I, too, would LOVE to read that!!
If any of you fathers reading this would like to write that reaction piece, we’d LOVE to consider it for publication. Great idea, guys.
Shoot me an email joanna @ Goodmenproject.com
“I will not allow my daughter to date before she turns 30, perhaps even not then.”
“I am going to intimidate and scare any boy who picks my daughter up for a date so they will respect my daughter.”
And finally the both self-incriminating and thinly veiled boasting: “I know what boys are like.”
We’ve all heard fathers speak these words. Often in jest, but always with a core of sincerity.
Words which will turn out to be no help whatsoever to their daughters as it is based on false premises:
1) Boys are bad and are only after one thing – even at the expense of the girl’s well-being
2) Sex is always detrimental for a young woman. It’s something taken by a boy from a girl.
Some fathers speak and teach this and thinks that’ll protect their daughters. It won’t and it in fact can put her more at risk – certainly so if this is the extent of what the father teach the girl about dating, sex and relationship.
Telling a girl that all boys are bad will soon be proved wrong when she mets a boys she is convinced is good. That sex is detrimental (something that a boy always take from the girl) is a premise which is weakened by her lusting for sex and dispelled when she experiences good sex. When you teach you children something that turns out to be blatantly wrong they are increasingly likely to disregard other things they have learned from you. Things that may be true and useful for them.
I plan to never utter those phrases and I hope I’ll manage to teach her (and my boy!) an healthy respect and belief in their own boundaries – as set by them. Courage to express and stand by their boundaries and the joie de vivre that can be experienced within one’s own boundaries. Instilling good and correct information about possible consequences and what alternatived there are to affect those possible consequences are an important part of this.
In short – she’d be better of learning tools to find and recognize a good guy rather than working from the premise that all boys are bad.
I am aware joie de vivre will include having sex with her boyfriend when they both are ready, consenting and above legal age of consent).
I am fine with that.
Bravo, Tamen!
I completely agree with you Sarah. If I have a daughter (which I hope I do!) I will teach her about sex the same way I was taught (as a young male).
Damon, I am willing to bet that what you write when your daughter is 3 years old will look very different from this article. One can hope…
http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/the-talk-cast-laughs-at-mans-dismembered-penis/
Just can’t help but think this article is just like these women on the talk.
So… basically you want an emotionally stunted daughter incapable of trusting men, unwilling to put any work into a relationship (what you have to do to have a relationship, really, is not bolt at the first hint of trouble), who makes life as difficult as possible for their significant other (and no doubt uses his resulting ‘failures’ to blame him for the inevitable break-up).
I thought this site was about being good men, not about raising bad women?
I think it’s interesting all of the articles published by tgmp about the Trayvon Martin case which basically boil down to the main contributing factor being GZ’s and society’s stereotypical views of black men.
Now, the last several points of this article spread very common stereotypes of ALL men.
I guess as long as you are not including race, it’s okay to disparage men and spread stereotypes.
But, don’t say all feminists do X or Y in the comments or your comment will be deleted.
@John D: You bring up a very good point. If we stereotype ALL men, this naturally includes Black Men, Asian Men, Native Men etc. Why is it ok , to denigrate ALL men, but don’t dare denigrate a sub set.
I think it’s pretty clear that this site isn’t what it purports to be. I won’t go as far as some, and say it’s just a false-start to channel some opposition to femnsm into backdoor support for femnsm, but it’s clearly not about a real dialog. There’s a reason why every post that uses that ideologies name goes straight to moderation, and it isn’t because this is a site where ‘men can be men’.
We’re hardly the first to point this out, but all you’ll ever hear on the matter is silence.
I have decided to articulate why the article upsets me. I come to this site to quite frankly get away from the man bashing on just about every other site on the internet.
This article is simply and purely man bashing, sure it is “JUST A JOKE” and it is supposed to be funny (which quite frankly it isn’t) but even if it were funny, I still think it is wrong on this site.
Good men are born, they are not created. Male (and female) babies are good, they are ‘pure’. Society makes them ‘bad’. They are shaped by what they see around them. If a young man comes to this site to give an honest try about being a good man, this is the last article he should see here. He can see millions of articles like this on Huff, Jezebel, Feminste etc. Quite frankly he doesn’t need it here.
It’s also a crappy article for women.
Number 2:
2. Just assume that every man you meet from now until you’re, I don’t know, 53(?) would sleep with you if given the opportunity
This adds to the bandwagon that sex is something women give to men (not do for their own pleasure).
If his daughter is horny and has sex with men for her *own* pleasure w/out ringing men through the worthiness marathon, will that make her a bad person or make the father a failure at being a dad?
There is a lot wrong with this article from every perspective.
I cant believe the lack of humour displayed on this topic. Damon is trying to tell the truth in a hilarious fashion and everyone is getting their titties in a knot! As the father of two daughters I have discussed all these points with my daughters, just maybe in a more serious fashion. Just one point I would like clarified please Damon as regards #4…….dont black girls “pastorgate”?
OMG,
I remember an article on feministing which talked about a Wayan brothers online joke video.
It was about a superhero who (when called by the prospective father to be) would pummel pregnant women until they miscarried.
The thing is, if a person is willing to let go of a realistic frame of mind and say:”Hey this is just a joke and not advocating anything, stop being so serious” yeah even that subject matter could be funny.
However, it definitely wasn’t funny to the feminists on feministing (who I imagine a fair number congregate at websights like that one specifically because they have had issues with violence from men). To them it was triggering.
This websight has a very similar grouping. There are a lot of men on this board who have been shamed, bullied, or subjected to violence from women. Several of those criticizing this article have contributed articles detailing their struggles against female bullying, shaming and violence. To them even *joking* that men should be subjected to violence for a bad pickup line is triggering.
To be fair, this is the very first time I have seen an article with violence upon men as comedy from tgmp. So they went 16 months without resorting to the lowest common denominator. But, that doesn’t mean we should resist calling them out on poor judgement.
On the flipside I have *never* seen tgmp use jokes about violence against women as comedy. And I seriously doubt they are going to start now (if they did, I wouldn’t laugh at that either). When violence against women is displayed as comedy, everybody starts getting in your face and protesting. All tgmp has done is shown how very far we have to go to respecting the rights and voices of men.
He lost me at “F*ck you.” From a parent to a child? Really? Maybe I’ve seen too many very sad parent/child interactions of this nature for it to strike me as humorous in any way.
Agree that jokes about violence against men are unfunny and inappropriate.
No. 3 Is heartless. If you teach your kids that they should break up with someone as soon as they hit a rough patch, you’re not doing them justice — you’re teaching them that it isn’t worth sticking with other people. You’re teaching them that as soon as something goes wrong, they should just move on. Yeah, being young is about having fun, but if you don’t learn early on how to honest and caring in a relationship then you’re going to have a hard time later on. I’m not saying that you should stick it out if they’ve been abusive or belittling or just plain wrong for you; but if they’re depressed or something is going on, you should at least try to work it out. And if you can’t, then you can breakup. But not preemptively; not just because you don’t want to do any work in the relationship.