There’s a video making the rounds on Facebook right now about a husband who’s about to go on the most important date of his life…but not with his wife! SCANDALOUS!
He gets all dressed up and a friend asks if he’s nervous.
“Yes!” he says, as he ties his tie. “It’s been a long time,” replies his friend.
Then he leaves the house, turns around and rings the bell, and his very excited daughter answers, ready for their date. The girl is adorable. They go have lots of fun together doing things like drinking milk out of princess cups and swinging and going for piggyback rides.
It’s cute. Really. It is. The girl is adorable and they seem to have a good time.
I might not make many friends with what I’m about to say, but I’m banking on that whole “if you say it, they will come” thing that happens when we say things that we know will probably enrage people but might also show us we’re not alone.
Dads, don’t date your daughters.
And this goes for moms, too, though there’s an odd disparity between the number of events aimed at mothers and sons versus those aimed at dads and daughters, and those aimed at mothers and sons are very rarely called “date nights.”
(There’s a whole commentary on why these daddy-daughter date night events exist to get dads to spend time with their daughters/sons and why they shouldn’t have to exist at all because it should just be a thing parents do, but that’s probably another inflammatory blog post for another day.)
It might be a special occasion or a treat when moms and dads take their children to the playground, or out for ice cream, or to the movies, but it’s not dating.
Why is there this thing where we talk about our relationships with our children in terms of our relationships with spouses and friends? Our relationships with our children are neither.
Dating implies there’s a romantic element to the relationship and, quite frankly, it’s weird to talk about dating our children. Go back to the example from that video where the dad talks about being nervous and it’s “been a long time” and tell me that’s anything other than awkward and weird, even if it was scripted.
But Miranda, you say, it’s just a word! You’re giving it meaning where there isn’t any!
No, I’m really not.
The common use of the verb “date” means courting, pursuing a relationship with someone you’re romantically or potentially sexually interested in. Think about that for a minute and let’s stop dating our children.
We can do better. We can choose different words and not frame our relationships with our children in romantic terms.
And while I’m probably offending people, all of the memes declaring ourselves the “first loves” of our opposite sex children are weird too.
Didn’t you read Oedipus Rex?
Am I the first person in my children’s lives who will love them? Who will show them what love is? Yes, probably, but the term “first love” implies schoolyard crushes and high school romance and Mommy and Daddy issues they’ll need to work out in therapy some day.
It also sort of sounds like we can’t let them grow up and experience the world on their own without us, and while that thought sort of rips my heart out, it has to happen.
I don’t want to be my son’s first love. Not like that. And I don’t want my husband to date our daughter.
Spending quality time with your kids isn’t dating. It’s just…spending quality time with your kids. It’s parenting. It’s the stuff we should be doing every day, even if it’s just reading together at night before bed, or sitting around the dinner table engaged in conversation instead of staring at our devices.
Instead of dating your daughter (or son), date your partner.
That’s probably better for your relationships in the long run anyway.
If you want to teach your daughter what to expect from the men she’ll one day find herself dating and possibly marrying, show her (and your sons) a strong relationship. Show her what a solid partnership looks like.
Show her what respect looks like by respecting her mother or the mother figures in her life and she’ll learn to respect herself and demand that from others.
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Show her what love looks like by loving her, certainly.
But don’t date your daughter.
Update/Response/Philosophical Waxing:
First of all, let me just say thank you for reading, even if you disagree with me and can’t wait to blast me in the comments (though I do hope that reading this update might help explain, at least in part, where I was coming from when I wrote this). I appreciate your being here and the conversation that has been sparked as a result of this piece.
I am not now nor have I ever been a crazy man-hating spinster lesbian bitch (or a wanker, I think) but I am sometimes crazy and sometimes bitchy. Occasionally the two overlap. (I’m even medicated! With a therapist!)
Prior to writing this post, it hadn’t occurred to me that others see and hear the verb date in terms of its less romantic definition, i.e. a social engagement. (The noun date means “a set place in time” or we’re talking about a fruit. Or maybe we have a Date Date and then things get really confusing.)
Yes, I was aware that the definition of date as a social engagement existed, but the connotation of the word date, to me, is a romantic engagement between to people who are dating, and I hadn’t realized just how infrequently I personally use the word “date” until the comments and discussions started rolling in.
I don’t say “I have a lunch date with my friend.” I say “I’m going to lunch with so-and-so.” That is not to say that others shouldn’t say that because I don’t say that, or that any of us is right or wrong because we do or don’t say date. It’s just…different.
But the word “date” wasn’t so much the thing that bothered me about the original video and which word to use wasn’t the point I was trying to make. Somewhere along the way, things got confused, so I’d like to take a second to try to clear up what my message was supposed to be.
I want parents to spend time one on one with their children, of both the same and opposite sex. It’s good. It’s healthy. Spending time with our children is vital to their development and our relationships with them.
Here, where I live, there are no “mother-son date nights.” You will never see a restaurant or event facility advertise a “father-son date night” because ::gasp:: they’re both dudes! ZOMG! And the same is true of mother-daughter events, with the exception of teas around Mother’s Day, but then I ask, what happens to the moms who don’t have daughters? Are they uninvited?
There are only events geared toward dads and daughters. There are only viral videos about dads and daughters. There is only anything about dads and daughters happening in this conversation.
So, yes, I do think that there are lines that get blurred when it comes to the notion of “dating” our daughters, and some of that, I now realize, comes from the places I’ve lived and the culture in which I was raised.
That is, the “purity culture.”
I’m a liberal Feminist thinker living in a veritable sea of people who see the world so differently than I do it’s a wonder we’re even looking at the same world sometimes.
In a place where “earn the right to wear white” is a mantra taught in sex ed classes and where daughters are encouraged to pledge their virginity to their parents, namely their fathers, complete with the exchanging of rings, and where there are no such pushes for young men to do the same (nor do young men seem to need the same protection from the big, bad world of dating), the idea that dads should date their daughters so that the fathers can be the great protectors, standing guard with a shotgun while their little girls exit the house with a gentleman caller isn’t one that I can support.
And I don’t necessarily subscribe to the notion that young girls learn about their self-worth and have their self-esteem built up solely by their relationships with their fathers, or that one on one time with their fathers are the only ways they’ll open up when they need to talk about the big things in their lives.
I think a lot of that openness comes from the culture which is created within the home on a daily basis. Engaging each other in questions about the day, talking, sharing, and being kind to and not judgmental with one another.
Daughters (and sons) will learn what to expect from the men/women in their lives by how they see us treat the people around you, which includes them, our spouses or partners, our neighbors, and the waiters at your favorite restaurant. They will come to understand and see the qualities they want in a partner not from what we do on those special outings with them, but from how we live our lives every day.
Be the kind of spouse or partner to your wife that you hope your daughter will one day marry. Treat your wife how you want your daughter to be treated. She will see that. She is seeing that.
So sure, bring your daughter flowers, but bring them for your wife, too. (Chances are, if you’re the kind of guy who’s bringing his daughter flowers, you’re already doing those things for your wife. Good on you!)
Finally, the comments which have hurt me most in this entire thing are those about my dad and what kind of man he must have been.
Call me names. Make fun of me. Imagine me to be some perverted, twisted monster. I don’t care.
But my dad was a good man. He didn’t take me on “dates,” and quite frankly the thought that he should do those things would never have crossed his mind. My upbringing predates the Internet and blogs telling us how we should and shouldn’t be doing it.
But he didn’t have to do those things for me to know he cared.
My dad died last August, suddenly, and without a chance for me to say goodbye, or to tell him that I appreciated the sacrifices he made for me. Or just to tell him thanks for loving me. I will never, ever get that chance again, and can only hope to do his legacy justice by living with the same kindness and generosity he showed for everyone he met.
I am a social worker. I work with abused/neglected kids and their families. That means some of the time I work with convicted pedophiles (who no longer have contact with their children). So often the pedophiles (almost exclusively fathers/step-father/grandfathers) cherish photographs and memories of taking their little girls to daddy-daughter dances. They took the little girls out on dates. With the perhaps blind knowledge, permission, and cooperation of the mother/step-mother/grandmother. Not innocent. This does not mean all men who take their daughters to such events are pedophiles. But on the topic of dances and “dates” the water gets a little murky. It is way too easy for something not innocent to take on the guise of something assumed to be innocent. For the dads who innocently take their daughters to these events to treat them to something special: Do you want to take your little girl to an event where guaranteed the intentions of some of the men there are not innocent? To an event that attracts pedophiles? While you are there, look around and wonder which little girls in the room are going home to a not innocent life after the dance is over. Wonder which men in the room are looking at their little girls — and yours — with not so innocent eyes.
Something tells me you’re not quite the social worker you claim to be, and if you are you’re a rather lousy one at that. The connections you draw are amateurish and I would really like you to site your statistical sources. I work in education and have worked as an administrator working alongside dine excellent special services staff who have had many Ann unfortunate moment dealing with an abused child. Our district even had to come to terms with one of our own staff members being arrested for child pornography, which caused us to have to delve deeper into the issue, it’s causes, signs, etc.
Nothing you have indicated our presented in the video being discussed here has any real connection to child sexual abuse, child pornography, etc, outside the mind of a bunch of people that have become overly sensitive to queues provided by the media.
agreed – there is 0 link. Any child has risk and so by the same argument nobody should be allowed children and children should be segregated from all adults. Also, there is no actual argument in the point – by the same token you shouldnt walk your children down the street? Ridiculous statement. get a new job.
If you actually look at the bonding between the parent and the children, if you consider various theories about the relationships between parents (M/F) with children (M/F), then educating your children from a young age and continual reinforcement of values then this can literally be a fantastic thing to do for both adult and child. Reinforce, reinforce. We still dont fully understand how actions affect us humans as we grow, but a date is only positive reinforcement. The word is irrelevant – it depends how you take the word to mean. If my friend told me he will take his daughter on a date I wouldnt think he is a bad person, rather the opposite. I have “lunch dates” with my work and “team dates”, date can be either sexual or not. A date is a specific time.
Everyone needs to get a life, let dads date, meet, take out or whatever else they chose to call it. Such judgmental BS can do more harm than good when you start persecuting fathers and calling them pedophiles for taking their children out for a great experience. Makes me sad.
@Eileen. That is the very reason that social workers should as a matter of course see a therapist or be counselled themselves. Your vocation exists on the extremities of negativity and the darkness that exists in society. You are not called upon to witness innocence and good parenting, but to deal with deviant behaviour and family horrors of all kinds.So, you are forgiven when your own perception of the world gets drowned in the horrors that you deal with each day. But please do not bring your work home with you……….there are good people out there with the best of intentions for their families and in particular their daughters.In fact there are more enlightened and loving families out there than not……it’s just that the power of negativity and darkness of the minority is allowed to throw the cloth over purity and light! Just as you did in your remark.
OK first of all crazy people, she defined the VERB date, not the noun and that was right after talking about “dating” – Sorry! Those comments were bugging the crap out of me!
And my two cents? I agree with what she says. I think there are already so many things in society that lead couples to put their children first and that is not what is in the best interest of these kids. She hit the nail on the head, we (mothers and fathers) need to have strong, respectful relationships that our children can emulate.
And I do not believe she took a cute commercial and perverted it. She pointed out that the terminology used was creepy and that one scene in particular was VERY creepy and she is dead on accurate!
Dads please spend quality time with you daughters and make them as happy as that little girl in the vidwo , but save the “dates” for your wives, they probably could use some cheering up too 😉 they probably never get a date night!!
Miranda get your brain out of the gutter, as a father of two lovely grown and married daughters i would have loved dating my .daughters as this father did,but being an over the road truck driver for over thirty years i missed many opportunities to spend any guality times with both of my daughters and son and the lifestyle was not codusive to helping my wife and i staying together but we held it together until the kids were grown and on their own. i will tell you right now if anyone of my kids were to come to me and ask for a date night i would gladly do it because i truly really love them and this means not only my daughters but my son as well!
You don’t date your daughter, any more than a mother dates her son. We in this country are always ready to jump over a female’s boundaries. Dads tend to be the main ones and it has got to stop. You as a grown man ought to be dating your wife or your girlfriend and NOT your daughter. She does not need or want you that way. Tese old, balding dads try to get their youth through the closest teen girl and that leads to some dangerous situations. Men need to grow up and stop hanging around their daughters.
Dads/men can be so icky and nasty to their daughters. Girls hate that. I know and remember when my girl buddies and I were in that predicament and now I have three teen daughters and they say to me and their friends all the time how nasty that makes the cel.
someone is jealous their dad didn’t take them on a date when they were a kid. Envy destroys your soul. However reading what you wrote about this, if I were your dad, I wouldnt have ever taken you on a father-daughter date either. Lol
Minion, you ought to rereadyour comment. Men cannot get mad and possessive of this situation. A dad cannot date his daughter. He can take her and her friends out for ice cream or something, but this foolish, sick, talk of dating is incest talk. Stop it men. You all are going too far. Your daughter does not want to go out with you alone. She wants to sit at the table at home and talk to you about school, driving, skating, etc. Men need to keep their desire to date, exclusively aimed at their wives. What the heck is wrong with men.
Jean – you ought to reread your comments. You are a fool
@the truth teller,
You are the fool. You can’t get mad all you like. The reality is these young girls do not want you and other men hanging in their girl spaces. You as an old balding man need to accept the inevitable and that is you are have aged and are no longer youthful and attractive like young males are to these young females.
Also, in response to your lame, but typical arrogant male response to a strong female, I will inform you that i have a loving father and two grandfathers, and I love them all, but I did not and do not desire to date them. The man made notion of a man dating his daughter is a huge “ick” factor for girls. It’s just that dads like you try to dominate everything inthe world and your daughters too. I feel sorry for males like you who think they own their daughters
and their bodies and who ignore their wives. If you would spend a little time teaching your son how to treat and respect females, the world would not have all the rapes, incest, molestations, subjugation of females.
God made a wife for a man, not his innocent little girl daughter. She will get her own boyfriend and husband one day and it is not you. Wake up men and see how sick the world is because of the sick man-made doctrines that were created by you all. See how you men expect for a woman to submit to you when you do not do your roles. Look how you have women thinking that they must show you their nude bodies in every situation, but you explain away your stripping for women. Notice how you marry a woman and then allow your parents and family of original origin to disrespect her and then you tell her that “it’s. no big deal” for yourparentsto be rude. Notice how you have these submission and repect articles all over the Internet so that you all can scold and blame women for trouble
the trouble in their relationships. Now you men have created a trend where you want to. “date” your daughters. Sorry men, this trend ends to be exposed for what it is.
Finally wives and mothers, do not allow your husbands to date your daughters. That is no not right. And watch out for those purity balls. You need to go to those b all’s too and bring your sons. Don’t let your husbands wrap up and hold your daughters the way we see men doing in those “purity” pictures. Look at the girls’ expressions. These girls are so uncomfortable
Geez Jean, you really have been manhandled in your life time! It is very clear from the consequential man hater that you have become who is very happy to advertise this by way of with your androgynous remarks. “Hell has no fury like a woman scorned!”
I am not going to roast you for your opinion but I do think your view point is highly problematic. Who are you to tell other people how to parent their children? And hate to break it you, but the opposite sex parent is usually a child’s first love. It is a necessary part of their development. Is it a perverse as Freud thought who actually believed their was a legitimate sexual attraction there no, kids are not yet capable of that type of feeling. Parents should model a strong healthy relationship, but there is absolutely no need to take something like this and turn it into something other then what it is. I’m slightly reminded of the people who keep insisting there is something inherently sexual about breast feeding. The word “date” does not mean what you think it means, it is a incredibly diverse word that has a multitude of meanings. You rant that the dad treated it like a “real” (romantic) date, but leave out the fact that is a commercial that was designed to surprise you with who opened up the door. There is nothing wrong with dads or moms taking their children out on a date night. It is basically a big game of dress-up and there is nothing wrong with that. People buy flowers for special occasions, not exclusively romantic dates, me and my friends dress up and go to fancy dinners all the time. There was nothing that happened in this video that is exclusive to “romantic” dates. You are entitled to your opinion but others are entitled to their’s as well. Telling people that a completely innocent practice that they enjoy doing with their child is sexual in nature and wrong is going to tick people off.
I agree with you that the most important relationship in children’s lives, the one they watch and emulate the most, is the one between their mom and dad. And throughout their married life, a man should continue pursuing his wife. It’s not a hunt, where once you marry her, you treat her like a stuffed head above the mantle. Everyday should be a challenge to love her more than anyone else that day; to make her feel more loved than any other woman. That has been my goal in my marriage. But I disagree with you about “dating” your daughter. No matter what a father calls it, I believe it is important to set his daughter’s expectations of the man she is out with, whether it’s dad, a friend, or someone with whom she is romantically interested. I set the standards high for my daughter, and she has the best husband in the world. She’s expecting a girl in October, and I encouraged my son-in-law to set the bar for his daughter as well.
I think a father doing this in classy fashion, sets the tone for his daughter to expect nothing less than proper treatment from her future dates. She will understand what is and is not acceptable. I think it is a great idea.
I completely agree with you and find the idea weird. Children going out with their parents is just going out. It is not and should not be dating.
I’m truly sorry you lost your dad. That being said, here are my two-cents: Did anyone gain anything from reading this? Should people change how they refer to the time spent with their children? This subject did little to inform, but a lot to enrage people. There’s already enough rage in the world. Your platform is better used to truly inform and dialogue.
Totally agree with you 100%.
The video clearly was trying to show an enactment of a “date” in terms of what is commonly thought of as a couple going out on a romantic date. Many of the positive comments about the video talked about how daddy was showing his daughter how she should be treated by a boy. So I completely agree with Miranda that the video was weird- as are Father-Daughter dances – in depicting a Dad going on a “date” with his daughter. Dad’s should show their children how they should expect to be treated by anyone by treating their children and their partners with respect and kindness.
Those who oppose this idea of father-daughter dating are stupid and obviously don’t understand the concept of a father teaching his daughter what she deserves when she reaches the age to start dating. A daughter is a fathers princess. No less. You all act like they are being immoral, making out and doing stuff that is unacceptable or just wrong. when clearly this father is just treating his daughter how he should. Like a princess. So all you self righteous people can shove it and shut the hell up haha. You idiots.
A father teaches his daughter by how he treats her mother. That’s what she internalizes. Talk is cheap.
I took the whole thing to mean that the relationship daughters have with their fathers is the first relationship that shows them how men should treat a woman. I don’t know if the literal meaning of a Dad “dating” his daughter is really the point of how the video touched people. It seemed to be more of a message that daughters need fathers in their life to learn how a healthy man/woman relationship should be based on respect and love which is the foundation for true intimacy.
She’s right! It creeped me out a little too! YES! Dad’s need to spend special time with daughters! But this whole setup is wrong! We constantly move special “events” that kids are supposed to look forward to back earlier and earlier and totally change the meaning! The word “wait” is not in their vocabulary! The first “date” used to be at 16! It was a very much looked forward to AND WAITED FOR FIRST! That has been STOLEN from this child! We now have kindergarten proms and limo rides to high school proms that used to be reserved for post wedding! Not only that but the child’s perception of what a “date” actually is has been skewed! So dad showed her how a man should treat her? He couldn’t do that by treating her mom the way a gentleman should treat a woman? Or …is he and mom divorced….perhaps he didn’t treat mom the way he should have….? I’ve read through some of the comments and it’s obvious to me that MANY of you didn’t even read the whole article and just made assumptions. Furthermore you haven’t completely thought this whole thing through. I want my granddaughters to spend quality time with their dads. Which they do. One of them has two dads. Her daddy and her step-dad. Both do special things with her. But it’s “Daddy/Daughter time” and it isn’t in this context! The oldest is nine and knows what a “date” is because she remembers mom and step-dad going before they married. Furthermore, he took her on a few “outtings” to get to know her before they were married! But it was never referred to as a “date!” He “dated” mommy! He took “Riley” to “fun places!”
Amen sister!
Father’s need to show girls how men should treat them. That is exactly what this father is doing with his date.
You go DAD!!!!!!
Totally agree and that is what I put when I shared the video. She will now know how to be treated by a man!
No, she will learn by how he treats her mother every day.
The only point I got out of this entire thing is how happy I am that I don’t know you in real life. Someone who sees ugliness and harm in a simple description of parent-child quality time is NOT someone I want around. I really hope you take a long look at your paranoia, and I hope even more that you don’t inflict your paranoia on the people you DO come in contact with in the “real world”. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get ready; my daughter and I have our weekly pizza date.
I guess a Play Date then means the kids will be romantic. I sure hope not! I say to my friends when we make plans for a girls night , ” Its a date then” We are not romantic when we go out to places and enjoy each others company. I loved the video! Everyone has an opinion but Love makes the World go round! Well one hopes so, it would solve a lot of problems!
I agree wholeheartedly with you Miranda. I also hate those shirts about the dad’s rules for dating. I think we should teach girls to be in control of their own bodies. If dad’s think they set the rules then they are teaching their girls’ that men are the ones’ who control their bodies. If not dad, then the boyfriend.
If there was more dating between parents then there would be more happy families, less divorce and then the daughters’ would not be as “needy” for male attention. Daughters don’t need to date their dads, they need to be loved, disciplined, conversed with etc. on an ongoing daily basis.
I agree that a dad taking his daughter on her first “date” sounds kind of weird. I loved my dad and he loved me, but I didn’t want to date him. He was my DAD. I didn’t “date” either of my boys. They’ve both grown into fine young men. I raised my boys to be gentlemen. And I didn’t have to “date” them to teach them how to treat a woman.
I also agree that dating, in that connotation, should be between partners. Children DO learn by example. Any parent knows that kids tend to emulate what they see more than they do what they hear.
All the Dad that I know are not taking their daughter out to spend time with them but to show their daughter how she is to be treated. So when the girl starts dating and they are not treated with respect the will know what respect is because her father has shown how she should be treated on a date since she was a little girl.
Fathers show daughters what to expect by how they treat her mother day in and day out. Nothing else he does will over-ride that conditioning.
I heard a story about a dad who dressed up and took his tween out for a dinner at a nice restaurant and when they got home he said to her ” Tonight I have taken you out and treated you like a lady. This is what you should expect from any guy who takes you on a date.” Now I think that there was a lot of wisdom in that. A setting of standards , a high standard of expectations. Like everything there is a continuum on what is appropriate. It is a sweet idea and we see a great dad who loves a cute little girl…. but in our society today there is a lot of sexualisation of young children and great care needs to given to the way we ” dress up” our love for children…..The good book says do not be conformed to the world……. The other day we watched a tv show about
Purity Balls in America. I totally got the concept – saving yourself for Mr Right and I have given my daughter a purity ring when she got her period because i thought it was a great symbol almost like an object lesson. However even my daughter felt it was going too far when the father interviewed referred to himself as his daughter’s boyfriend. You could see that he was a genuine loving father but we both shook our heads…… why say it,The word “Boyfriend” in our society has a genuinely accepted meaning by the wider community……. and it’s meaning just make sense in this context…….
why use terms that will confuse people or give the wrong impression …… I think for myself I would prefer to be beyond reproach or misunderstanding…… I also think that this is a topic that needs to stand back and be looked at with careful thought and so either way it is good that the author of this blog has generated discussion on this topic.
I am concerned that so many people seem to think that ‘date’ (the noun) and ‘date’ (the verb) are the same thing. Yes, ‘save the date,’ ”it’s a date,’ etc. are NOUNS. There is nothing inappropriate about it. The verb, infinitive, ‘to date’ is different. It means to go out socially with someone of romantic interest. Literally, that’s what it means. The Facebook video is trying to make a valid point (about spending time with your children), but it does so in a ridiculous way. I had an amazing father who spent tons of time with me, but he ‘dated’ my mother. The time spent with my brothers in me did not have the verb ‘date’ attached to it.