This is one of those posts in which I have multiple points to make, but may not get to any because I will probably ramble. And I ramble because I compose here, on the screen and almost never go back to make revisions.
I am a male with an active libido, always have been. I don’t know if it is higher than other men and haven’t ever really looked into it. But I always remember being interested in girls and have always found so many different things about women to be attractive.
I also have three younger sisters, a fact of life that my father made sure I never forgot. There were many times that I can remember as a teenage boy in which he would remind me that there other boys/men staring at my sisters with the same thoughts I had about other girls.
He would remind me of this every so often and urge me to treat the girls I dated better than the other guys did, if for no other reason than our hope that people would do that to my sisters. And as he said “it is the right thing to do. Know which head you are thinking with.”
So I have always tried to abide by that and for the most part I think that I have been successful. Having sisters has been useful, I understand more things about women than many men. I don’t mean that to sound cocky or arrogant, some of it are just little things that other guys don’t know.
I always opened the door, walked closest to the curb and did many other little things. When mini-skirts came back into fashion in high school I was the guy on a double date who saved it from being wrecked by making sure the other male on hormonal overdrive understood that our dates were not going to step over large objects or slide around things. (That is a story for a different time).
I also understood the whole talking thing better than many of my friends. The idiots who bragged about their conquests and didn’t realize that if they would only shut up and listen to their girlfriends they wouldn’t be making up the stories they told, they would be real.
So here I am, years later, the father of a baby girl. My daughter is 12.5 weeks old, she won’t be dating any time soon. But already I feel the hackles on the back of my neck rising. I am a man and I respond to attractive women. I am sure that I always will.
And I haven’t any problem saying that I have a healthy imagination. And that imagination is what catches me. I know that the day will come when some lad will have “impure thoughts” about my daughter. It makes me wonder if I can stop time. Because if I can stop time I’ll let her grow older, but the 16 year-old will have a 35 year-old father in his prime to watch out for her.
If not I’ll have to go to my backup plan which is to let the boys know that I own property in the desert, a shotgun and a shovel.
In any case, I would be lying if I said that I always remembered that my date was someone else’s daughter or if I said that I always remembered she was more than a good body. I’d like to say otherwise, but it would not be honest and I try to be honest, especially here.
But it is also true to say that more often than not I succeeded. And I suspect, or at least hope that if you were to poll the women of my past they would tell the story of having dated a gentleman.
And to the male children who plan on asking my baby girl out, I issue notice. You don’t know Jack, but you will.
Sometimes less is more. Show less skin and have a little modesty.
I don’t have kids–in the words of the fabulous Miss Margaret Cho, “I ovulate sand”–but when I see little girls, and I mean little ones, all tarted up–and I see them a lot here in the city–I cringe. My Pops used to threaten to lock me and my sister in a closet until we were 30. Now I understand why.
Just being a good father/mother is challenging. No matter how hard we try we are faced with a continuing array of challenges to be overcome.
I think that one of the primary goals of raising a daughter is to make sure that she sees her self-worth is not tied into her looks.
I won’t lie, I hope that people see my children as being smart and beautiful. But they should understand and know that it is the character and integrity they bring to the table that makes the package sparkle.
My daughter is 2 and a half. When I was told during the ultrasound that she was going to be a girl, I nearly had an anxiety attck. I immeadiatly saw 16 years into the future and was horrified. Will she be as reckless and easy as I was in my youth? Is there anyway to prevent her from getting her heart broken, or her reputation bruised as she grows into a woman? Very nice to see a guys perspective on this topic.