My (36M) Fiancè’s (33F) thoughts on teaching our daughter about sex and relationships bother me. How do we practically bridge this gap?
TLDR; Partner and I have different attitudes and experience of sex and relationships. Concerned about impact on our daughter as she grows up.
Me (36M) and my fiancé (33F) have been together for 9 years and had a surprise little girl a few years ago. I think because we’d never really considered having kids we’d rarely really chatted about deep “how would you bring them up” stuff and now we do we occasionally find ourselves at opposite ends of the spectrum. It doesn’t cause too much friction really but sometimes it makes me uneasy and i struggle to see her perspective.
I’m very much of the opinion that I want my daughter to be whatever she wants to be but i see it as my role to both protect her and also expose her to as many new or challenging things as possible. Whereas my partner is more of a “i’ll support whatever she wants to do” kind of thing.
No biggy there in general- as long as she’s being supported then i’m happy.
My issue is that this attitude seems to extend to absolutely everything. My partners mum has this attitude and it led to my partner having a pretty turbulent time in her teens and early twenties. She dated much older men (like a 35 year old when she was 17), was taken advantage of on a couple of occasions and generally struggled with being left behind by her peers who all had more extra curricular activities going on outside of school and established hobbies that weren’t just meeting guys off Myspace. She still maintains that she was “mature for her age” and doesn’t frame any of it as a problem (i don’t push this but as a 36 year old man I cant help but feel its incredibly weird to be sleeping with 17 year olds). I should point out that i’m in the UK so this isn’t illegal, although societally it is still seen as pretty questionable in general. Aside from that, neither of us were angels, we slept around and did all the other stuff that comes with being slightly chaotic young people but for me that was part of my life, not my entire social experience or validation system, as it was for her.
We’ve had conversations recently where she’s basically said “if our daughter wanted to do onlyfans then i’d support her as long as she had all the right info” or “it doesn’t matter how old someone is, she can date who she wants”.
As a dad I find myself sitting there thinking, well yeah - i’m never going to disown my daughter for anything but do you not think we should try and make sure she has enough going on and enough self belief that she knows her worth and has enough about her to identify some of the more predatory things you went through? It’s like she is blind to the link between how she see’s her own value and the decisions she’ll make as she grows up.
There’s obviously deeper stuff going on here but I do worry that she’s essentially saying “do what you want” and washing her hands of trying to shape a solid moral compass.
From her side she see’s my opinion as slightly reductive and actually views things like OF or casual sex as quite empowering. Almost like, taking advantage of men who are trying to take advantage you kind of thing.
As a man, i fully support anyones right to do what they want with their own body but I would find it quite sad if my daughter was brought up to believe that this was intrinsically linked to her value or place in the world. I’m a man and grew up around men so I fully understand the complete lack of respect some have for girls who they will happily sleep with and never think about again.
Either way - i’m not clear how we find the middle ground without delivering mixed messages. If i’m the boring boundary setting one then i’m sure she’ll just gravitate towards her mum’s more relaxed attitude instinctively as she grows up, which I honestly think is more than a little sad. How do we meet in the middle here as a couple on something we’re so diametrically opposed on?