davedavalan

I am a single father of 3 teenage children. I have raised them by myself for the last 7 years. Ex is out of state and can care less. Anyway, I have been very over protective and have now come to terms that I must let my daughter start dating. She will be 18 in Sept. Last night she had a boy come over for me to meet. I'm kinda old fasioned and thought that me, her and the boy could sit and chat and get to know one another...instead, my daughter had her cousin over as well, and another boy over to meet the cousin. The thing is, the other boy was an employeee of mine that me and him have become friends. The problem was, I was extremely upset because I was not able to sit and chat with this boy. My friend/ employee said I was unreasonable and just plain ignorant. I felt that my friend and the cousin should have left or shouldn't have been there in the first place. Please tell me how i should have handled this. I even got up out of bed and told my daughter to send them home at 11:00 pm. School night for her. How do I face my friend at work?

musicmom

I am dreading being in your shoes one day. I would have been monitoring them at a distance and I probably would have just told the other two they needed to leave. The thing is with parents you have to be firm and stick to your guns. You should never let the child dictate what you want to do, even if you are a bid old fashioned. Stand your ground!
God Bless ya and good luck. Next time set a curfew in advance for your daughter and she must obey it or else.

FooserX

I would recognize that your expectations are different than theirs. Don’t let any anger of the reactions get the best of you J 99% of all arguments just stem for people having different expectations of what should have happened.

They expected you to just let them go out without meeting, and you expected they would stay. Miscommunication there, no?

I think you could ask your daughter that you still feel like you are her dad and would like to sit down with her. It’s your house, your rules…if she’s going to live there, she needs to respect your rules. I don’t think it’s asking too much. J

As for the employee/friend…lol…don’t let him call you ignorant! I hope it was said in a teasing manner since you guys are friends. He probably just thinks you’re being old fashion…or maybe he just wanted to go out with the other girl, and not deal with you.

Your main issue is your daughter, and knowing who she is going out with. You are well within your right to sit down and talk to who she is hanging out with. That’s called being a responsible parent!