I don’t think that people who are worried about their daughters being in the same household as an adult male are that concerned about their daughters being sexually aggressive, though the driving-daughters-home-from-babysitting thing could be more on the money. None of the families I babysat for ever let me be driven home by a man alone, more out of concern for everyone’s reputation — the kind of reputation that kept responsible young people from going to “lover’s lane” and teenage girls getting married or going to live with extended family in another state when they got pregnant — than because anyone thought anything might happen. My church is slowly moving to replacing all classroom doors with doors with windows in them for much the same reason. It protects the reputations of everyone concerned.

And the people who are worried about their daughters sleeping in the same home with an adult man probably aren’t the same absolutely tacky, icky people who buy pants with words on the rear end for their daughters (I suspect that the girls with obnoxious sayings on their fronts are quite often also the girls with “SWEET” or “PRINCESS” on their rears.) One behavior is an attempt to control sexuality and adhere to a standard of public propriety, admittedly in a “building fences around the law” kind of way — the other most certainly isn’t.

You really have no clue about teenage girls today… they are incredibly aggressive. I am a teacher and I would make sure that I am not alone with a teenage girl.

If saying that the majority of men, especially family men, do not act that way is “naive”, my response is that the opposite outlook is neurotically paranoid. So, again, either find out why you’re such an a**hole and fix it, or find out why you’re so attracted to a**holes and fix that. Just stop slandering the rest of us with your own issues.

And putting a name on the posts would be great, too. Makes things a little easier to respond to.

If the mother wants to avoid allowing her daughter to be alone with an adult male, this may not be an indictment of the father.

My job involves interacting w/ lots of teens – about half of whom are girls 16 to 18. Some girls enjoy flirting with older guys, and don’t differentiate between older as in 22 and older as in 42.

For instance, there’s a math teacher at my school who is a fit, good looking, 40 year old. Some of the things that I’ve heard girls say about him are pretty shocking – comments of a sexual nature. Teen girls aren’t all shrinking violets. He’s been propositioned several times in the 2 years that I’ve worked with him.

But to the point of overprotective mothers and womens’ expectations that men seek to molest adolescent girls.
I suspect that some of this is a rationalization of the resentment that many women feel towards men for their tendency to prefer younger women.

The mother that requested that the father of the family not be the one to drive her daughter home may have had reasons having absolutely nothing to do with the family she’s sitting for. Perhaps the girl’s father is a raging alcoholic liable to hurl accusations or heavy objects at a man dropping off his teenage daughter. Maybe the teenage daughter, the mother, or another person in the family has been a victim of molestation in the past, so the mother is extra-vigilant. Maybe there’s an unknown guy in the neighborhood that’s been trying to pick up teen girls for nefarious purposes, and she wants to avoid any accusations of wrongdoing. The potential reasons are endless.

She could also just be really neurotic and unreasonable….but without further information, it’s impossible to say.

Red’s oldest is nearly 14, and babysits for family and friends all the time. If I were in the position of dropping her off, and I felt uncomfortable for any reason at the thought of the man in that family bringing her home afterwards, I wouldn’t hesitate to either come and get her myself or make the same request that the mother in this case did, because I tend to trust my intuition. Politeness be damned, we’re talking about a kid’s safety here…and it would be the same for any adult working with one of my girls. I also wouldn’t allow her to babysit for a couple I didn’t know and trust, however.

You’re on.

I think you’re nuts to believe you have some special insight into this situation that would overrule the mother’s judgment then.

Why do you say it’s BULL that some fathers do behave badly with teenage girls and a parent might have good reason not to want their child alone with a man they barely know? Are you really that naive?