Father-daughter dances are a long-standing tradition in many elementary schools. However, one father believes that these dances are a “creepy” custom that should be opposed. The dad expressed in this story that he is scared to attend a father-daughter dance with his kid when she is old enough.
Source: Reddit
I see a lot of posts here seeking validation for their situation but I honestly don’t know if what I did was an a%#@ole move or if my wife is just unreasonably angry at me for this.
One day I saw this valentine’s day ad for a daddy-daughter dance night and I told my wife that I don’t like them. My reasons were this: They are creepy and sexualize the relationship between daughter and father. There are hearts all over the poster. It’s on valentines day. The dad and daughter are dressed like they are going to prom together. It’s oddly “date-like”. Not to mention it these dances have their roots purity balls where fathers claim sexual ownership of daughters until marriage. The whole thing just grosses me out and makes my skin crawl. I love my daughter with all my heart, but I don’t want to date her. I also don’t want to reinforce weird gender and patriarchal stereotypes in my daughter’s young mind.
My daughter is 2. This sh%t is all hypothetical for the future. I was just expressing my distaste for them to my wife upon seeing this poster. She lost it. She was shaking and crying. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look at me with such disdain. She thinks I would be denying my daughter a special bonding experience. She was worried my daughter would feel so hurt and left out by this. I don’t think I’d ever not go if it’s something that my daughter really really wanted, but I still think as parents it’s our duty to do better than “it’s tradition”. I’ve never been one to buy into that crap. People do a lot of horrible nonsense because they’re told it’s what they’re supposed to do.
I don’t see the big deal in not wanting to participate in a weird archaic past-time that sexualizes my relationship with my daughter. I can kind of see my wife’s point, but she was so mad I literally didn’t understand it. Help me out, Am i a Jerk?
Here are a few comments on the story where it was originally posted:
