Dad’s Empowering “Rules for Dating His Daughters” Has a Refreshing Twist
Dad’s Empowering “Rules for Dating His Daughters” Has a Refreshing Twist
We’ve all seen the standard run-of-the-mill list of “rules for dating my daughter” — it’s so cliched that it’s almost laughable. In fact, people put this sort of thing on tshirts, presumably to be worn while the young couple leaves the house for their actual date as a sort of intimidating display of badass fatherhood.
But one dad from the US has penned a new set of rules that has blown the “You make her cry, I make you cry” rules out of the water. His post has quickly gone viral as parents everywhere realised their value.
Writer J. Warren Welch is raising five daughters in his blended family with wife Natasha. He doesn’t think tshirts like the ones above are funny at all, so he shared a set of rules of his own.
He captioned his shared post simply: “I ain’t raisin’ no princesses.”
He wrote, “You’ll have to ask them what their rules are. I’m not raising my little girls to be the kind of women who need their daddy to act like a creepy, possessive bada*s in order for them to be treated with respect… You will respect them, and if you don’t, I promise they won’t need my help putting you back in your place. Good luck pumpkin.”
“I understand the urge to protect your daughters,” Welch told TODAY Parents. “I get that. But the kind of posturing by fathers of daughters I was specifically responding to had nothing to do with that ‘protective instinct’ and everything to do with asserting their dominance over women and reinforcing a belief that women need men to take care of them.”
Welch and his wife are raising two 16-year-old daughters, Ashton and Jade, as well as 13-year-old Darcy, 12-year-old Carmen, and 7-year-old Laney, all from previous relationships, in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Welch said he learns from his daughters as much as they learn from him.
“I’m going to be real honest here: I’ve never actually been nominated for a ‘Father of the Year award,’ contrary to what several coffee cups in my cupboard would lead you to believe,” said Welch.
“That is exactly why I know that my daughters don’t need my help making important decisions about their relationships. These girls are my heroes!” he said. “I was a feminist long before I had daughters, but it wasn’t until I was blessed with the task of raising young women that I realized why: these girls are amazing humans, and I can take no credit for that other than the fact that I at least knew that the best thing I could do for them is not try to ‘mold’ them.”
The response to Welch’s post has been “overwhelmingly positive,” he said, which he takes as a hopeful sign indicating “a change in attitudes towards women in our culture.”
We can only hope!
Source: Instagram/J. Warren Welch
Jill Slater
Jill is a busy wife and mother of four young children. She loves nothing more than making people giggle, and loves to settle in with a glass of wine (or four) and wander about the internet. Feel free to follow her to see all the cool stuff she finds!
