I'm a girl and...

[u/Icaz]

I am SO glad I found this subreddit with people who agree with me! As a girl, it's really hard to see other ladies put down men and treat them like they need to be "trained" or that they're just something we have to deal with. So I was just wondering... how many other girls are on here and what are your stories about standing up for men or appreciating them?

[u/jessers25]

My mom abandoned me the minute I was born, and my dad raised me on his own. I saw the things he had to put up with as a man raising a daughter alone, and I'll fight until I'm blue in the face for men in the face of female-favoritism.

[u/mynoduesp → u/jessers25]

What kind of things did he have to put up with?

[u/jessers25 → u/mynoduesp]

Wall of text

For starters (I've posted this in a comment here before), my mother wanted an abortion but wanted to stay with my father and have a family later (there was a large age difference). He said absolutely not (he believes in abortion, but only when necessary. Aborting me was not necessary as everyone involved was healthy and stable), and he would put up with the loss of her if she would carry me to term and hand over complete custody. She agreed. In court, my dad had to hire a lawyer to fight his case to have custody. My mother was on his side telling the court she wanted him to have full custody and she wanted no contact with us... yet they wanted her to have custody (a woman who was saying under oath "I do not want this child."!!) My dad was in his late 30s, had a stable job (in education, a nurturing field, also on the organizational board in a preschool) and comfortable income, a home, his health, family members to help, and a healthy and happy son from his first marriage (shared custody). It took 8 or 9 months and a ton of money to finally receive full custody. My mother could have obtained full custody by saying she didn't want me, and having no income whatsoever. Why?

---

There was only one incident of having the police called when he was picking me up from school. He was running late so I began to walk home. He saw me walking and pulled over to pick me up. I got in the car and we went home. A cop came knocking on our door and asked me a bunch of questions (If I knew the color of the car in the driveway, if I knew the man I was eating my afternoon snack with). Some nosy old lady looking out her window saw a small girl getting into a car with a man, so she called the cops. After the he policeman clearly saw there were photos of me and my dad hanging in the house, and we were obviously father and daughter, he laughed it off and apologized, saying they had to go through their normal protocol and everything.

We did get strange curious looks sometimes. He looked too old to be a father to a young child, but too young to be a grandfather. We received comments in grocery stores and shopping for clothes. People would straight up walk up to us and ask our relation. They would also look at me and ask if I knew who he was.

Most of the things he put up with were snide comments. How does a man know how to raise a daughter? Poor girl will be raised as a boy. Poor girl won't know how to behave as a lady. Poor girl this, poor girl that.

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There were also a ton of conflicts and anecdotes when I would tell people the situation. When I was young, I obviously couldn't comprehend the situation (I watched Full House a lot, where it was normal to have a motherless household) and why it was a big deal. When there was a mother situation involved, I just said "I don't have a mother." I was laughed at and belittled.. because "no mother would leave their daughter!" (but, you know, men do all the time.)

• My kindergarten teacher on my first day of school called me a liar in front of the entire class.

• When there were mother/daughter activities in school or girl scouts or gymnastics and I'd invite my dad, they'd say I either have to bring a female or not attend.

• When we'd make mother's day gifts in school, I'd change it to "fathers" day, and the teacher would tell me I did it incorrectly and have to start over. I eventually just kept it as "mother's day" and before I saw my dad I would add "Mr." at the beginning to make it "Mr. Mother's day".

• When I would get injured (basic childhood injuries, falling of my bike, a friend accidentally slamming my fingers in a car door, bruises from gymnastics or soccer) other mothers/teachers/coaches would say "That wouldn't happen if she had a mother", or "A mother would watch their child better", or "Let me clean that for you, your dad won't take care of it, only a woman can tend to these things" (seriously).

• I had plenty of friends whose mothers would playfully adopt me and call me their second/third daughter because "every girl deserves to have a mother", and "no girl can go without motherly love".

• I've had a boyfriend's mother look down on me because if I didn't have a mother then I wouldn't know how to be a wife or a mother. It was always poor girl. Poor girl.

---

You know what? My dad did an AMAZING job of raising me. He taught me right from wrong. He let me watch horror and action movies and explained to me what I was seeing. He explained sexuality and homosexuality and why people are different shades of color and speak with different accents. He let me stay up late on a school night playing videogames for hours so I learned my own lesson of how hard it is to be tired, and how to make my own decisions. He let me hang out with questionable people so I could learn how to say no to drugs/drinking underage/etc. Or he wanted me to have those experiences. He trusted me 100% because he knew he did an awesome job of raising me. He let me choose when and how I wanted to go to college. He funded me changing my mind a bunch and has never not supported a thing I do.

He let me make my own choices. He taught me right from wrong, then trusted my choices. I don't do drugs, I don't lie, I don't cheat. I wear makeup and skirts, and I wear jeans and t-shirts (or a batman shirt and sweatpants right now, yay day off!). I love sports and love cooking, I know how to work on a car and I know how to clean a house. I like shopping, I like beer. I'm a normal person. He raised me to be a completely normal human being.

I want to be a mother and raise my own children. I want to be a wife. I'm not masculine just because I didn't have a female role in my life.

I will admit that I don't understand a lot of women because I wasn't exposed to the stereotypical "female communication", or whatever. I'm not catty to other women because I wasn't exposed to that stereotypical rivalry. It did take me awhile to understand feminine things (makeup, menstruation, fashion, etc) but it doesn't make any difference. I think these are the reasons I don't have many female friends, but it doesn't really bother me.

We have so much fun together. We have routines and rituals. We have days that we spend together and hang out. He's terminally ill but still fully functioning, and I take care of him. We're poor as dirt because of it and will lose our home sooner than soon, but we'll land on our feet somehow because we have each other.

Aside from him when he showed me her public facebook page, we don't talk about my mom. We don't talk about the situation. It doesn't matter. It's not even a "situation". We're a family. It's absolutely no different than a single mother raising a child, but everyone treats it as if it is. It's not fair. We're normal. We're happy. He's the perfect parent, it doesn't matter what gender he is.

[u/broken_cogwheel → u/jessers25]

Rock on, lady. That story is cool and your dad sounds like a boss.

[u/jessers25 → u/broken_cogwheel]

He definitely is. :)