“If you’re walking on a sidewalk with a man, and you’re standing here [the left side, beside the cars], and he’s standing here [on the right side, farthest from the cars], get rid of him. Because he cares more about himself than he cares about you.” —a Reno mother teaching her Reno daughter.
This may come as a surprise to my readers, but I mostly agree with the mother. Not on the substance of the matter, nor on the mode of teaching, nor on the values being instilled. But on the fact that you should pass down to your children values that you believe to be important, and apparently this one is important to the mother.
The main thing I find missing from the mother’s description: learning. If the guy is unaware that this particular specific brand of physical comfort is significant to you, have you considered calling it out? I, for one, have learned that some women whom I like to date enjoy when I put my hands over their ears like little makeshift earmuffs whenever an ambulance drives by. I have also learned that some other women dislike this. I do *not* believe that it is an innate, values-correlated thing. I think it’s a choice that I can do, and that I could sufficiently increase my doing-of-this or not-doing-of-this to satisfy either the woman who likes it or the woman who does not.
The number of guys who are taught that sort of physical protection these days is low. The frequency with which a guy *starts out* protecting the woman that way is also low. Often, it builds over time. This mother is going to teach her daughter to select only high-machismo, high-protector men. That may be too much. The right level of protector is more likely to be someone who is decent-protector but still needs to learn the ways that you want or need protection.
It’s shit like this that is pushing back dating and marriage and slowing down natalism.
Apparently, I don’t agree with the mother.
Partner thinks my analysis of this whole experience is wrong. Partner thinks this mother-daughter dynamic is more of a teaching-one’s-daughter-to-pick-a-partner-who-is-a-member-of-a-specific-ingroup than it is teaching one’s daughter a specific set of values to find in a mate. She may be right.
She also mixes up her rights and her lefts.
If so, I *certainly* don’t agree with the mother.
Your analysis?
