Updated: Nov 13, 2019
Dating and daughters… it’s a delicate subject, especially between moms and our girls. Just the thought of our daughters being in the game can make us feel like throwing up in our mouth. And just the mention of it to our girls can make them feel like slamming doors in our face because they’re sure they know it all. So it’s a tricky one, this whole relationship thing. Because, as women who have already played the game when we were young, we want to save our daughters from the heartbreak and risks of dating, and they want us to butt the @$&! out. Therein lies the challenge.
As moms, we need to give our girls the knowledge to navigate relationships in a way that respects their boundaries, but also ensures that they have all the tools they need to avoid getting hurt. That’s not exactly easy, but it is doable. Because all it takes is prioritizing the super-important stuff and reinforcing it over and over and over again (with our fingers crossed behind our backs that they’re listening).
See, imparting wisdom is just what we do as moms, because there’s so much we need our daughters to know and remember and do. And even though we wish they’d just let us ride shotgun on every date and be part of every relationship decision, that’s straight up never going to happen. So, we do the next best thing, which is to talk all the talk and give our girls as much of our knowledge as we can before they ever even leave the house. We distill all the important dos and don’ts and basically pass down our own personal field guide for how to survive in the dating world.