5 Pieces of Advice For My Daughter
“Would you recommend this stuff to your own daughter?”
I occasionally get that question. The answer is yes, but that doesn’t really give you any context. Moreover, what I seem to get more often is men saying something like “Well, yeah, that’s true, and you make good points, but when I have daughters I’m going to tell them to do things the old fashioned way.”
I’ve always thought that strange, since this is usually coming from men who are well aware the old fashioned way doesn’t work any more and simply creates legions of divorced, angry, thirtysomething women, along with a bunch of really screwed-up kids. Since I love my daughter and want her to be happy, my advice to her is congruent with the goal of having her not become a divorced, angry thirtysomething, constantly stressing out about money and kids.
This is a letter I wrote to my 15 year-old daughter “Indie” regarding men. It’s also an open letter to all young women under the age of about 20 or so. I mean every word of it. I removed a few parts that were personal between my daughter and I, but the rest is word-for-word what I wrote.
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Dear Indie,
I love you. It is my greatest hope and goal for you to be a happy person throughout your life. Not only happy now while you’re young and carefree, but happy as you get into your 20s, 40s, 60s, and beyond. I want you and your brother to live lives of long term happiness. When you’re 60 years old, I’ll be 85, which means I’ll still be alive and healthy (barring an accident). If, when I see in your eyes you’ve lived a truly consistently happy life, then and only then I will know I have succeeded as a father.
If instead I see in your eyes the weariness of life that I see in the eyes of most women over age 30, the weariness of failed relationships, failed marriages, raising children without the help of a man, financial struggles, and all the other problems women today wrestle with, then I will know I will have failed as a father, at least a little.
To help you on your journey, I’ve come up with a list of 5 pieces of advice for you when it comes to dealing with men. These are things you should pay attention to not just now, but for the rest of your life, from age 15 to age 65.
Some of these things we’ve already discussed, others we have not. Some of these other people will agree with, others will flat out horrify people. I’ve told you a little bit about Societal Programming…this is why.
As I’ve always told you, listen to people when they give you advice or opinions opposite to my own, lend your ear to them, and understand their point of view. But be sure to ask lots of questions. Make them defend their opinions, just as I defend mine. Most importantly, make sure they can back up what they say with facts and reality, not with feelings and reactions.  (You and your brother have become pretty good at doing that, so I have no doubts about your ability in this area.)
Okay, here are my 5 items, listed in no particular order.
1. Do not get pregnant before age 18. If you do, daddy will not help you. Of course I can’t monitor you 24/7 to make sure you don’t have sex. Neither can your mother. But what I can do is tell you exactly what will happen if you are stupid enough, weak enough, and so disrespecting of yourself if you chose to actually get pregnant before you turn 18 years old.
You’ll ask me for help, either financial help or babysitting help or whatever. I will simply throw you and your baby into the car, drive you downtown to the welfare office, and drop you both in line with all the other losers. Then you can wait in line for the scraps Barack Obama will throw at you as you begin your new life of stress and poverty. I will then shake my head sadly and drive away.
I will always love you. Always, and unconditionally, no matter what you do. But I will not reward you for ruining your own life on purpose. And if you get pregnant and have the baby, I promise you, it will be because you did it on purpose. You knew what you were doing. You understand how the human body works. In a world with abortion and 11 forms of birth control, some of which you can get for free, there is no such thing as purely “accidental” babies. That’s more false Societal Programming.
You already know why many other girls are having babies in your high school well before they’re 18. It’s because everyone, all their friends, and particularity their parents, kiss their asses, congratulate them, and help them out when they do. I want to make it very clear to you that you will receive no such support or help if you choose this terrible, destructive life path. (At least not from me; your mother is free to do whatever she wants.)
I’ve already told you that women who have babies before age 18 are almost guaranteed (as in over 90%) to live their entire lives in poverty. I don’t want you to live a life like that. I love you too much. Hopefully if I make that option terrible enough for you, you won’t do it.
Of course, once you’re 18 years old, you’re a legal adult, and can do whatever you like and have all the babies you want. I’m talking here about having babies before you’re 18.
Now let’s talk about having babies after age 18…
2. Wait until you’re 30 years old before you have any kids. I know you want to adopt children at some point, and I think that’s beyond wonderful. But please, please, wait until you’re at least 30 years old before you have any kids, whether they come from your womb or not.
You’re a strong, intelligent, passionate woman. You have great things ahead of you. Your 20s is a very precious time. It’s the only time in your life when you have no kids, no spouse, don’t live at home with your parents, have youth and vitality, are attractive to the opposite sex, and are free to do whatever you want.
You destroy almost all of that by having kids before age 30. You’ll regret doing it for the rest of your life. Most people who have kids before age 30 do.
Moreover, at age 30, you will have a much stronger sense of who you are. You will also have more discipline, maturity, and financial resources, and you’ll need all three of these things in abundance to raise small children.
I don’t care if you’re married or not…wait until you’re 30 to have kids. There is no rush.
3. Until you reach age 50, do not plan on any man being with you longer than 2 – 5 years. No matter how wonderful a man he is, no matter how much you love him at first, human nature will eventually take over. This applies to him, and it applies to you. None of us are angels Indie. I wish we were, and it would be wonderful if we were, but we aren’t. We are human beings, frail and flawed, with brains hard-wired with behaviors that are 150,000 years out of date.
What is overwhelmingly likely to happen when you get into a relationship with a man is that within 2 – 5 years, he will eventually cheat on you, or make you very angry, or hurt you in some major way. This will likely end the relationship.
But that’s actually the least likely of the two relationship-ending outcomes. What’s even more likely to happen is that you will start losing your sexual and romantic attraction for him, even if he’s a really nice guy. As a matter of fact, it will happen especially if he’s a really nice guy. Then you will leave him.
This does not make you evil or bad. It makes you human, and a woman. Nor will these guys be bad guys out to hurt you or lie to you. They are also human, and men. It’s how we are.
Over the course of your life you will see people of all ages attempt to deny, with their actions, everything I just said. And over and over again, you will see them fail. You will see them divorce, break up, fight, argue, and cheat on each other. You will see them with new lovers every few years. “This time it will work,” they will say. And they will be wrong.
My hope for you is that you will not be part of this dreadful cycle. My hope for you is that you will be happy.
Love men. Be with them. Make commitments to that one special man if you want. That’s wonderful. I’m smiling right now thinking of you with a wonderful, strong man at your side.
But as long as you’re under the age of about 50, don’t make any solid plans that rely on that man to be around longer than about 2 – 5 years or so. The odds are overwhelming, overwhelming Indie, that he won’t. When you part company from him, it will cause far more damage to him, you, and any children between you if it was not planned for in advance.
Of course you could end up with a guy longer than 5 years before you turn 50. It’s possible, and if it happens, that’s fantastic. Just don’t plan on it. Don’t rely your entire life, emotions, long term plans, and finances on the outcome that he’ll be around longer than 2 – 5 years. If it happens, consider it a nice bonus.
Once you enter your 50s, much of this dynamic will change. Once a woman reaches 50 or a man reaches 60, “till death do us part” really does take on some actual, real-world meaning. But rarely before then. It’s just not how people are, and it’s not the kind of culture we have any more. Plan accordingly.
4. Never believe a man when he says he’ll never have sex with anyone else. Just about every man you date will promise this. 40% of these men will be lying to you. The other 60% will be lying to themselves. Again, if you ever do have a long term relationship where a man never cheats on you, then consider it a nice but unexpected bonus. Don’t plan on it.
Yes, men can be monogamous, but only for short periods, and even then it’s painful. I was faithful to your mother while we were married, but as a strong, driven, masculine man it was extremely painful and unpleasant for me. I had to constantly work extremely hard at it to the point of exhaustion. (And by the way, you might notice your mom and I aren’t together any more.)
I could advise you to adopt a lifestyle like I have, where cheating doesn’t exist because monogamy doesn’t exist. But you need to make your own decisions about that. What I can advise you to do, regardless of the path you take, is to never, ever assume that a man will be sexually exclusive to you in the long term, regardless of what he promises, how convincing he is when he promises it, how nice he is, how religious he is, how much he loves his children, how sexually inexperienced he is, how polite or compliant he is, how wonderful his parents are, how much he loves you, or how good of a girlfriend/wife you are to him.
He’s still a man, designed to act the way men have been programmed to act by nature and society for 150,000 years. Again, this does not make him bad or evil. It simply makes him a man. We are very simple, predicable creatures.
5. Do not expect men to “love you for you”. Men will love your appearance first and “you” second. Therefore as a woman, your physical appearance should be a very high priority throughout your life. I don’t have to tell you that the prettier a woman is, the easier her life is. You see that all over the place as often as I do. No, it’s not fair. No, it’s not right. But that’s the way it is, and neither you nor I can change that about society.
One of the many things I hope you learn, and one of the core concepts I’ve tried to teach you and your brother, is to take action within the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. It would be wonderful if men out there were attracted to women purely based on their personalities, intelligence, and kindness. But you and I know that’s not how the real world works. I would be lying to you if I told you to just “be a nice person” and you’ll attract a very high quality man. You might, but the odds of this are low if you don’t have a pleasing appearance.
When a man looks at you, even if he’s a highly intelligent, fair, nuanced, educated, kind man, he will look at your face first. He will look at your body second. Everything else, your personality, your skills, your accomplishments, your feelings, your wonderful spirit, your caring, and everything else you have to offer the world he will look at only if your face and body meet with his approval. If they don’t, those things won’t matter to him.
It gets worse. He will judge your worthiness based on his quality. If he’s a good looking, athletic, high-income, responsible, successful man, you’d better be very attractive or he’ll move on and find another woman who is. If he’s a fat, ugly loser with no money and no future, then he’ll take you no matter how bad you look. The quality of the man you attract is based on your appearance more than any other single factor.
No, it’s not fair, but this is how men work in the real world. Again, it doesn’t make them evil or misogynistic. It simply makes them men.
The more pleasing your physical appearance is, the easier things will come to you, the less hard you’ll have to work, the higher quality of men you’ll attract, and the nicer men and women will treat you.
You’re already beautiful, so you have a head start on this. Keep it up. Don’t ever let your appearance waver. I told your brother when he was younger that as a man, his primary focus should be to make as much money as he can. As a woman, you need to look as good as you can. Again, this is how society is, and these are the realities you will face when you leave home.
Now don’t get me wrong. Of course I’m not saying you shouldn’t make a lot of money. Hell yes you should! Remember item number three above…it’s going to be difficult to rely on a man for consistent, long term financial support pre-50, so you need to make sure you’re as financially independent as possible. My next letter to you will be about making money. For now, I”m just saying that the better looking you are, the easier this part of your life will be.
That’s all for now. Again I’ll repeat that a lot of this advice is going to rub people the wrong way, and they will tell you I’m wrong. That’s okay. Listen to them, but make sure they can defend what they say with facts beyond just defensiveness or anger.
I love you Indie. You have such a wonderful life ahead of you. I’m so envious.
~Dad
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So you wouldn’t give her your guide: http://www.blackdragon-blog.com/2013/05/12/fun-with-theory-what-if-blackdragon-had-been-born-a-woman/ ? Because there you say it’s better to have children very early “So by about age 25 or so, I would have had my two kids ” to “Eliminate The Biological Clock”
BD, thanks for helping me become more jaded and cynical towards monogamous relationships with each new post.
BD, regarding #2
I believe its backwards for a woman to plan NOT to have children during her years when fertility rate, safety of childbirth and health of the child are highest.
Having child gets precipitously harder after 35, but after 30 there is a small but significant drop as well.
I don’t think having kids after 30 is a bad thing, but to plan for that as the best option is an incorrect way of thinking.
Furthermore, it will be a lot easier for her to keep the father of her children around while she is at her young, beautiful prime.
I don’t have to tell any woman in her 30’s that men who have any kind of option are really not jumping at the chance to father kids with a woman in her 30s and stick around to raise it.
There’s also the issue that in particular a woman in her 30s who has spent her beatiful youth fucking around is not likely to find attractive male suitors when she is ready to “settle down”. You and I differ where I think this is biological imperative of men, you think it is societal conditioning, but that argument is irrelevant for the larger point because that reality is, but whatever it is, men are not willing to settle down with these women. You may be selling her a false bill of goods by telling her that she can have care-free sex through her twenties and expect that a guy will be want to settle with her to raise a kid for even 5 years.
I realize you believe guys settling down is a false goal anyway, but I think you’d agree its preferably that the father of her child stick around as long as is feasible, right? If she meets him while she’s young and fresh she’ll get a guy who is more likely to push the upper limits of that 2-5 years and beyond.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-112136/The-female-fertility-clock-starts-ticking-27.html
” I’ll be 85, which means I’ll still be alive”
Damn dragons are a long living species!
I kind of wondered about the kids after 30 thing too. It seems clear that she would get a lot more happiness out of her 20s without children, but I wonder how that balances with the risk of potentially not having them at all and what that would do to her long term happiness. It would be interesting to know if there are any statistics on how many women who don’t have kids by 30 never have kids.
Number 5 is probably those most controversial on the list. It’s definitely true, but society seems to really wish that it wasn’t. Two things that immediately come to mind are the “healthy at any weight” movement, the Real Women photography project (I think the abuse of photoshop on magazine covers is bs too, but this guy seems to think “real” means overweight). The goal of both is to help fat people feel ok about their weight and to convince the rest of the world to treat them like they’re normal weight even though they aren’t.
I have a friend who was crushed when his three year old daughter said a shirt made her look fat, and while I think it’s sad for young girls to have body image issues, I don’t think he’s doing her any favors by trying to teach her that it’s better to be smart than pretty. It’s not like the two are mutually exclusive, so why not encourage both?
Well done — for your situation. I’m curious how you would address your daughter if she was ugly and overweight. Would you write the same letter if she was a 2 instead of a higher number on the attractive scale? I guess it really doesn’t matter for you, but for the person not in that situation, it could be tough. I think the truthful letter would read something like: “You will need to find guys who themselves are fat and ugly. Don’t waste your time trying to be nice to an attractive man, because even if he’s a nice guy, he’s not going to have sex with you. I love you Indie. You don’t really have a wonderful life ahead of you. I’m not very envious.”
That’s if she was a female version of me. She’s not.
I was waiting for someone to give the “down syndrome excuse”. Read your own article. A woman having a baby at age 35 represents a 1 in 365 chance of it having down syndrome. That’s a tiny fraction of one percent. C’mon.
Even if the odds for that kind of thing were several times higher than they are, I would still recommend it. The overall life advantages for the mother, father, and child are still greatly increased the older the parents are.
Post specifically about this coming soon…
For now I’ll just say this. Average life expectancy for an American man is about 78. However, if one reaches age 70 without any major health problems (cancer, heart attack, etc), it skyrockets into the 90s. More on this later.
Great point. I want my daughter to be at least reasonably attractive as an adult AND to make good money on her own. That way she’s covered both bases.
Great question. That would be tricky, and the short answer is I would not explain this to her in a letter since that would leave room for too many misinterpretations and hurt feelings. I would have to explain this stuff in person. I would convey the exact same thing, but put more emphasis on how “her and I have work to do”. I would tell her that I would be a resource to her to help her clean up her appearance so she could live a more happy life as an adult woman in the modern era. I would also internally set my own expectations. If she really was a 2, I would want to crank her up to at least a 5 or 6; I wouldn’t be shooting for a 9 or 10 (unless it was clear she was putting in some unusually strong effort).
And of course she would have to want it. If she didn’t, there would be nothing I could do and she’d be making her own choice.
I agree with LaidNYC–30 is too late to start having kids (For women.) Female fertility starts to drop off around 27, takes a bigger hit at 30, and then a massive hit at 35, until nose-diving into the single-digit percentages at 40.
The letter was spot-on otherwise, but it’s wise advice for any female who wants to have kids to at least start thinking about it by 25, and getting serious about it by 27-29.
Can you post one of these for your son?
Blackdragon said – “I was waiting for someone to give the “down syndrome excuse”. Read your own article. A woman having a baby at age 35 represents a 1 in 365 chance of it having down syndrome. That’s a tiny fraction of one percent. C’mon.”
Remember BD, that’s only for down syndrome. There are countless other chromosomal disorders that also increase a fraction, and those risks are completely independent of down syndrome. That 1 in 365 chance gets a little bit higher.
Not to mention complications for the mother are higher when getting pregnant over 30. Hypertension, gestational diabetes, ectopic pregnancy, preeclampsia. The older she is, the more pregnancy can really beat the shit out of a woman.
For perspective regarding the down syndrome issue:
If you fill up MetLife Stadium’s 82,566 seats — the seats that will be filled during the Super Bowl next year — with mothers age 35, 226 of those seats (approximately 1/3 of an entire section) will contain mothers who are holding babies with down syndrome. If you do the same thing with 25 year-old-women, 64 seats (that’s about 3 rows in a section of the stadium) will have mothers holding babies with down syndrome.
It’s easy for an individual to look at the percentages and think, “Oh, those odds are low.” But when the population as a whole is considered, one needs to realize that it is INEVITABLE that it’s going to happen to someone.
You’re taking the societal, bird’s eye view. I’m taking the individual, on-the-ground view. The number of people in the stadium are irrelevant to you as an individual. The only relevance is your risk for these things as an individual.
And remember, I’m not saying women should have babies at age 40, or even 35. I’m talking about 30, which is just five years past 25.
Back to my point: If you’re a woman, having a baby at age 25 represents a risk of a faction of one percent. Just waiting just 5 years to age 30 still represents a faction of one percent, albeit a little larger of a faction. However your overall life benefits for you and your child (and likely the child’s father) are enhanced by 30%, 50% or more. That’s a fantastic trade a woman would be crazy not to take.
Hard core, dad.
How ironic I was watching a guy get married on TV as I read this. Huh.
Eye carumba, please don’t post on the Blackdragon sites sweetie. I sent you your letter but the rest of the blog is 18-and-over subject matter. (Plus you’re going to get a bunch of extra grief from your mother.)
When my other two blogs are ready you can post over at those. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Hey BD,
It would be very nice if you could send a letter out to your son and post it on your blog!
I’m curious what advice you would give to young males striving for the alpha male lifestyle or just surviving in society in general.
This entire blog is written to men, both young and old. So everything on this blog could be considered a letter to my son. I’m not sure what would be any different in a letter to my son than what I’ve already said on this blog for many years. Such a letter would be boring repeat of classic Blackdragon stuff (don’t get legally married, don’t get monogamous, make sure you can afford kids before having them, make as much money as you can, etc, etc)
I see some other people have already hit on this, but I would not recommend any woman wait until age 30 to start having kids. I’ve seen too many female friends and friend’s wives go through heartbreak and painful fertility treatments because they waited until 30 to start having kids. I know it makes sense from a financial standponit, or from an experience standpoint, but the human body just isn’t designed that way. Women are designed to have babies when they’re young, by 30 the machinery is starting to break down, and that’s just the way things are.
Thanks for the advice, Blackdragon. I’m a teenage girl following your blog for a couple months now, mainly because the ideas expressed are interesting and make a fair amount of sense. This post will save me a multitude of agony and save years of time in the future, you don’t even know. Many thanks.
Women are less fertile after 30. But not to the point where they can’t conceive at all. The fear of infertility is an overreaction. More people are going to fertility clinics because they are impatient and want to conceive on their schedule instead of natures.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-112136/The-female-fertility-clock-starts-ticking-27.html
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-04-23/infertility-young-women/54482470/1
I stumbled upon this site after searching advice for my daughter, and I was horrified to see this. I appreciate you’re trying to “keep it real” but I disagree with the perspective here. Teaching women that all the opposite sex will want them for is appearance is completely toxic. I speak from experience – my father was a classic old school man who made insensitive comments and “kept it real” like you do here while raising myself, my sister, and my brother. After having spent lots of time praising sexy women and disparaging fat ones, my sister (who was naturally big-boned) tried to starve herself to an acceptable weight that my father wouldn’t comment on or try to “helpfully improve.” She eventually died of complications from anorexia. My dad never really forgave himself (and neither did the rest of the family) and although he never admitted he was wrong to us, he made a remark at one point that he would take back all the comments he made about her needing to be prettier and thinner and pay any price if he could have her alive for one more day.
It’s not just toxic for women, my brother grew up with my father pushing the machismo thing you’re preaching here and came to believe that money & “being a man” was all he was good for. He got extremely depressed after losing all his money in the stock market, was convinced his wife would leave him (she didn’t), and had to undergo years of therapy to get rid of his depression and low self-worth from that damaging belief.
You don’t have to believe me, there are tons of studies that support that these ideas are mentally unhealthy for both men and women. I just hope that you and some of the readers you have will at least consider another perspective before you or they do some real damage to themselves and others (this is assuming you’ll post this and you don’t screen comments out for not supporting your views). I’ve experienced it personally. My own thought on being pretty / hot or rich / successful is that confidence in yourself for men or women trumps everything when it comes to attracting the opposite sex.
Your blog is provocative, I’ll give you that.
That is not what I said. Take some deep breaths and go back and re-read the article. Slowly.
That is horrible and I’m not recommending what your father did.
I do not teach this.
When you read something, you need to read it clearly and objectively, not inject your own personal negative past and then assume the writer said things he didn’t say. Emotional control.
Your entire comment is attacking me for things I didn’t say and don’t believe.
I’m really not interested in mincing specific words I’ve used; the overall idea you have is that a woman’s appearance is the most important thing in attracting a mate. Without passing some imaginary appearance bar with a man, the chances that he will love you are extremely low. Can you honestly not see how degrading that advice is to a person’s soul if they are looking for someone to love them, how destructive it is to their being? You are taking the essence of who someone is and saying it doesn’t matter even close to as much as something that is external to them (for women, their face first then body, and for men, their money / power). You’re saying that these things are more important than who they are as a person if they want to succeed in getting someone to love them. Here are the comments you’ve made to that effect in this article:
“Do not expect men to “love you for you”. Men will love your appearance first and “you” second.”
“When a man looks at you, even if he’s a highly intelligent, fair, nuanced, educated, kind man, he will look at your face first. He will look at your body second. Everything else, your personality, your skills, your accomplishments, your feelings, your wonderful spirit, your caring, and everything else you have to offer the world he will look at only if your face and body meet with his approval. If they don’t, those things won’t matter to him.”
Anyone with any psychology training at all can tell you without a second’s hesitation that this kind of thinking is toxic for both men and women. You can look up yourself lots of research about how people who carry shame that they aren’t powerful / hot etc enough are extremely dysfunctional. Brene Brown has a lot of good stuff on this if you’re interested and there are blogs to read plus scientific papers I can point you to if that’s something you’re open to. I can see that you actually love your daughter and son & want to help them succeed and this is the best way you’ve figured out how, just as my father did. You are probably right that my response is colored by my past experience, but that doesn’t make it wrong. I just ask that you reconsider your viewpoint here; I think you are actually damaging your children and the people who read this blog. Either way, I wish you luck. At the end of the day, we’re all just trying to figure things out as best we can.
More or less correct. (Thank for finally quoting me correctly.) This is biologically and scientifically accurate regardless of your emotions on the matter.
And by the way, I don’t think it’s a good thing either, but I’m not going live a life in contradiction to the facts. That would cause consistent frustration and unhappiness.
I agree the facts are often very unpleasant. That’s what this blog is all about.
So I should tell my daughter, “Don’t worry honey. Get as fat as you want and dress as dumpy as you like, and a wonderful, rich, good-looking man will fall in love with you because you’re a nice person.”
That would be horrible advice, it harm my daughter greatly, and you know it.
In this case it does.
You’re saying I should not tell my daughter 2+2=4 because the number 4 is toxic and emotionally disturbing. You think I should either not teach my daughter math, or lie to her and tell her 2+2=5. And you’re dead wrong.
Sorry, took me a while to check my email on this. I think I’m starting to get why each of us feels we have an obvious point the other person should be understanding: there’s a difference in opinion as to what should make your children or people in general happy. By giving her the message that she needs to be hot / beautiful above all else to attract love, you prioritize your daughter being with a “wonderful, rich, good-looking man” or being seen as beautiful / accomplished as key to her happiness above her loving who she is as a person. I absolutely don’t. I would say the same about not valuing a man being powerful, good with women, and wealthy above who he is as a person.
There’s tons of research out there (lifelong studies of men etc) that demonstrate that the number and quality of a person’s relationships is key to their happiness, not how hot/rich/powerful the people in the relationships are. Additionally, there’s studies that show that hotness and wealth aren’t at all correlated with relationship success and satisfaction, only kindness is (http://nypost.com/2014/02/02/for-real-long-lasting-love-the-no-1-trait-to-seek-is-niceness-expert/). There’s also tons of research about how important it is for people to accept who they are and love themselves in order to have those close, unconditionally loving relationships and be fully known as people, not believe that they have to be something or do something in order to have love. So in essence I would absolutely never give the advice you’re giving to your children or to anyone – I don’t think it leads to happiness, just success in the eyes of the world.
I took the time to read through the rest of your comments and you said that if your daughter were ugly, you would tell her she needed to work on her appearance so she could live a more happy life as an adult woman in the modern era. Beyond personally recalling a lot of the “helpful comments” my father made to my sister, I don’t think this messaging to her is helpful at all, or will bring her the happiness you hope.
In my view, a lot of parents take this tack because they’re living vicariously through their children and want them to succeed where they’ve failed (or follow in their footsteps) or because they don’t know any better (they think this will make their children happy). I absolutely can’t know if either one is you, and I’m not trying to accuse you of anything, but putting that out there in case it does ring a bell. Again, I think we just have very different perspectives here. I can’t really spend any more time on this, but I wish you tons of luck in raising your kids, god knows we all need it.
Again, that is not my position. I have told my daughter many times that she should not have to rely on a man for either money or emotional validation, and she should be as independent as possible.
But in terms of the topic of attracting a man to be with (which of course she will want to do because she’s a human being) then yes, her appearance is critically important to getting a quality guy, and to tell her otherwise would be harmful.
I agree but that’s irrelevant. Women want to marry men who make decent money. Women also want to date men who look attractive, at least to some degree, more now than has ever been the case in Western society.
Maybe they shouldn’t want to date men based on these things, but they do. Again, you’re talking about how the world should be and I’m talking about how the world is.
Then what specifically would you tell your fat, ugly daughter? “Love yourself and everything will work out great.”? Yikes. This might give you and her warm fuzzies, but it won’t actually help her.
Or would you say, “I love you and I think you’re beautiful, but the fact is that, as a woman, you will live a happier life and feel better about yourself if you’re happy with what you see in the mirror. And I want you to be happy.”
My way is more grounded in realty. Your way is a feel-good platitude that won’t actually help anyone.
I stumbled upon your blog while looking up stats on male virgins for a friend. I’m not quite sure how Google connected that with you and this page… I did some reading here though and I think you’re misguided, however realistic you try to be. I think very logically and I’m always trying to learn more about what makes people do the things they do. I’m female but with mostly male friends. As such, I know a lot more about male psychology than female. I know men who are handsome and successful who don’t cheat. I also know women, who aren’t anything above a “5 ” on the scale of the moment for attractiveness in women (this changes often, with little regard for evolution), who were raised in a supportive environment, think highly of themselves, and have settled down with wonderful men who adore them. I’ve known women in the 6-10 range who were miserable and couldn’t find a good guy because they don’t have any self esteem and grew up always thinking they weren’t good enough.
I’ve also known both men and women who cheat on their partners. I think it’s funny how men like you think only men are “wired” for promiscuity and glorify ideas like polygamy. Not only are the numbers of male and female children born about equal (which allows for roughly 1 woman to 1 man when they reach sexual maturity), women have been found to be as much or more promiscuous than men in recent studies. See – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/37713987_Promiscuity_An_Evolutionary_History_of_Sperm_Competition
I’d also like to point out that the only times and places where polygamy has been widespread have been right after major wars where most of the eligible men went away and were killed, leaving a shortage of husband material available at home, or in societies where they are CONSTANTLY at war and men die off on a daily basis. In many cases, marrying multiple women in these instances is an act of compassion by the polygamist because they live in a society where women are not PERMITTED to survive on their own and they would be doomed with no husband because there aren’t enough men to go around.
I’m intelligent, beautiful (7ish), and kind. I’m looking to settle down with a man who is reasonably attractive, kind, stable (mentally and financially), and faithful. Compatibility is very complicated today. Religion and political stance have often been deal breakers for me. Keeping things interesting in the bedroom takes effort from both partners. That said, I am not looking for a fairytale but I do expect a man to be faithful. I don’t think your stance that everyone is going to cheat is rooted in fact. Some people are actually honest and honorable, and have evolved to a point that their mind can overcome biological urges. Just because you can’t keep it in your pants doesn’t mean that’s the norm.
Jenine, so what exactly would be your correction to this article?
So do I. They’re exceptions to the rule (or are in relationships that haven’t lasted 3+ years yet).
Using exceptions to the rule to back up your argument proves my point.
I never said “only men” are wired for promiscuity. Women aren’t capable of long-term monogamy either.
I do not support polygamy and never have.
Yep, and you’ll never find him unless you change your standards. Read this.
I have never said that. I said the vast majority of people either cheat or get divorced, which is factually correct. Again, the rare and unusual exceptions to this prove my point.
Just like the woman commenting above you, all you’re doing is attacking strawman arguments I never made.
The fact you can’t refute the points I’ve actually made on this blog should tell you something.