Am I a Bad Father? A Single Dad Is Asking on Reddit After Cancelling His Teen Daughter’s Date

Another post is going viral on Reddit again!

This time, the post from a single dad. He’s asking everyone’s opinion on whether he’s a “bad” father for breaking his teenage daughter’s heart when he forced her to cancel a date.

The survey is on the infamous Reddit thread AmITheA**hole and has already reached more than 16,000 votes — 97% of which favor the dad’s action.

The Redditor is Main_Hippo_6627, who’s a single dad with a 14-year-old daughter named Victoria.

His wife left him 11 years ago, and he’s been raising his child alone. All was well; she was growing up a great kid whose sweet qualities made her dad proud. But adolescence changed that.

This solo dad’s frustration and headaches could be easily felt from the following words as he continued his brief story:

“Unfortunately, she’s interested in boys now, and they’re interested in her. God, if you’re listening, send help.”

Nevertheless, this solo dad still did his best to adjust to the times. He has allowed her to go on dates for as long as he gets to meet the guy. He is not given to making big daddy scary speeches; all he wants is to at least see the guy’s face and learn a few things about him.

But trouble brewed when, a few days ago, Victoria asked him if she could go on a date with a mysterious boy named “Vince.” As usual, he reminded her of the rule: Let me meet the guy.

Friday came, but what Victoria simply told him was that Vince is not
“not good at talking to parents” and “doesn’t like to do it.”

Of course, this solo dad reacted with a tone of anger and firmness. But his daughter answered that Vince “doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to.”

Father and daughter continued arguing, but ultimately — despite the eyeroll and furious words from his daughter, who said that she would still do what she wanted — this solo dad stood by what he believes is right.

“I told her to text this guy that the date was off and go to her room. She started crying, sent her text, told me she hated me, went to her room, and slammed the door a few times.”

Although Victoria had obeyed him to cancel the date, this solo dad of course wants to know if he’s being a “bad” father.

Well, with a vote of more than 90% saying he’s not an “a**hole,” you too may agree that this solo dad is a good dad.

In fact, many of the commenters think he’s great, including the young generation.

Being a single father is not easy, and their kind of love is rare, because it remains steadfast, come hail or storm.

Here is wisdom that some younger people shared in the comments section as they voted in support of this solo dad:

“NTA (not the a**hole), my mom was the same when I was a kid. She would let us do pretty much whatever within reason, but she wanted to meet their parents before we could go inside their house to play.

We HATED it back then, but now we’re grateful to have had a mom who gave a damn. We might have been latchkey brats who didn’t come home until dark, but she knew where we were.

If the guy doesn’t want to meet you, that sucks for him. He’s apparently old enough to come pick her up and take her out, so he should be old enough to introduce himself and hurry themselves out the door.

It’s suspicious and makes you wonder if he’s older or if he’s hiding something a parent could spot but a teenager would overlook.”

“I’m so glad my parents were strict!” commented another person. “As a teenage girl I had no sense of caution! I remember when I was a teen my family went to Turkey and I hooked up with a Turkish scuba diving instructor who was a similar age. He wanted me to leave the resort with him and go to the city to hang out on his motorcycle. I ended up having a massive argument with my parents and had to turn him down. Over a decade later, I look back thinking how he could have easily kidnapped me if I went with him. This was a city where I knew no one, where women have been known to go missing, and I thought it would be a great idea to go off with this guy on his motorcycle 🤣 Teenage girls’ judgments can not be trusted at all!”

“NTA!” someone else wrote. “Wished I had listened to my papa, sadly he tried but I got myself in a bad situation that way. You’re a good dad.”