Single father praised for cancelling teen daughter’s date: ‘Grateful dads like you exist’

The internet is rallying around a single father who cancelled his teenage daughter’s date because the boy refused to meet him first.

In a viral post shared to the popular Reddit forum “Am I The A**hole” yesterday, user Main_Hippo_6627 detailed the recent argument he had with his 14-year-old daughter, Victoria. The father, who has been a single parent for 11 years, explained he allows his daughter to go on dates as long as he meets her date beforehand.

“I want to just meet the kid so I can put a face to a name,” the single father wrote.

“A few days ago, she said a guy named ‘Vince’ asked her out, fine. Well, Friday night came and I get told from Victoria that oh, he’s ‘not good at talking to parents’ and ‘doesn’t like to do it.’”

However, the father was not pleased with hearing that Vince “actively avoids parents,” and told Victoria that he “could use tonight as practice for talking to parents.”

“She said that he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to,” he wrote. “I said if he’s not meeting me, she’s not going on the date. I got a foot stomp and a ‘that’s not fair’. I told her I wasn’t being overbearing, just wanting to meet this kid.”

The single dad told his daughter to cancel the date and go to her room. He concluded the Reddit post: “She started crying, sent her text, told me she hated me, went to her room, and slammed the door a few times.”

The argument prompted the father to seek advice in the subreddit, but he was quickly validated with more than 15,000 upvotes and over 2,700 comments praising the single dad for his parenting skills. The top comment came from user Lumpy-Caterpillar769, who simply said: “Grateful dads like you exist.”

The single father responded, “It’s freaking scary she sees nothing wrong with ‘he doesn’t like meeting parents,’” adding in a separate comment that Victoria’s date was in the same grade as her.

One Redditor who goes by the username Deskbookcandle believed that his teenage daughter was just testing boundaries. They advised the father to have a conversation with Victoria about why he enforces the rule in the first place, and that not following the rule is a “bit of a red flag”.

“If he really likes her and is a respectful person, he’ll understand why her parent wants to make sure she’s safe. Teach her to value herself and recognise warning signs,” they added.

Another person agreed, saying, “She’ll ‘hate’ you now to appreciate you later.”

“You’re doing great,” said user thiswasyouridea. “If you had come on here telling me you let your daughter go on a date with some kid you’ve never met before I’d be giving you a piece of my mind, and trust me, I don’t have that to spare.”

“Everyone would love to be able to trust strangers, even kids, but we can’t. Unfortunately, we also can’t trust teens to always be good judges of character,” said user JimmyJakeAnders. “You made the right move. Your daughter will probably understand that after time, maybe a lot. Good luck and keep on keeping on!”