Who are Your Children's Role Models? Where do you draw the line?


Being a single father of two growing girls, the task at hand is quickly growing at a pace that I struggle to keep up with. Every girl needs a mother, but sadly many do not have their mother in their life, as is the case with my girls. My oldest daughter is eleven going on twenty. She can't wait to grow up, in fact, if she had it her way she would just skip these wonderful years and jump right through her teen years and be off on her own.

We've been going through a phase in the last month or so (I hope it's just a phase) where my oldest is wearing so much makeup around the house that I had to set some boundaries. First of all she's eleven and she's not going to wear makeup outside of this house. She all of a sudden didn't want to wear any clothes to bed and I quickly put a stop to that. Why all of a sudden is she behaving this way. Who is she trying to impress and more importantly, who is condoning this behavior or even putting the sleeping nude idea in her head?

I have four sisters, and my children are very close to my mother, yet she spends a lot of time at our neighbors house and I told my daughter that she needs to confide in one of my sisters, because I don't know what this neighbor is telling her. My daughter says she's like a mother to her. I had to explain to her what I thought a mother should be like. I told her this lady is not her mother, and she's never once even invited you for dinner. Do you think a mother would send you away while she eats dinner, or do you think a mother would feed you as well?

I am the father here, and for now, I'm the mother as well. How can I possibly make all the right decisions as a single dad? Obviously I can't, but From now on if she needs to talk about girl stuff, she'll have to talk to her aunts or my mother. Would you send your daughter to a school that you know nothing about or a day care without knowing exactly what's going on? I can't take the chance that she will gather all her answers from a stranger who has never been a mother herself. It's easy to spend a couple of hours with kids that aren't yours, but after awhile they go home and their not your problem any more. That's not being a mother and it certainly doesn't impress upon me that she's a good role model, and I am not comfortable with my child learning from her when I never know what the curriculum is. Sometimes you just have to put your foot down and trust your doing the right thing. There are going to be some changes around here, because I love my daughters and they are at a very influential age. This looks like a job for...Mister Mom