At work today, a father and (adult)
daughter were ordering their drinks and carrying on with an argument. “You don’t need to protect me anymore,” the
daughter insisted, “I know how to take care of myself.”
“I haven’t had to protect
you since you were about fourteen, and I am painfully aware of that. But I
still think that I am well within my rights to want to protect you. Is that
so wrong?” the father countered.
The daughter was brought up
short by that response, and after a couple of seconds of silence, she twisted
the subject of the argument so that she was back on moral high ground.
I think he has a point. Perhaps it’s because I’m feeling a little bit
guilty about being so short tempered with my own father when discussing my own
future and my own wants, but I can certainly see his point. Just because she
can take care of herself, doesn’t mean he has to be completely hands off for the
rest of his life. Now, if she decides
that she doesn’t want his help or protection, then she is an adult, and it is
out of his hands, but—
Here’s me opening a can of
worms, but I was having a similar discussion with someone about the prospect of
getting married. She was talking about
how she didn’t want a husband who was going to “take care” of her or “protect”
her. Something felt off about her argument to me, so I couldn’t agree with her
wholeheartedly. Now I know what my counter argument would be. Now, days later
when the argument is over and she’s likely forgotten we had the argument in the
first place, of course. So, I’ll tell
the internet as a whole in an attempt to pretend that I could’ve held my own
rather than just getting flustered and changing the subject.
My counter argument would
be, no, I don’t want a husband who has
to take care of me or protect me, but I want one who wants to. And I want one who will when I’m feeling weak
and I don’t think I’m capable of standing on my own two feet.
Along the same vein, I will try
to be more understanding of my parents and grandparents as they try to help me
and protect me. I won’t let them “protect”
me to the point that I don’t get out and do what I want/need to do, but I will
understand that they don’t want to see me get hurt. And I can’t fault them for that.
<3
Understand your argument completely! I like being independent and going to the shops by myself, and I don't like it when Cal gets all protective like I can't take care of myself. However, I DO like that he's willing to walk me home at 2am after a night of babysitting because I'm freaked out by the prospect of drunk people trying to follow me. I feel like there are going to be times when people do want to be protected, like you said, and it's nice to be able to rely on someone for that.
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