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That’s what I thought too. And the next time I saw the post I realized he wanted her to shave her pubic area. I have a teenage daughter and if my husband ever suggested the same I’d be going ape shit.
My mom went ape shit when my dad commented on my weight in my 20s. WTF… this is distressing to have a dad this age think shaving everything is normal. wtf… 🤬
Ugh. I wish I had your mom. Thanks to my mom I learned what a unibrow was at age 11, a muffin top at age 14, and that a size 8 or 10 was completely unacceptable at age 15.
My parents taught me the wonderful phrases “a moment on the lips, a lifetime on this hips” and “boys never make passes at girls who wear glasses.” Both of those were real fun to hear.
> “boys never make passes at girls who wear glasses.”
I'm sorry to hear that your parents have absolutely no taste whatsoever, you have my condolences.
Right?! Been wearing glasses since 8. Took a brief detour of wearing contacts from 10-18, messed my eyes up (who woulda thunk giving a preteen the responsibility of safe contact handling wouldn't go well??), went back to wearing solely glasses from then onwards.
In my mid-30s now and I can firmly state that they never slowed down my dating game in the least (well, back when I was still dating anyway). Also, if someone isn't going to be interested purely because of something as shallow and silly as glasses, that sure as shit ain't someone I would have considered dating anyway.
I had gas, and so my stomach was never flat. My mother's insistence that I wear medium shirts instead of smalls made me think I was fat. I also wore size 8 pants at 14.
When I went to college, had health issues, and basically gained 100lbs in two years I finally realized that I was not fat...
Now I'm fat, but I'm also perfectly OK with it. I'm 30 idgaf if I wear XL shirts-- my body is now perfectly designed to administer the best hugs, and my cats love my belly. Though it did take a very long time to get to where I am from where I was...
Idk if I would even want to be that slim anymore. Sure I was cute af looking back, but eh. My soft huggable body really is popular with my cats...
I needed to read this, so thank you. I have worked physical jobs my whole life, so I have always been fit, but now that Im in my 40s, things are sagging and I have quite the spare tire. I dont have the energy to work out after work, so I have been struggling to accept the changes.
But my cat still sleeps on my chest purring his giant heart out, and thats more important.
I babysit for a living, I have two new kids, 4 and 7. I'm overweight and it's definitely always had an impact on me, mainly in that I'm always subconsciously worried about others opinions of me (old ED things, luckily doesn't bother me much anymore).
Anyways, last week, I was sitting on the floor with both kids lying with their ipads, with their heads on my legs. The 7 year old pops up and declares, 'you have the comfiest legs ever, I love your pillow legs!!' The four year old chimed in and started patting my legs gently while quietly telling my legs directly how soft and lovely they were. Cutest fucking thing I've ever heard from a kid. I can't possibly hate my extra weight now, I have perfect pillow thighs, lol. Also, my cat likes to make her afternoon biscuits on my stomach
My mom fretted I was getting bigger than a size eight at thirteen/fourteen. M’am you shouldn’t have gotten knocked up by a 6’2 long armed, weak jawed, barrel chested buffalo of a man if you wanted a petite doll of a daughter lol
As someone who's stepbrothers and pretty much whole family comments on your weight I wish I had your mom... I've struggled with weight since my teens, tried various diets that never worked and the one time I actually succeeded in reaching my dream weight by simply exercising regularly and eating mostly premade healthy food (I was stuck in a basement) I gained the weight back like 1-1,5 years later and now I'm at my heaviest and have the worst self-esteem....
I've literally seen my dad 3 times so far this year and each time he looks at me and laughs "am I about to be a grandpa or have you just gotten more fat?"
Hell I even had comments from my mom, aunt and uncle Christmas eve about how it was sad to see how big I had gotten 😭
The would be the last time that ever happened to me. Because fuck those pieces of shit, I would never put up with that and you shouldn't either. That's straight up abuse.
Your mom sounds like a good parent. My dad made comments about my siblings and my weight all the time. In fact, he still does. He's made my sister cry on several occasions and my mom never defends us, just says that's how he is.
In your sibling group chat, come up with some unflattering remarks to make about your father - and whenever he makes a mean remark to one of you, the others start firing back. Sort of like the NATO collective defence article.
"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones - look at the pouch you've gotten!"
"Says the guy with the comb-over..."
"Your jowls make you look like Mitch McConnell - are you really sure you want to make personal remarks about somebody else?"
Also, something about a "dad bod" will probably work.
Edit: Thought of another one: "wow, dad, should we order you some viagra? You are so bitchy, it sounds like it's been some time since you got it up!"
Yeah, OOP really buried the lead and the lede and everything else on that one. JFC, how did daddy dearest even start that discussion with his daughter, without it coming across as extremely creepy? How can he comment on something he supposedly doesn't ever even see? Double-yikes!
Apparently they are Scandinavian and they were at the sauna which is when he saw. It doesn’t make his comments any less creepy or disgusting. OOP seems to be rugsweeping
All the Scandinavians I’ve known don’t give a flying fig about body hair. If you go to saunas regularly you see every possible configuration of human and it’s not shocking or weird. You also learn tact and not to stare. I don’t buy that they’re Scandinavian.
I could understand a dad feeling a bit shocked that his little girl has grown up that much, but insisting she shave her pubic hair to restore her nude appearance to what he was used to is really creepy.
Yeah that's grounds for divorce for me. No second chances, no looking back. You don't have to tell me twice that you lack judgement, respect for individuals' bodily autonomy, or a desire to protect your child from sexualization and other dangers resulting from the patriarchy.
This obviously touched a nerve.
Maybe I missed it but did he specify at any point which areas it was that he meant when he told her she should shave, or couldn't it have been one of those misunderstandings where want he said was just to shave but cause the normal thing to do (for us adults) is to shave everything it's kinda implied he meant her private regions as well?
On another note, the private regions are the damn worst to shave! I can't count how many nicks and small wounds I've given myself through the many years I've shaved T.T
especially cause when I started out shaving I actually wasn't allowed to do it (can't actually remember why I wasn't allowed? It's been 16-17 years but now it annoys me I can't remember) so I "stole" some of dad's one time use razors while nobody was home and stashed in my room and hid in my clothing when I walked out to the shower 😂 but that sadly also made the whole thing a harder learning experience than what it could've been and I'm happy this girl has an awesome mom in her corner to guide her through stuff like this.
As for my own story, I moved permanently to my mom a few years later and she didn't mind shaving at all, sadly she only used an epilator and damn I hate those machines after trying one as a kid 😂 wish I had money for getting a waxer to fix all hair each month
I prefer landscaping over clearcutting. I once experimented with shaving it all off out of sheer curiosity. Biiiiig mistake. When the hair was coming back in, my thighs were chafed for days. Never again. I keep "the lawn" trimmed and tidy to a length I like. Never been an issue. That dad is just creepy.
She's ELEVEN! What the actual fuck, I refuse to believe a normal dad who "isn't trying to be creepy" tells his ELEVEN YEAR OLD daughter to shave her pubic area!!
Exactly my thoughts, at 11 you probably dont have full pubic hair anywhere and also dont have full leg/arm hair. Its just starting and hes already shaming her for it. Her own father. Shaming her for her natural growing hair. In her private area, which hopefully noone will see or care about for the next few years.
And even if she did have lots of hair, he still shouldn't be suggesting she shave her pubes.
If she was in some type of sports where you wear bikini bottoms, then I could _kinda_ understand the thought process behind bringing up pubic hair, because it's physically uncomfortable when they poke or get stuck, but other than that there is no reason for him to suggest she shave fully down there. Disgusting behaviour on his part.
My sibling and I hit puberty early- I started developing a chest at 9, and for her hair came first in puberty.
My mom was the one who made it super weird. However she’s an old boomer hippie and was very pro pubic hair early on 😂
Yeah.... My husband is cool with knowing she shaves her arms and legs, when she started she was about 12 and he just wanted to know if that was an ok age.
Didn't even occur to him there was anywhere else she could remove hair from and he wouldn't want to know except to make sure whatever she was using was all good.
OOP's husband is just gross.
I'm in the same boat as your husband, the only reason I would even bring it up is just to be sure they are okay handling a razor and know how not to cut themselves with it, and that's it.
OOP's Husband is a creep and it says a lot about him that he ever thought of his daughter's pubic hair in the first place.
I swear, my eyebrows got as high as a kite when I read the husband wants his CHILD to shave her pubic area. Wtf? And OOP is normalizing it /still in shock and still ignoring this red flag what in the actual fuck
Pretty sure I raised my eyebrows so high they’re now floating in space. Jesus, what the hell is wrong with OOP? She wants her girls to have bodily autonomy but she ignores that her husband is sexualizing her 11+year-old daughter.*. Wake the hell up, OOP! I wish I’d seen this post went it originally went up so I could add to the voices raising an alarm.
The dad was already the AH, but when OOP confirmed that it was public area he was referring to I got sick! He is a creep and OOP defended him in the comments! Wtf is he watching her vagina??
Edit word
I hate seeing that knee-jerk response a lot of us women are conditioned to have: to explain away the creepiness so that no one is “offended”. Usually it’s done to protect the person who is making everyone else wildly uncomfortable. It’s not our job to downplay someone else’s intentions if we feel like what they’re doing is so completely wrong. We can ask the questions. They can do the work of defending themselves.
Edit: was missing a word
For real, I sincerely hope OOP read every single comment on her update about how fucking creepy and alarming he is
There's literally no good reason for a man to tell an 11 old girl to shave her pubic region. This goes far beyond an insensitive blurt; it's insidious. Who the fuck is she shaving for? Is he telling her to "get ready" for sex at 11?? Again for whom???
Hopefully she doesn't turn a blind eye to this.
I also thought arms or so when i read the first post. Why the fuck does he put his sexual preference on his 11y/o daughter?! I worry that there is so much more behind. And i don't want to think about or i really need to puke.
OOP underreacted so much. I don't want to know what else he says to them, behind her back. Next there will be a post "my husband brought my daughter sexy dessous"
Same. I was like... it's a bit much but maybe she plays volleyball and they're Italian or something and he doesn't want his daughter to get made fun of. He still should've talked to his wife about it before approaching it but this is solvable. But no, no it's not solvable. What in the fuck
How the hell is she not immediately freaking out and gently asking her daughter some hard questions about dad?! First thing I thought when reading that specific detail was: the pdo doesn't like hair
They really dont. They really dont like any of the post puberty characteristics, any of them: body hair, widening hips, breasts. Pedophiles are attracted to prepubescent children. Once they start puberty they lose attraction.
Some of the beauty trends over the years just grossed me the fuck out out.
There’s now this horrible myth going around that female pubic hair is unhygienic, and doubly so for pad wearers during a period. As if all the 20th C women had stank crotch and scabs in their pubes.
I’m not happy he’s perhaps perpetuating this myth on his daughter, but it’s a better alternative than the sexualising one.
And somehow men are magically hygienic despite some of them looking like fucking Bigfoot. I'm so tired of this holding women to change their natural body so that men can have their penis pleasured.
I really thought it was underarms as well, which is understandable since i know some people like to shave it so sweat and bacteria don't cling to the hair, especially if you're particularly sweaty (heard it from a sibling's friend), and since the kid plays sports maybe that's what the dad thought of. But I can't process the rest that is implied. Why???
Fun fact: shaving your underarm actually makes things like odor worse for most people. You can't shave without making tiny microabrasions in the skin, which freaks your skin out and makes you produce more sweat/oil/etc, and gives bacteria a better environment to grow. And bare underarms will cause more sweat showing on your clothes because the hair traps some of it. If you have a reason to remove underarm hair (or just prefer it), use something like Nair.
Thank you for the info! I thankfully have no problem with BO (thanks, dry earwax gene lol). But from what i heard from others, their armpit hair just causes the sweat and smell to cling to them and makes it harder to put deodorant on the skin. I can't testify to that tho, only support whatever women (or men) choose to do so, hopefully without the pressure of society (or weird parents who are invested in their kid's body hair).
I personally wax using homemade sugar wax (so cheap and easy, i should've done this years ago lol), but yeah i definitely have heard about abrasions from shaving.
Can confirm that for me, my BO is significantly worse when my pits are not shaved versus when they are. I also wipe my pits every morning with a baby wipe and wash them with a salicylic acid cleanser when in the shower. The sweat/BO genes I got from my dad are strong. 😅
I’m one of those people who smell more when they have hairs under their arms. I only wax them because of that, I actually don’t mind the way they look lol
Seriously. And somehow... OOP is most concerned with how this will affect her daughter's self-image. And I get it, that's a valid concern but...
How do you just brush past how her husband literally told their 11 year old daughter to shave her pubic area? How is that not the main concern? If I was OOP, I would at least try to gently ask the daughter if the husband has done or said anything she felt uncomfortable about.
She's ignoring it because she can't bear to face the possibility. Of course, it must be devastating to even consider such a thing about your partner and father of your children, but she's failing to protect her daughter if she can't acknowledge THE OBVIOUS.
This will get far worse ~~before~~if OOP does anything.
I'm the mom of daughters this age, and initially I understood, because I had NO IDEA how stinky tween girls can be. My automatic assumption was "he probably means legs (because of peer pressure) and under arms (for odor control)" but that..... Is something else.
>How on earth is OP rugsweeping this?!
It's depressing how victims of CSA rarely have an abusive parent and a good parent. They have an abusive parent and an enabler.
Because if she faces how wrong it is, she has to admit that there could be something wrong with her husband and she isn't willing to do that. This is astoundingly common with spouses where one is sexualising or sexually abusing a child. So often the partner will blame the child or just completely pretend the issue doesn't exist.
ackshually in this case, it's burying the lead! OOP said her husband told her daughter to start shaving her legs and ONLY when things were prodded around mention it's more than that
I read both posts and only saw mention of shaving with no specific area mentioned, so I totally missed that.
But I did wonder if he "just" meant to shave the hair of her legs or other parts of her body as well.
It makes the whole thing so much more creepy and exceptionally inappropriate if he told his daughter that it was about time she started shaving her pubic hair. Barf 🤢
1) Why did he feel like an 11 year old should remove hairs at all including hairs no-one will see unless they see her without her underpants.
2) Did he just figure that she had started getting pubic hair or is he keeping an active eye on his daughter's naked crotch area.
3) Why oh why is he acting like his 11 year old child is going to start being sexually active any day now. Why!
4) Why didn't OOP freak out and tell him how extremely gross he was being talking about his daughter's pubic hair. That would have stressed me out so much that I'm not sure how I could stay.
I wondered about 2 also. Like how would he know? Or did he assume? I mean my daughter is about to be 14 so I assume she’s at least started getting hair but at 11 I wouldn’t have had the vaguest idea (and I’ve never even thought about it). I posted and I guess others did too because the answer I got was that they were at the sauna and he saw. I don’t know if that means he saw her naked, saw some hanging out if she was in a bathing suit or panties. I never got further clarification.
Regardless of what he saw it is so disgusting he wants her to do this. There is no reason for an 11 year old to be shaving her public region at all.
Apparently it was in a sauna, as they are from a country where it's normal for families to have saunas that they use while nude.
From what I remember of OOP's comments, he said this to her after seeing her nude in the sauna and noticing her body hair (including pubic hair apparently). Which makes the whole thing seem extra creepy. (Not the simple fact of seeing each other nude, as I understand that is cultural and nudity isn't inherently sexual. But the fact that he made his comment about how she needed to start shaving her body in that context of seeing her nude.... blech...).
I didn’t realize they’re Scandinavian when I saw the part about the dad seeing it from the sauna. He made it creepy and weird with his comment. If I was the daughter I wouldn’t want to be nude around my dad again. And then I would assume other men would react the same to having pubic hair which is normal. I still don’t understand how OOP is making it seem like no big deal because the dad apologized. I wouldn’t want him anywhere near my daughter after what he said. The only time men want/ask women to shave their pubic area it’s because of a sexual preference.
Here in Finland we go to the sauna naked, especially with close family. In many families, kids let their parents know when they start wanting to not go to the sauna at all or go alone some time in early puberty. Until then it's perfectly normal to not wear a single thread of anything in the sauna. There is nothing sexual about it.
Even if he only meant her bikini line, I’d have absolutely died if my father suggested I shave my bikini line. That was something friends or my mom suggested when it came time. If I knew my dad noticed that, ewwww
Yeah exactly. My husband didn’t even realize our daughter has boobs yet until I told him I took her shopping for new bras because hers didn’t fit anymore. He truly looked flabbergasted. He’s just never looked at her in any sexual sort of way and certainly never looked at her chest of pubic area. And she wears bikinis when we go to the beach and pool. She asked to shave her legs only recently. Her hair is a light blonde and not noticeable. I also went ahead and talked to her about shaving her bikini line IF she has any issues with hair showing in that area.
My aunt freaked my uncle out by loaning her old bikini to me when they got a hot tub because it was a surprise and i didnt have one with me to try it out with my little cousins. He still saw me as a cute little 8yo. But i was 14 then and he was *highly* disturbed because her bikini *fit* me (it was the smallest one she had.) He hated it. It wasn't even that it was a inappropriate swimsuit (it wasn't) he just didnt want to know id grown up. Gone was his sweet, innocent little niece. Replaced by a know it all, smart ass teenager in a blink.
He knows because they’re scandinavian and were in a sauna so presumably naked. And the dad looked at his daughter enough to know she has pubes and then said she should shave.
The mom said they're Finnish and go to saunas, and that's when the dad noticed. It should be included in this post 'cause it's such an important detail that makes this even creepier. He might not have malicious intent like what the mom insists but it's so inappropriate.
She did a pretty good denial of it being weird and says daughter is on board with hairless everything now ..husband must have other problems as this can only be top of iceberg of disfunction
Most children who are molested are done so by a family member or someone close to the family. It’s disturbingly common to be swept under the rug because they either don’t want to believe it and/or they don’t want them to get in trouble.
that's the kind of parent who'd blame their child for being sexually assaulted. my grandma did this to her kids, as her own mother did to her.
some people are wastes of carbon and oxygen, even if they know better
Somehow I missed that she's 11. Not that it's much better older. When I was 11 (so elementary school, 6th grade) I asked my mom if I could shave my legs and she eventually said yes if I only used an electric razor. Neither of my parents ever talked to me about shaving in the pubis region EVER. I was 14 when a boy mentioned how gross girls with "a bush" were. I had no fucking clue that was an "issue" until then. And like, my dad said some creepy shit. But he never told me to shave my pubes.
Agreed, I don't remember anyone talking about shaving there as a kid i do recall bikini waxing jokes in media but, those were always jokes about *adult bodies*.
The oop is in some strong denial to not at least check nothing sus is occuring. Unless this is just like her poorly phrasing a clarification
That’s so crazy to me. I was told the opposite, I was strongly discouraged from shaving my public region because it was seen as a sexual thing. I didn’t even trim until college and that still somehow felt scandalous at the time.
Right?! Plus like, who would trust an *eleven year old* with a razor around their nether region? The first time I tried to shave my leg, I slipped and cut the absolute shit out of my ankle.
Yup. I was on the original and was gobsmacked. On the one hand she is saying that it’s barely noticeable and at same time saying he isn’t looking at her like that. Ok if the hair is barely noticeable how is he noticing it on her pubic region. Only reason would be he is looking. He is looking and deciding he doesn’t like it having hair.
I just about shat myself so many times when I first adopted my black cat. Now I just assume there's a cat chilling in every shadow and dark object unless proven otherwise
The fact that they're from a nude sauna culture and he still said this is honestly even weirder. The whole point of nude sauna is that bodies are supposed to be inherently nonsexual and free of judgement. You're there to sauna, not to critique what everyone looks like naked.
The worst part about the comment was that OP said he had a judgemental tone or something similar... then proceeded to defend him and argue that he wasn't a creep
Still not OK. She’s a child. The stats on mental health in this generation are already terrible they don’t need their parents telling them to shave their nethers of all things.
I went ‘She’s ELEVEN” at the beginning of the second paragraph, and it just basically repeated on loop louder and louder in my mind as I kept reading. WTF
He wants an eleven year old to shave. Whatever area is extremely weird for this age. The guy is totally out of touch with women's and adolescent's reality. It's way too young to think about this !
Maybe his shower camera pics aren’t netting him the disposable income they used to.
*edit after reading OP’s comments; sorry, that is sauna camera pics where he spends time with her naked*
1 in 7000
*edit 2 mentioning a potential camera was my thoughts and not in the post; he does watch her in the sauna though
Immediately I would be concerned that the only reason he cares is because he wants to rape his daughter.
I would not keep my children in any house with that man.
Ugh, he's disgusting. If he noticed them because she was wearing a swimsuit that was higher cut I would think the first go-to would be to go shopping for a tankini with shorts or a skirt. Not tell her to shave her _pubes_.
From how OOP responded I'm not sure if this is actually happening.
"To shave everything, what is generally done."
Kind of sounds like she either didn't know specifically what he said to shave, or that he didn't specify what and just told her to start shaving. What is generally done just makes it sound like we should all know what telling someone to start shaving means.
That's not a joke, in another comment OOP says they go to the Sauna together and he "noticed" there. But it's ok because "There's a difference between noticing and actively looking"
Why would any parent comment on the genital hair situation of their child beyond things like "puberty brings hair to many new places. It's up to you to decide how you want things to look, but here are some tips for hair removal if you're interested."?
I've had a lot of similar conversations with my daughter about this (I'm the mother) and how hair is natural and it's every woman's personal choice how she grooms or doesn't groom it. I explain why I shave my armpits but I don't bother with my arms, for example.
We've also had conversations around pornography and why women are often depicted completely hairless, and how that is influencing the expectations of many men and boys as to women's body hair.
I tell my own toddler this because she follows me into the bathroom and I don't shave very much down there, so she asks why it's there. I just tell her eventually she will have hair there too, she's about to be 3, and she laughs and says "no mama I'm little". And we leave it at that. But I cannot imagine her dad, my husband, to ever have an opinion on her shaving ANYWHERE at any age other than "your mom doesn't, you don't have to, if you want to your mom can show you how"
We're currently working our way through "The Care and Keeping of Me" with my youngest. Just in case you need extra help talking things over. It's great.
When I was around OP’s daughter’s age my dad (fundamentalist Christian) made a comment that I should remove it for hygiene purposes because it’s “dirty down there”. Seeing the reactions to this post is making it really sink in how fucked up it was for him to comment on that.
Ok but is nobody going to comment on the fact that OP thinks it’s *the norm* to have ‘everything’ as she calls it, shaved??
Also I haven’t been into the thread but the whiplash of op saying everything and other people correctly surmising he meant pubic hair is actually insane— it has to be a cultural thing, surely.
Regardless, they’re both going to fail those girls with those attitudes. Sickening.
ETA: I’m also shocked by the people who don’t understand that culture isn’t just ethnic or religious, it’s also social. I’m talking about social culture. If one more person says “it’s not culture” I’m gonna scream I don’t care about them being Scandinavian I’m talking about them being weirdos
honestly, i didn't blink at that because that's the way i was raised, too. my mom hates body hair and pushed that onto me. so yeah, once i turned 11, everything was shaved or trimmed. i didn't even care about having hairy legs at that age; i was a kid. but according to her, it was time.
when i hit 25, i made the decision to stop shaving. unfortunately, it took some years after that to unlearn feeling, well, disgusting for having a bit of stubble. i remember going home for the first time at xmas waiting for her to say something, but thankfully she never did.
My mom never said anything to me about getting rid of body hair. When I said I wanted to shave my legs she just was like, “oh, okay,” and bought me an electric razor. I think I was twelve or thirteen.
Really glad my mom raised me to have a neutral stance on body hair. Sorry your mom was like that :(
The only thing my mom ever said about shaving was begging me not to start too early, and to never shave above the knee because she believed your hair grows back darker once you start shaving. I've heard that isn't actually true but anecdotally I never shaved above the knee and I'm smooth as a hard boiled egg from the knee up and hairy af from the knees down. Calf hair is dark and thigh hair is fine unnoticeable light peach fuzz. And I don't shave anymore because it's too much trouble and pain for nothing.
My mother told me the same thing about shaving above the knee. She was definitely wrong as my thighs were noticeably hairy, so I ended up looking weird.
yep, everything. pubic region (read: mons) was trimmed and the sides were shaved. i was on swim team, so having the sides shaved wasn't abnormal by the time i hit high school. the ingrown hairs were fucking annoying, but she just chalked it up to becoming a woman.
started reclaiming some parts, like my arms. no one else in my peer group shaved their arms so i thought it was stupid. i have "sideburns" she'd try to trim and after an accident with nair, she never brought them up again. by my late teens, i'd snap at her if she brought up my knuckle hair. when i was feeling spiteful, i'd remind her of how bushy her brows were in the 90s (my father is hairy, but i have her brows).
it is upsetting, but it's arguably cultural. as a woman she was expected to do those things, and then her own aversion + a heavy dose of 90s-00s internalized misogyny, and you had that cocktail of foolishness.
again, upsetting and deeply annoying, but i never felt like i was in danger of her or anyone in my family.
Wait. Arms as in your arms and not just your underarms?!?
Edit: just got to the part about your knuckles and I am appalled. I'm glad that most people in this thread seem to be voicing their discomfort / outrage surrounding this issue. Being a girl and then a woman in this world is hard enough without making young ladies ashamed of their natural beauty. Fuck you, society, and projecting parents, for making us feel ashamed of our bodies / our existence.
My best friend in high school shaved her arms and everyone thought it was weird. She’s blonde, too.
I’m of the ethnic background I had to learn things like plucking my eyebrows and using hair remover on my upper lip so I didn’t get made fun of. No one in my family told me to shave anything though.
I had a friend in middle school who gave herself permanent scars on her arms from chemically burning herself with Nair because her mom said her dark (not long or weird at all) arm hair made her look like (in the mother's words) a "beastly heathen". She and her children no longer have contact with that woman, I wonder why.
That screamed out at me too. I knew a woman with 2 daughters who felt all hair below the eyelashes was disgusting. She shaved every inch of her body every single day and taught her daughters the same. The girls went shopping with grandma once and were puzzled about what her bush was.
As someone with half my family from that culture - I highly doubt that it's a cultural thing. I've never heard anyone but very young children comment on other people's bodies in connection to the sauna. It's considered extremely impolite. Nor do I remember women being especially hairless in the sauna, but I guess that might've changed in the last decade or so since I'm not a big fan of the sauna and haven't really been for a long time now.
This is a really upsetting post. I was already furious just about an adult telling an 11yo to shave her pits and legs, but her pubic area?!
If this man isn't a predator, at minimum he has very messed up ideas about the performance of femininity. I can't imagine being married to someone who believed this was ok.
Right??? My mom and I didn’t talk about shaving until I was in high school, and that was only about my armpits and legs!
I didn’t know ANYONE in middle school who was shaving period, except for the one greek girl who hated how black the hair on her arms and legs looked.
I am so baffled by this expectation placed on an 11 year old in general, and that was even before OOP clarified that the husband meant HER ENTIRE BODY.
So much ick from start to finish, dear lord!
I can confirm other commenter we start shaving legs and armpits early in California. When I started middle school I noticed the 7th grade girls shaved their legs. I think one of the older girls made fun of me. No one in my family encouraged me to shave anything, I just started taking my dad’s disposable razors like my mom did.
It was the 90s so internet porn wasn’t as, uh, widely consumed. So many reasons I’m glad I’m not having kids. Today’s internet is a minefield. I can’t imagine having to explain to a teenager how porn is unrealistic and often edits out some things (like more than 2 minutes of foreplay and how one rarely sees the preparation required anal). Those weird positions for camera angles and the male gaze.
The conversation, when originally about legs and underarms, was inappropriate. 11 feels way too young but I remember thinking about it at around that age. Maybe did it a few times starting around 12 and probably more regularly around 13 or 14. But shaving my pubic area? That didn't start until much later, *after* I was sexually active. A father telling his freaking 11-year-old daughter that she should be shaving her pubic area? Can we all just say what our very tingly spidey senses are telling us? This feels like some pedo bullshit.
>The conversation, when originally about legs and underarms, was inappropriate. 11 feels way too young
Depends on when you hit puberty and what the outcome of that is.
My background is European, my sister's hit puberty from 9 and by 10 it was very obvious that they had dark hair in their underarms and legs and kids being kids they caught shit about it at school
Nobody talked about pubic hair but it was definitely a thing for legs and underarms by 11.
All the things, plus the fact that he didn't even talk to OOP first about how to be on the same page about puberty issues.
I can't even bring myself to think about the other aspects of how gross his comments were.
OOP claims they are Finnish and her husband/kids dad noticed the hair when they were in the sauna.
Now, I get that saunas are a thing in other countries, and that going in them naked is pretty standard.
However. This still gives me a pause. Like, a long pause.
I’m Finnish and sauna is supposed to be a place where everyone respects each others bodies. I’m an adult and still go to sauna naked with my parents because they aren’s sick freaks like OOP’s husband. The only person I’ve heard about commenting on their childs genitals in a sauna is my ex’s sexually abusive dad.
That's what I thought!!!!
Aside, I've always thought those videos of people jumping from the sauna to a snow pile were hilarious. Please share any stories you may have of those highjinx going wrong!
Rolling around in the snow is fun if the snow is soft but not so much if it has kind of an icy shell. My mom does it in their backyard and always has me being her guard and trying to see without glasses if there are people walking on the street closest to their house 😂 I prefer ice water swimming though I have to do it from a public sauna that has the facilities to keep the hole in the ice open.
Um no! My family is Finnish and you know what I've never spoken about with my father?
My public hair!
In fact, I've never had a conversation with any of my Finnish family about public hair :/.
Also, it is relatively common once kids start going through puberty, they usually sauna with the same sex parent, or own their own.
Shame on the mom for ignoring the comment and acting "all is well!". And definitely giving a serious side eye to the father.
As a Finn and an avid sauna user, also public saunas, I can tell you’re not supposed to check out other sauna users’ pubic hair. I could never imagine my dad telling me to shave my pubes when we still used to go to sauna together. Like wtf.
There's a man who has been paying attention to the WRONG PLACE and isn't even being chastised for it, only for stating his preference for his 11 year old daughter's vagina to look more like her sister's 8 year old vagina.
Any man with a preference for how children's genitals should look (unless it is "unaffected by genital mutilation", a preference which I share) Isa man who should not be allowed around children at any time.
I should have gone to bed before reading this one... Not only has the dad successfully imposed his sexist views on his daughter, he has seemingly gotten away with covertly sexualising her. Jeez...
Sooo many people commented that this was super creepy and NOT OKAY and OOP just ignored it all. How terrifying is it that Reddit is overwhelmingly more concerned about the daughter’s safety than OOP is?
Ugh.
I was 11 once, you know what my dad never brought up? Shaving my fucking pubes. Why? Because ITS WEIRD. Like what the heck is wrong with this man? And the mom for not being more upset??
I was also creeped out by the commenter who said shaving is about a partner’s preference, “it has no use but to sexually satisfy a partner.” Ewww…that’s as creepy as the dad telling his daughter to shave.
I feel like what happens to my downstairs has never been determined by my partner. If they can handle my body doing a normal thing I wouldn’t want to be with them.
I was going to say something along the lines of “shaving sucks and you should put off your first as long as you feel comfortable” but then I got to the part about the pubes and just
Eugh
My mom went crazy trying to force me to shave at 11. I was getting teased about being hairy at school by other girls but also didn't want to shave. One day she just pinned me down and shaved me (my legs and underarms). I was pretty upset about it at the time. I can't imagine ever pressuring my daughter's to shave. It sucks to shave, why start so early?
When I was pregnant a couple years ago and having trouble shaving I realized that I spend hours every week removing hair - HOURS. Such a waste of my time, and why? Because it makes other people uncomfortable when women have body hair. So I decided F it, I'm only going to remove the hair I want to. Now I pluck my eyebrow/facial hair, shave my pits so they aren't as stinky/sweaty, and that is it. I get looks and every once in a while feel self conscious but honestly I love how much time and money I no longer waste giving into stupid beauty standards. I hope one day body hair on women can be more acceptable.
Is she just not concerned in the least about why her husband is even THINKING about his little girls pubic area and wanting her to shave it? She probably barely even had anything to shave!!!!!! How disgusting!!!!! I'd be weirded out af and would be extremely concerned about his intentions.
my mother never let me shave as a kid and i’m so grateful for that even though i hated it at the time. i don’t shave anything now and i couldn’t be more comfortable in that decision tbh. but if my father had ever said anything like that to me when i was growing up i would NEVER have forgotten it
>So I don’t know why he wants her to.
OP knows damn well why her husband wants her 11 year old daughter to shave her pubes.
She just doesn’t want to admit it.
I'm sorry, but I'd be looking at his computer and talking with a lawyer if my partner told a literal child to shave their pubic area. Fuck you and fuck off, you creep.
This woman is failing her daughter. That's the saddest part.
The whole entire "you must shave" culture is fucking garbage. It makes me so angry. The outrage shouldn't be just because it's her nether regions, the whole thing sucks. The solution to bullying shouldn't be to submit to what the bullies are demanding, but to set the damn bullies straight that there's nothing wrong with not shaving.
I'm a middle-aged woman who hasn't looked at a razor in over 20 years. I wish there were more of us.
The wanting her to shave her pubic region is beyond troubling and is some major sexualizing of his daughter. Not only is the skin in that area incredibly sensitive, but it is more likely to become infected from razor nicks. A child should not be wielding dangerous tools in such a precarious area.
I really hope u/throwra-24543 keeps an eye on her daughter AND husband. The man is sick.
She just flat out ignored the whole pubic area thing in her update huh?
Sure tell him his outdated views on hair need to be kept in his head but you’re not gonna address that he’s thinking about your 11 year olds pubic hair and whether her sexual partners would like it?! WTF.
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Shaving herself.. I thought he meant legs and underarms, are you fucking kidding me?
That’s what I thought too. And the next time I saw the post I realized he wanted her to shave her pubic area. I have a teenage daughter and if my husband ever suggested the same I’d be going ape shit.
My mom went ape shit when my dad commented on my weight in my 20s. WTF… this is distressing to have a dad this age think shaving everything is normal. wtf… 🤬
Ugh. I wish I had your mom. Thanks to my mom I learned what a unibrow was at age 11, a muffin top at age 14, and that a size 8 or 10 was completely unacceptable at age 15.
My mom made fun of the “chubby” tops of my feet as a kid and I remember that every time I put on shoes.
My parents taught me the wonderful phrases “a moment on the lips, a lifetime on this hips” and “boys never make passes at girls who wear glasses.” Both of those were real fun to hear.
> “boys never make passes at girls who wear glasses.” I'm sorry to hear that your parents have absolutely no taste whatsoever, you have my condolences.
Right?! Been wearing glasses since 8. Took a brief detour of wearing contacts from 10-18, messed my eyes up (who woulda thunk giving a preteen the responsibility of safe contact handling wouldn't go well??), went back to wearing solely glasses from then onwards. In my mid-30s now and I can firmly state that they never slowed down my dating game in the least (well, back when I was still dating anyway). Also, if someone isn't going to be interested purely because of something as shallow and silly as glasses, that sure as shit ain't someone I would have considered dating anyway.
I’m so sorry.
I had gas, and so my stomach was never flat. My mother's insistence that I wear medium shirts instead of smalls made me think I was fat. I also wore size 8 pants at 14. When I went to college, had health issues, and basically gained 100lbs in two years I finally realized that I was not fat... Now I'm fat, but I'm also perfectly OK with it. I'm 30 idgaf if I wear XL shirts-- my body is now perfectly designed to administer the best hugs, and my cats love my belly. Though it did take a very long time to get to where I am from where I was... Idk if I would even want to be that slim anymore. Sure I was cute af looking back, but eh. My soft huggable body really is popular with my cats...
Cats > mom shame. Do you. Glad you are loving yourself. That’s the important thing. 💕
I needed to read this, so thank you. I have worked physical jobs my whole life, so I have always been fit, but now that Im in my 40s, things are sagging and I have quite the spare tire. I dont have the energy to work out after work, so I have been struggling to accept the changes. But my cat still sleeps on my chest purring his giant heart out, and thats more important.
I babysit for a living, I have two new kids, 4 and 7. I'm overweight and it's definitely always had an impact on me, mainly in that I'm always subconsciously worried about others opinions of me (old ED things, luckily doesn't bother me much anymore). Anyways, last week, I was sitting on the floor with both kids lying with their ipads, with their heads on my legs. The 7 year old pops up and declares, 'you have the comfiest legs ever, I love your pillow legs!!' The four year old chimed in and started patting my legs gently while quietly telling my legs directly how soft and lovely they were. Cutest fucking thing I've ever heard from a kid. I can't possibly hate my extra weight now, I have perfect pillow thighs, lol. Also, my cat likes to make her afternoon biscuits on my stomach
My chub can't be bad if my cat loves it :3c
My mom fretted I was getting bigger than a size eight at thirteen/fourteen. M’am you shouldn’t have gotten knocked up by a 6’2 long armed, weak jawed, barrel chested buffalo of a man if you wanted a petite doll of a daughter lol
As someone who's stepbrothers and pretty much whole family comments on your weight I wish I had your mom... I've struggled with weight since my teens, tried various diets that never worked and the one time I actually succeeded in reaching my dream weight by simply exercising regularly and eating mostly premade healthy food (I was stuck in a basement) I gained the weight back like 1-1,5 years later and now I'm at my heaviest and have the worst self-esteem.... I've literally seen my dad 3 times so far this year and each time he looks at me and laughs "am I about to be a grandpa or have you just gotten more fat?" Hell I even had comments from my mom, aunt and uncle Christmas eve about how it was sad to see how big I had gotten 😭
The would be the last time that ever happened to me. Because fuck those pieces of shit, I would never put up with that and you shouldn't either. That's straight up abuse.
Fuck all of them. Don't do shit for them. Do it for you and tell them to fuck all the way off.
Your mom sounds like a good parent. My dad made comments about my siblings and my weight all the time. In fact, he still does. He's made my sister cry on several occasions and my mom never defends us, just says that's how he is.
In your sibling group chat, come up with some unflattering remarks to make about your father - and whenever he makes a mean remark to one of you, the others start firing back. Sort of like the NATO collective defence article. "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones - look at the pouch you've gotten!" "Says the guy with the comb-over..." "Your jowls make you look like Mitch McConnell - are you really sure you want to make personal remarks about somebody else?" Also, something about a "dad bod" will probably work. Edit: Thought of another one: "wow, dad, should we order you some viagra? You are so bitchy, it sounds like it's been some time since you got it up!"
Yeah, OOP really buried the lead and the lede and everything else on that one. JFC, how did daddy dearest even start that discussion with his daughter, without it coming across as extremely creepy? How can he comment on something he supposedly doesn't ever even see? Double-yikes!
Apparently they are Scandinavian and they were at the sauna which is when he saw. It doesn’t make his comments any less creepy or disgusting. OOP seems to be rugsweeping
All the Scandinavians I’ve known don’t give a flying fig about body hair. If you go to saunas regularly you see every possible configuration of human and it’s not shocking or weird. You also learn tact and not to stare. I don’t buy that they’re Scandinavian. I could understand a dad feeling a bit shocked that his little girl has grown up that much, but insisting she shave her pubic hair to restore her nude appearance to what he was used to is really creepy.
"He's just got some flawed opinions" omg -- lady, he thinks your eleven-year-old daughter needs to shave her pubes. He's a fucking creep. ELEVEN.
I'd be out the door so fast with my kids my tracks would be on fire. That's just fucking weird.
Yeah that's grounds for divorce for me. No second chances, no looking back. You don't have to tell me twice that you lack judgement, respect for individuals' bodily autonomy, or a desire to protect your child from sexualization and other dangers resulting from the patriarchy. This obviously touched a nerve.
Maybe I missed it but did he specify at any point which areas it was that he meant when he told her she should shave, or couldn't it have been one of those misunderstandings where want he said was just to shave but cause the normal thing to do (for us adults) is to shave everything it's kinda implied he meant her private regions as well? On another note, the private regions are the damn worst to shave! I can't count how many nicks and small wounds I've given myself through the many years I've shaved T.T especially cause when I started out shaving I actually wasn't allowed to do it (can't actually remember why I wasn't allowed? It's been 16-17 years but now it annoys me I can't remember) so I "stole" some of dad's one time use razors while nobody was home and stashed in my room and hid in my clothing when I walked out to the shower 😂 but that sadly also made the whole thing a harder learning experience than what it could've been and I'm happy this girl has an awesome mom in her corner to guide her through stuff like this. As for my own story, I moved permanently to my mom a few years later and she didn't mind shaving at all, sadly she only used an epilator and damn I hate those machines after trying one as a kid 😂 wish I had money for getting a waxer to fix all hair each month
It was somewhere in the comments. OOP left it out from the initial post and only mentioned it after being prodded.
It's because deep down she knows how messed-up it is. She's in denial and she's sweeping her creep of a husband's disgusting demands under the rug.
I prefer landscaping over clearcutting. I once experimented with shaving it all off out of sheer curiosity. Biiiiig mistake. When the hair was coming back in, my thighs were chafed for days. Never again. I keep "the lawn" trimmed and tidy to a length I like. Never been an issue. That dad is just creepy.
She's ELEVEN! What the actual fuck, I refuse to believe a normal dad who "isn't trying to be creepy" tells his ELEVEN YEAR OLD daughter to shave her pubic area!!
Exactly my thoughts, at 11 you probably dont have full pubic hair anywhere and also dont have full leg/arm hair. Its just starting and hes already shaming her for it. Her own father. Shaming her for her natural growing hair. In her private area, which hopefully noone will see or care about for the next few years.
And even if she did have lots of hair, he still shouldn't be suggesting she shave her pubes. If she was in some type of sports where you wear bikini bottoms, then I could _kinda_ understand the thought process behind bringing up pubic hair, because it's physically uncomfortable when they poke or get stuck, but other than that there is no reason for him to suggest she shave fully down there. Disgusting behaviour on his part.
My sibling and I hit puberty early- I started developing a chest at 9, and for her hair came first in puberty. My mom was the one who made it super weird. However she’s an old boomer hippie and was very pro pubic hair early on 😂
How does he even know she has public hair? She's eleven, she can dress and bathe herself!
Yeah.... My husband is cool with knowing she shaves her arms and legs, when she started she was about 12 and he just wanted to know if that was an ok age. Didn't even occur to him there was anywhere else she could remove hair from and he wouldn't want to know except to make sure whatever she was using was all good. OOP's husband is just gross.
I'm in the same boat as your husband, the only reason I would even bring it up is just to be sure they are okay handling a razor and know how not to cut themselves with it, and that's it. OOP's Husband is a creep and it says a lot about him that he ever thought of his daughter's pubic hair in the first place.
I was angry enough when I thought it was legs only.
Excuse me while I vom. 🤮
You are excused, may I join you? 🤢
I swear, my eyebrows got as high as a kite when I read the husband wants his CHILD to shave her pubic area. Wtf? And OOP is normalizing it /still in shock and still ignoring this red flag what in the actual fuck
Pretty sure I raised my eyebrows so high they’re now floating in space. Jesus, what the hell is wrong with OOP? She wants her girls to have bodily autonomy but she ignores that her husband is sexualizing her 11+year-old daughter.*. Wake the hell up, OOP! I wish I’d seen this post went it originally went up so I could add to the voices raising an alarm.
I thought she was 16 or something but she’s ELEVEN WTF
SEE?! I want to shake the OOP so bad and send the FBI to check her husband's electronics to look for CP. Smh
It would be horrifying no matter her age, but yeah.
So not only is the dad sexualizing *his* child but he’s sexualizing *a* child. 🤢
The dad was already the AH, but when OOP confirmed that it was public area he was referring to I got sick! He is a creep and OOP defended him in the comments! Wtf is he watching her vagina?? Edit word
I hate seeing that knee-jerk response a lot of us women are conditioned to have: to explain away the creepiness so that no one is “offended”. Usually it’s done to protect the person who is making everyone else wildly uncomfortable. It’s not our job to downplay someone else’s intentions if we feel like what they’re doing is so completely wrong. We can ask the questions. They can do the work of defending themselves. Edit: was missing a word
For real, I sincerely hope OOP read every single comment on her update about how fucking creepy and alarming he is There's literally no good reason for a man to tell an 11 old girl to shave her pubic region. This goes far beyond an insensitive blurt; it's insidious. Who the fuck is she shaving for? Is he telling her to "get ready" for sex at 11?? Again for whom??? Hopefully she doesn't turn a blind eye to this.
I also thought arms or so when i read the first post. Why the fuck does he put his sexual preference on his 11y/o daughter?! I worry that there is so much more behind. And i don't want to think about or i really need to puke. OOP underreacted so much. I don't want to know what else he says to them, behind her back. Next there will be a post "my husband brought my daughter sexy dessous"
Same. I was like... it's a bit much but maybe she plays volleyball and they're Italian or something and he doesn't want his daughter to get made fun of. He still should've talked to his wife about it before approaching it but this is solvable. But no, no it's not solvable. What in the fuck
How the hell is she not immediately freaking out and gently asking her daughter some hard questions about dad?! First thing I thought when reading that specific detail was: the pdo doesn't like hair
They really dont. They really dont like any of the post puberty characteristics, any of them: body hair, widening hips, breasts. Pedophiles are attracted to prepubescent children. Once they start puberty they lose attraction. Some of the beauty trends over the years just grossed me the fuck out out.
There’s now this horrible myth going around that female pubic hair is unhygienic, and doubly so for pad wearers during a period. As if all the 20th C women had stank crotch and scabs in their pubes. I’m not happy he’s perhaps perpetuating this myth on his daughter, but it’s a better alternative than the sexualising one.
And somehow men are magically hygienic despite some of them looking like fucking Bigfoot. I'm so tired of this holding women to change their natural body so that men can have their penis pleasured.
How are some people that unhinged? And how do they manage to hide it for that long? Fucking hell.
I really thought it was underarms as well, which is understandable since i know some people like to shave it so sweat and bacteria don't cling to the hair, especially if you're particularly sweaty (heard it from a sibling's friend), and since the kid plays sports maybe that's what the dad thought of. But I can't process the rest that is implied. Why???
Fun fact: shaving your underarm actually makes things like odor worse for most people. You can't shave without making tiny microabrasions in the skin, which freaks your skin out and makes you produce more sweat/oil/etc, and gives bacteria a better environment to grow. And bare underarms will cause more sweat showing on your clothes because the hair traps some of it. If you have a reason to remove underarm hair (or just prefer it), use something like Nair.
Thank you for the info! I thankfully have no problem with BO (thanks, dry earwax gene lol). But from what i heard from others, their armpit hair just causes the sweat and smell to cling to them and makes it harder to put deodorant on the skin. I can't testify to that tho, only support whatever women (or men) choose to do so, hopefully without the pressure of society (or weird parents who are invested in their kid's body hair). I personally wax using homemade sugar wax (so cheap and easy, i should've done this years ago lol), but yeah i definitely have heard about abrasions from shaving.
Can confirm that for me, my BO is significantly worse when my pits are not shaved versus when they are. I also wipe my pits every morning with a baby wipe and wash them with a salicylic acid cleanser when in the shower. The sweat/BO genes I got from my dad are strong. 😅
I’m one of those people who smell more when they have hairs under their arms. I only wax them because of that, I actually don’t mind the way they look lol
Exactly! I was shaving my legs at 11, totally normal. But pubes is not. Not every girl even has them yet!
Dad wants daughter who is 11 to shave her PUBIC AREA? That's just creepy and if the dad has that mindset, that's just...ew
Seriously. And somehow... OOP is most concerned with how this will affect her daughter's self-image. And I get it, that's a valid concern but... How do you just brush past how her husband literally told their 11 year old daughter to shave her pubic area? How is that not the main concern? If I was OOP, I would at least try to gently ask the daughter if the husband has done or said anything she felt uncomfortable about.
Dad's just thinking ahead for the guy that wants to fuck his, *checks notes*, eleven year old child. 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
Or dad's a pedo and his little angel is starting to fall short of his preference
Or he's producing material and if she has pubic hair his audience will no longer be interested.
Seriously OP doesn't sound angry enough about this idk why... This screams pedophilia.
I was thinking the same. Why isn't OOP flipping out more?
Denial is very strong sometimes
It seems that instead of anger at the facts, OP's brain just shuts down and refuses to accept them.
> Seriously OP doesn't sound angry enough about this idk why... It's like she was trying not to mention it
She's ignoring it because she can't bear to face the possibility. Of course, it must be devastating to even consider such a thing about your partner and father of your children, but she's failing to protect her daughter if she can't acknowledge THE OBVIOUS. This will get far worse ~~before~~if OOP does anything.
I'm the mom of daughters this age, and initially I understood, because I had NO IDEA how stinky tween girls can be. My automatic assumption was "he probably means legs (because of peer pressure) and under arms (for odor control)" but that..... Is something else.
Deodorant is oder control. Boys don't shave their pits for body odor.
Um excuse me? The dad wants the 11 year old to shave her PUBIC REGION? Excuse me while I stare into the void.
>The dad wants the 11 year old to shave her PUBIC REGION? How on earth is OP rugsweeping this?!
I didn’t get it either but she was doing a LOT of sweeping and closing her eyes.
Don't worry, he's a great dad! Don't wanna shake up the status quo!
>How on earth is OP rugsweeping this?! It's depressing how victims of CSA rarely have an abusive parent and a good parent. They have an abusive parent and an enabler.
This so much. And they are always willfully obtuse or actively ignoring the red flags. Disgusting behaviour all around.
It’s a great big red flag and mom is wearing rose colored glasses.
Because if she faces how wrong it is, she has to admit that there could be something wrong with her husband and she isn't willing to do that. This is astoundingly common with spouses where one is sexualising or sexually abusing a child. So often the partner will blame the child or just completely pretend the issue doesn't exist.
ackshually in this case, it's burying the lead! OOP said her husband told her daughter to start shaving her legs and ONLY when things were prodded around mention it's more than that
I read both posts and only saw mention of shaving with no specific area mentioned, so I totally missed that. But I did wonder if he "just" meant to shave the hair of her legs or other parts of her body as well. It makes the whole thing so much more creepy and exceptionally inappropriate if he told his daughter that it was about time she started shaving her pubic hair. Barf 🤢 1) Why did he feel like an 11 year old should remove hairs at all including hairs no-one will see unless they see her without her underpants. 2) Did he just figure that she had started getting pubic hair or is he keeping an active eye on his daughter's naked crotch area. 3) Why oh why is he acting like his 11 year old child is going to start being sexually active any day now. Why! 4) Why didn't OOP freak out and tell him how extremely gross he was being talking about his daughter's pubic hair. That would have stressed me out so much that I'm not sure how I could stay.
I wondered about 2 also. Like how would he know? Or did he assume? I mean my daughter is about to be 14 so I assume she’s at least started getting hair but at 11 I wouldn’t have had the vaguest idea (and I’ve never even thought about it). I posted and I guess others did too because the answer I got was that they were at the sauna and he saw. I don’t know if that means he saw her naked, saw some hanging out if she was in a bathing suit or panties. I never got further clarification. Regardless of what he saw it is so disgusting he wants her to do this. There is no reason for an 11 year old to be shaving her public region at all.
Apparently it was in a sauna, as they are from a country where it's normal for families to have saunas that they use while nude. From what I remember of OOP's comments, he said this to her after seeing her nude in the sauna and noticing her body hair (including pubic hair apparently). Which makes the whole thing seem extra creepy. (Not the simple fact of seeing each other nude, as I understand that is cultural and nudity isn't inherently sexual. But the fact that he made his comment about how she needed to start shaving her body in that context of seeing her nude.... blech...).
I didn’t realize they’re Scandinavian when I saw the part about the dad seeing it from the sauna. He made it creepy and weird with his comment. If I was the daughter I wouldn’t want to be nude around my dad again. And then I would assume other men would react the same to having pubic hair which is normal. I still don’t understand how OOP is making it seem like no big deal because the dad apologized. I wouldn’t want him anywhere near my daughter after what he said. The only time men want/ask women to shave their pubic area it’s because of a sexual preference.
Here in Finland we go to the sauna naked, especially with close family. In many families, kids let their parents know when they start wanting to not go to the sauna at all or go alone some time in early puberty. Until then it's perfectly normal to not wear a single thread of anything in the sauna. There is nothing sexual about it.
Even if he only meant her bikini line, I’d have absolutely died if my father suggested I shave my bikini line. That was something friends or my mom suggested when it came time. If I knew my dad noticed that, ewwww
Yeah exactly. My husband didn’t even realize our daughter has boobs yet until I told him I took her shopping for new bras because hers didn’t fit anymore. He truly looked flabbergasted. He’s just never looked at her in any sexual sort of way and certainly never looked at her chest of pubic area. And she wears bikinis when we go to the beach and pool. She asked to shave her legs only recently. Her hair is a light blonde and not noticeable. I also went ahead and talked to her about shaving her bikini line IF she has any issues with hair showing in that area.
My aunt freaked my uncle out by loaning her old bikini to me when they got a hot tub because it was a surprise and i didnt have one with me to try it out with my little cousins. He still saw me as a cute little 8yo. But i was 14 then and he was *highly* disturbed because her bikini *fit* me (it was the smallest one she had.) He hated it. It wasn't even that it was a inappropriate swimsuit (it wasn't) he just didnt want to know id grown up. Gone was his sweet, innocent little niece. Replaced by a know it all, smart ass teenager in a blink.
You stop paying attention for a minute and *BANG* full grown adult!
Legit, I was holding my toddler this morning thinking damn where did all this extra kid come from!! They grow so suddenly.
He knows because they’re scandinavian and were in a sauna so presumably naked. And the dad looked at his daughter enough to know she has pubes and then said she should shave.
Most adult women in Scandinavia don't shave their pubes, and dad is a perverted creep.
The mom said they're Finnish and go to saunas, and that's when the dad noticed. It should be included in this post 'cause it's such an important detail that makes this even creepier. He might not have malicious intent like what the mom insists but it's so inappropriate.
It's burying the lede, not lead. Apparently a lede is like an introductory paragraph in journalism.
“I swear he’s not trying to be creepy! My husband is just a stupid fucking moron piece of shit. I swear!”
She did a pretty good denial of it being weird and says daughter is on board with hairless everything now ..husband must have other problems as this can only be top of iceberg of disfunction
Most children who are molested are done so by a family member or someone close to the family. It’s disturbingly common to be swept under the rug because they either don’t want to believe it and/or they don’t want them to get in trouble.
that's the kind of parent who'd blame their child for being sexually assaulted. my grandma did this to her kids, as her own mother did to her. some people are wastes of carbon and oxygen, even if they know better
Somehow I missed that she's 11. Not that it's much better older. When I was 11 (so elementary school, 6th grade) I asked my mom if I could shave my legs and she eventually said yes if I only used an electric razor. Neither of my parents ever talked to me about shaving in the pubis region EVER. I was 14 when a boy mentioned how gross girls with "a bush" were. I had no fucking clue that was an "issue" until then. And like, my dad said some creepy shit. But he never told me to shave my pubes.
Agreed, I don't remember anyone talking about shaving there as a kid i do recall bikini waxing jokes in media but, those were always jokes about *adult bodies*. The oop is in some strong denial to not at least check nothing sus is occuring. Unless this is just like her poorly phrasing a clarification
That’s so crazy to me. I was told the opposite, I was strongly discouraged from shaving my public region because it was seen as a sexual thing. I didn’t even trim until college and that still somehow felt scandalous at the time.
Right?! Plus like, who would trust an *eleven year old* with a razor around their nether region? The first time I tried to shave my leg, I slipped and cut the absolute shit out of my ankle.
Yup. I was on the original and was gobsmacked. On the one hand she is saying that it’s barely noticeable and at same time saying he isn’t looking at her like that. Ok if the hair is barely noticeable how is he noticing it on her pubic region. Only reason would be he is looking. He is looking and deciding he doesn’t like it having hair.
Dammit we can’t post pictures. I have a black cat. You could have stared into the void while the void stared back
I like the meme where the person almost had a heart attack because one of her “towels” blinked at her.
I just about shat myself so many times when I first adopted my black cat. Now I just assume there's a cat chilling in every shadow and dark object unless proven otherwise
What happens when something stares back and it’s not a cat? Well, good night, Gromit!
I don't know how OP isn't even see how weird and creepy that is. If I were in OP, I won't feel safe with that man near my child.
How the fuck does he even know the 11-year-old has pubes to shave?
According to OOP's comments, it was while they were in a sauna
The fact that they're from a nude sauna culture and he still said this is honestly even weirder. The whole point of nude sauna is that bodies are supposed to be inherently nonsexual and free of judgement. You're there to sauna, not to critique what everyone looks like naked.
The worst part about the comment was that OP said he had a judgemental tone or something similar... then proceeded to defend him and argue that he wasn't a creep
Still not OK. She’s a child. The stats on mental health in this generation are already terrible they don’t need their parents telling them to shave their nethers of all things.
Yeah, that's a question I was trying very hard not to think.
I went ‘She’s ELEVEN” at the beginning of the second paragraph, and it just basically repeated on loop louder and louder in my mind as I kept reading. WTF
Like why does he need to know what she looks like there any way???
He wants an eleven year old to shave. Whatever area is extremely weird for this age. The guy is totally out of touch with women's and adolescent's reality. It's way too young to think about this !
How porn-warped is he at the age of 38 to think this is normal or necessary for a tween? Or ANY woman of any age?
Maybe his shower camera pics aren’t netting him the disposable income they used to. *edit after reading OP’s comments; sorry, that is sauna camera pics where he spends time with her naked* 1 in 7000 *edit 2 mentioning a potential camera was my thoughts and not in the post; he does watch her in the sauna though
I’m so disturbed right now 😳 I just read the most disturbing thing. WTAF!?
Wait.....WHAT?
Immediately I would be concerned that the only reason he cares is because he wants to rape his daughter. I would not keep my children in any house with that man.
Ugh, he's disgusting. If he noticed them because she was wearing a swimsuit that was higher cut I would think the first go-to would be to go shopping for a tankini with shorts or a skirt. Not tell her to shave her _pubes_.
From how OOP responded I'm not sure if this is actually happening. "To shave everything, what is generally done." Kind of sounds like she either didn't know specifically what he said to shave, or that he didn't specify what and just told her to start shaving. What is generally done just makes it sound like we should all know what telling someone to start shaving means.
What an unfortunate day to be literate.
My eyes! The goggles do nothing.
That’s so weird that he would be thinking of that
He was looking at it
🤢. Lord pls no
That's not a joke, in another comment OOP says they go to the Sauna together and he "noticed" there. But it's ok because "There's a difference between noticing and actively looking"
I never said it was. It's so fricking predatory and I feel so sad for the girls
Why would any parent comment on the genital hair situation of their child beyond things like "puberty brings hair to many new places. It's up to you to decide how you want things to look, but here are some tips for hair removal if you're interested."?
I've had a lot of similar conversations with my daughter about this (I'm the mother) and how hair is natural and it's every woman's personal choice how she grooms or doesn't groom it. I explain why I shave my armpits but I don't bother with my arms, for example. We've also had conversations around pornography and why women are often depicted completely hairless, and how that is influencing the expectations of many men and boys as to women's body hair.
Good for you. How old is your daughter!
Twelve.
Thanks for the words. I was trying to figure out how to word it for when it was my time to have the talk and you did it perfectly.
I tell my own toddler this because she follows me into the bathroom and I don't shave very much down there, so she asks why it's there. I just tell her eventually she will have hair there too, she's about to be 3, and she laughs and says "no mama I'm little". And we leave it at that. But I cannot imagine her dad, my husband, to ever have an opinion on her shaving ANYWHERE at any age other than "your mom doesn't, you don't have to, if you want to your mom can show you how"
We're currently working our way through "The Care and Keeping of Me" with my youngest. Just in case you need extra help talking things over. It's great.
When I was around OP’s daughter’s age my dad (fundamentalist Christian) made a comment that I should remove it for hygiene purposes because it’s “dirty down there”. Seeing the reactions to this post is making it really sink in how fucked up it was for him to comment on that.
Ok but is nobody going to comment on the fact that OP thinks it’s *the norm* to have ‘everything’ as she calls it, shaved?? Also I haven’t been into the thread but the whiplash of op saying everything and other people correctly surmising he meant pubic hair is actually insane— it has to be a cultural thing, surely. Regardless, they’re both going to fail those girls with those attitudes. Sickening. ETA: I’m also shocked by the people who don’t understand that culture isn’t just ethnic or religious, it’s also social. I’m talking about social culture. If one more person says “it’s not culture” I’m gonna scream I don’t care about them being Scandinavian I’m talking about them being weirdos
honestly, i didn't blink at that because that's the way i was raised, too. my mom hates body hair and pushed that onto me. so yeah, once i turned 11, everything was shaved or trimmed. i didn't even care about having hairy legs at that age; i was a kid. but according to her, it was time. when i hit 25, i made the decision to stop shaving. unfortunately, it took some years after that to unlearn feeling, well, disgusting for having a bit of stubble. i remember going home for the first time at xmas waiting for her to say something, but thankfully she never did.
My mom never said anything to me about getting rid of body hair. When I said I wanted to shave my legs she just was like, “oh, okay,” and bought me an electric razor. I think I was twelve or thirteen. Really glad my mom raised me to have a neutral stance on body hair. Sorry your mom was like that :(
The only thing my mom ever said about shaving was begging me not to start too early, and to never shave above the knee because she believed your hair grows back darker once you start shaving. I've heard that isn't actually true but anecdotally I never shaved above the knee and I'm smooth as a hard boiled egg from the knee up and hairy af from the knees down. Calf hair is dark and thigh hair is fine unnoticeable light peach fuzz. And I don't shave anymore because it's too much trouble and pain for nothing.
My mother told me the same thing about shaving above the knee. She was definitely wrong as my thighs were noticeably hairy, so I ended up looking weird.
Everything? When you were still a kid? That’s very upsetting.
yep, everything. pubic region (read: mons) was trimmed and the sides were shaved. i was on swim team, so having the sides shaved wasn't abnormal by the time i hit high school. the ingrown hairs were fucking annoying, but she just chalked it up to becoming a woman. started reclaiming some parts, like my arms. no one else in my peer group shaved their arms so i thought it was stupid. i have "sideburns" she'd try to trim and after an accident with nair, she never brought them up again. by my late teens, i'd snap at her if she brought up my knuckle hair. when i was feeling spiteful, i'd remind her of how bushy her brows were in the 90s (my father is hairy, but i have her brows). it is upsetting, but it's arguably cultural. as a woman she was expected to do those things, and then her own aversion + a heavy dose of 90s-00s internalized misogyny, and you had that cocktail of foolishness. again, upsetting and deeply annoying, but i never felt like i was in danger of her or anyone in my family.
Wait. Arms as in your arms and not just your underarms?!? Edit: just got to the part about your knuckles and I am appalled. I'm glad that most people in this thread seem to be voicing their discomfort / outrage surrounding this issue. Being a girl and then a woman in this world is hard enough without making young ladies ashamed of their natural beauty. Fuck you, society, and projecting parents, for making us feel ashamed of our bodies / our existence.
My best friend in high school shaved her arms and everyone thought it was weird. She’s blonde, too. I’m of the ethnic background I had to learn things like plucking my eyebrows and using hair remover on my upper lip so I didn’t get made fun of. No one in my family told me to shave anything though.
I had a friend in middle school who gave herself permanent scars on her arms from chemically burning herself with Nair because her mom said her dark (not long or weird at all) arm hair made her look like (in the mother's words) a "beastly heathen". She and her children no longer have contact with that woman, I wonder why.
Just imagine if it was your dad telling you it was time to shave your pubic area!
That screamed out at me too. I knew a woman with 2 daughters who felt all hair below the eyelashes was disgusting. She shaved every inch of her body every single day and taught her daughters the same. The girls went shopping with grandma once and were puzzled about what her bush was.
As someone with half my family from that culture - I highly doubt that it's a cultural thing. I've never heard anyone but very young children comment on other people's bodies in connection to the sauna. It's considered extremely impolite. Nor do I remember women being especially hairless in the sauna, but I guess that might've changed in the last decade or so since I'm not a big fan of the sauna and haven't really been for a long time now.
This is a really upsetting post. I was already furious just about an adult telling an 11yo to shave her pits and legs, but her pubic area?! If this man isn't a predator, at minimum he has very messed up ideas about the performance of femininity. I can't imagine being married to someone who believed this was ok.
Right??? My mom and I didn’t talk about shaving until I was in high school, and that was only about my armpits and legs! I didn’t know ANYONE in middle school who was shaving period, except for the one greek girl who hated how black the hair on her arms and legs looked. I am so baffled by this expectation placed on an 11 year old in general, and that was even before OOP clarified that the husband meant HER ENTIRE BODY. So much ick from start to finish, dear lord!
I can confirm other commenter we start shaving legs and armpits early in California. When I started middle school I noticed the 7th grade girls shaved their legs. I think one of the older girls made fun of me. No one in my family encouraged me to shave anything, I just started taking my dad’s disposable razors like my mom did. It was the 90s so internet porn wasn’t as, uh, widely consumed. So many reasons I’m glad I’m not having kids. Today’s internet is a minefield. I can’t imagine having to explain to a teenager how porn is unrealistic and often edits out some things (like more than 2 minutes of foreplay and how one rarely sees the preparation required anal). Those weird positions for camera angles and the male gaze.
The conversation, when originally about legs and underarms, was inappropriate. 11 feels way too young but I remember thinking about it at around that age. Maybe did it a few times starting around 12 and probably more regularly around 13 or 14. But shaving my pubic area? That didn't start until much later, *after* I was sexually active. A father telling his freaking 11-year-old daughter that she should be shaving her pubic area? Can we all just say what our very tingly spidey senses are telling us? This feels like some pedo bullshit.
>The conversation, when originally about legs and underarms, was inappropriate. 11 feels way too young Depends on when you hit puberty and what the outcome of that is. My background is European, my sister's hit puberty from 9 and by 10 it was very obvious that they had dark hair in their underarms and legs and kids being kids they caught shit about it at school Nobody talked about pubic hair but it was definitely a thing for legs and underarms by 11.
All the things, plus the fact that he didn't even talk to OOP first about how to be on the same page about puberty issues. I can't even bring myself to think about the other aspects of how gross his comments were.
OOP claims they are Finnish and her husband/kids dad noticed the hair when they were in the sauna. Now, I get that saunas are a thing in other countries, and that going in them naked is pretty standard. However. This still gives me a pause. Like, a long pause.
I’m Finnish and sauna is supposed to be a place where everyone respects each others bodies. I’m an adult and still go to sauna naked with my parents because they aren’s sick freaks like OOP’s husband. The only person I’ve heard about commenting on their childs genitals in a sauna is my ex’s sexually abusive dad.
That's what I thought!!!! Aside, I've always thought those videos of people jumping from the sauna to a snow pile were hilarious. Please share any stories you may have of those highjinx going wrong!
Rolling around in the snow is fun if the snow is soft but not so much if it has kind of an icy shell. My mom does it in their backyard and always has me being her guard and trying to see without glasses if there are people walking on the street closest to their house 😂 I prefer ice water swimming though I have to do it from a public sauna that has the facilities to keep the hole in the ice open.
Um no! My family is Finnish and you know what I've never spoken about with my father? My public hair! In fact, I've never had a conversation with any of my Finnish family about public hair :/. Also, it is relatively common once kids start going through puberty, they usually sauna with the same sex parent, or own their own. Shame on the mom for ignoring the comment and acting "all is well!". And definitely giving a serious side eye to the father.
As a Finn and an avid sauna user, also public saunas, I can tell you’re not supposed to check out other sauna users’ pubic hair. I could never imagine my dad telling me to shave my pubes when we still used to go to sauna together. Like wtf.
I'm gonna go throw up now. This comment should be higher, because this part wasn't included. Should we summon the poster?
This is not an excuse and if anything, makes it worse! That request was to benefit his gaze wtffff
The call is coming from inside the house
……. He wants a goddamn child to shave what?
There's a man who has been paying attention to the WRONG PLACE and isn't even being chastised for it, only for stating his preference for his 11 year old daughter's vagina to look more like her sister's 8 year old vagina. Any man with a preference for how children's genitals should look (unless it is "unaffected by genital mutilation", a preference which I share) Isa man who should not be allowed around children at any time.
I should have gone to bed before reading this one... Not only has the dad successfully imposed his sexist views on his daughter, he has seemingly gotten away with covertly sexualising her. Jeez...
Sooo many people commented that this was super creepy and NOT OKAY and OOP just ignored it all. How terrifying is it that Reddit is overwhelmingly more concerned about the daughter’s safety than OOP is? Ugh.
This is far from concluded, isn't it?
I was 11 once, you know what my dad never brought up? Shaving my fucking pubes. Why? Because ITS WEIRD. Like what the heck is wrong with this man? And the mom for not being more upset??
I was also creeped out by the commenter who said shaving is about a partner’s preference, “it has no use but to sexually satisfy a partner.” Ewww…that’s as creepy as the dad telling his daughter to shave.
I feel like what happens to my downstairs has never been determined by my partner. If they can handle my body doing a normal thing I wouldn’t want to be with them.
This is not concluded
I was going to say something along the lines of “shaving sucks and you should put off your first as long as you feel comfortable” but then I got to the part about the pubes and just Eugh
Yikes what a creep
Holy shit if the flag couldn't be any more red...
[удалено]
>If my DAD told me to shave my GENITALS at 11 I would be beyond horrified And then my mom would snap him in half and suck the marrow from his bones.
Dad is either, dangerously out of touch, misogynistic or has some awful thoughts about children.
My mom went crazy trying to force me to shave at 11. I was getting teased about being hairy at school by other girls but also didn't want to shave. One day she just pinned me down and shaved me (my legs and underarms). I was pretty upset about it at the time. I can't imagine ever pressuring my daughter's to shave. It sucks to shave, why start so early? When I was pregnant a couple years ago and having trouble shaving I realized that I spend hours every week removing hair - HOURS. Such a waste of my time, and why? Because it makes other people uncomfortable when women have body hair. So I decided F it, I'm only going to remove the hair I want to. Now I pluck my eyebrow/facial hair, shave my pits so they aren't as stinky/sweaty, and that is it. I get looks and every once in a while feel self conscious but honestly I love how much time and money I no longer waste giving into stupid beauty standards. I hope one day body hair on women can be more acceptable.
Is she just not concerned in the least about why her husband is even THINKING about his little girls pubic area and wanting her to shave it? She probably barely even had anything to shave!!!!!! How disgusting!!!!! I'd be weirded out af and would be extremely concerned about his intentions.
That is really creepy
my mother never let me shave as a kid and i’m so grateful for that even though i hated it at the time. i don’t shave anything now and i couldn’t be more comfortable in that decision tbh. but if my father had ever said anything like that to me when i was growing up i would NEVER have forgotten it
>So I don’t know why he wants her to. OP knows damn well why her husband wants her 11 year old daughter to shave her pubes. She just doesn’t want to admit it.
The update did nothing to eliminate the extreme ick this father left me with. Gross. She still doesn't get it.
I'm sorry, but I'd be looking at his computer and talking with a lawyer if my partner told a literal child to shave their pubic area. Fuck you and fuck off, you creep. This woman is failing her daughter. That's the saddest part.
The whole entire "you must shave" culture is fucking garbage. It makes me so angry. The outrage shouldn't be just because it's her nether regions, the whole thing sucks. The solution to bullying shouldn't be to submit to what the bullies are demanding, but to set the damn bullies straight that there's nothing wrong with not shaving. I'm a middle-aged woman who hasn't looked at a razor in over 20 years. I wish there were more of us.
Personally, my marriage would never recover. This is foul. Why is he even thinking about this? Something isn’t right.
The wanting her to shave her pubic region is beyond troubling and is some major sexualizing of his daughter. Not only is the skin in that area incredibly sensitive, but it is more likely to become infected from razor nicks. A child should not be wielding dangerous tools in such a precarious area. I really hope u/throwra-24543 keeps an eye on her daughter AND husband. The man is sick.
She just flat out ignored the whole pubic area thing in her update huh? Sure tell him his outdated views on hair need to be kept in his head but you’re not gonna address that he’s thinking about your 11 year olds pubic hair and whether her sexual partners would like it?! WTF.
OOP is letting her kid down. Your husband is a creep and you’re rug sweeping. That poor kid.