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Is he just being supportive?
By Isaac Serna-Diez
Last updated on Nov 07, 2023
A 24-year-old father is struggling to raise his daughter whom he had when he was only 19, and as such, does his best to support her in everything that she says and does in order to keep her happy. So when the five-year-old girl was cycling through the future jobs she was aspiring to, one of the ones she landed on got her father in trouble with his neighbors.
The father was called out for “encouraging” his daughter to become a housewife.
“My daughter is at that stage where kids pretend they are grown-ups with jobs,” the father wrote on Reddit. “The jobs differ depending on who she meets or sees on the TV. In the last few months, she wanted to be a teacher, babysitter, truck driver, president, garbage collector, photographer, ‘knee doctor’ (after I injured it), scientist, witch, [and] football steward.”
Like any father of a five-year-old child, he did his best to support her by playing along, buying her anything he could afford that would help her play the role. When an old friend of his came to visit and revealed that she was a housewife, the five-year-old cycled to her new profession. He explained that his daughter has now started playing house and expressing her interest in being a housewife.
When his neighbors caught wind of the situation, they were angry with him.
“They told me we aren't in the 60s anymore and young girls shouldn't dream about being [housewives] anymore and demanded I stop brainwashing my daughter because her subconscious will start settling for being a housewife instead of dreaming about bigger things,” he wrote. “Everyday has been a struggle and most of the time I don't even know if what I am doing is right so the thought of unintentionally hurting my daughter is filling me with guilt."
There is nothing inherently wrong with being a housewife, and as people on Reddit reassured the dad, the important thing was that he continued to encourage her dreams, regardless of whether that culminates in being a housewife or CEO — which don't even have to be mutually exclusive.
"I don't really get the sense of you [encouraging her to be a housewife], so much as you [encouraging her]. This week it's a housewife, next week could be an astronaut. It doesn't matter. You're not dictating to her, you're just letting her express interest and encouraging it," one person wrote. "You're a fab dad."
Photo: Reddit
Many people sympathized with him, offering up the commonly-known but hardly spoken fact that all parents are winging it and hoping that it goes right.
Being a parent is very difficult. Maintaining another human’s happiness all while trying to teach them the right things, behave in the right way, and express themselves in a healthy manner, is no easy feat. The fact that he’s supporting her in the way that he is was enough for the majority of Redditors to give him the NTA rating because a lot of parents don’t even do the bare minimum of supporting their children’s dreams.
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.