15 Family Stories That Prove Raising a Daughter Can Be a Roller Coaster

It's not easy to raise kids, but when you have a daughter growing up... Grandmas and grandpas keep saying "she should act like a girl," boys try to mock her at school.

And when she becomes a teenager... Letting your daughter go on a first date is not the same thing as letting your son go on a first date. So, parents of girls, just hold on.

• My 3-year-old daughter plays soccer. Well, soccer is probably a big word here, she just attends sports classes for children from 2 to 4 years old. They run around, play with balls, but they wear soccer uniforms.
  Parents also attend these classes, and yesterday I saw some boy run up to my daughter and push her to the ground. I grabbed the kid, calmed my daughter down and went to find his parents. And you know what they told me? "There's no place for girls in soccer. Be prepared for injuries!"
  So, I moved my daughter to another group. They're lucky my husband wasn't in this class today. Then the kid and his bad parents would catch hell from him. © Mamdarinka / VK
• Yesterday we were walking home with my daughter (7 years old), she was jumping all around and singing songs. We were passing by the school stadium, and I told her:
  - I bet you can't run 10 laps. If you do, our neighbors downstairs will finally have some peace.
  And my daughter replied:
  - I bet 2 dolls that I can. With one break.
  - Okay, I bet!
  She ran 5 laps, took a minute break, and ran another 5 laps. She'd never trained for that. She only had PE classes at school. Lap 9, and I started counting money in my mind.
  When she finished lap 10, I realized that I don't know my daughter too well: she was not even out of breath and energetically went home. I think I'll send her to running courses. © CheTak / Pikabu

• My daughter is 5 years old, and she got interested in earrings. She asked me to pierce her ears and buy her earrings. This conversation had been going on almost every day for 4 months now, but my husband didn't allow piercing her ears. He said that if she wants to pierce her ears as an adult, she will do it herself.
  But I felt so sorry for my daughter, so I took her to the salon without agreeing with my husband. Everything went well, she didn't even cry, and then happily showed her daddy the star earrings. He pretended to like it, but hasn't been talking to me for a week. Did I really do such a terrible thing? © Mamdarinka / VK
• I stayed with my baby daughter today, and ran to feed and change her clothes from time to time. At one point, I heard her crying and ran downstairs to soothe her. Found my daughter asleep.
  This happened a few times. Eventually, I realized that I had mistaken my daughter's crying for the sound of a circular saw that worked near my neighbors' house. © mimimaus / Pikabu
• I am a dad of 3 (10F, 10M, and 6F). My 10-year-old daughter is pretty girly, but my 6-year-old daughter follows my son around like his little shadow and is what people sometimes call a tomboy. She loves sports and being outside with her big brother, and they are pretty close. For the spring, she just started playing lacrosse, which my 10-year-old son has been playing for years, and they have been spending so much time together outside practicing.
  Anyway, my mother-in-law was over the other day and the kids were outside playing while we were on the porch watching and my wife was making dinner. They were just playing catch and my son leaned over to spit, so my 6-year-old did the same. My mother-in-law said nothing to my son about it, but yelled, "Rosa! You need to be more ladylike. Don't copy your brother when he does that!" I told her it wasn't that big of a deal, but she insisted that we need to get this under control because Rosa doesn't act like a lady should and is getting too old to think it's okay.
  I argued with her a bit and she ended up leaving. Now my wife is mad because she thinks I disrespected her mother and should have understood that it's cultural for my mother-in-law, and she will always think this way. This is not a spitting in public debate. I would have been fine if my mother-in-law corrected both kids because spitting is gross. I am annoyed that she only corrected my daughter because of her gender. © VampireDuty / Reddit

• I'm 34, my daughter is 15, but she looks a few years older. So guys approach her in the streets when we walk to ask her out. My daughter and I have agreed that if she likes a guy, I will just stand nearby quietly while they're talking.
  So, once a guy (18 years old) invited my daughter to the movies, and she agreed. I set a condition that I'd join her for this first date. She didn't mind. When we arrived, we found my daughter's suitor and his friend.
  The suitor didn't know that I was her mother, and brought a friend for me - a 17-year-old freshman student who talked about computer games and TikToks during the entire movie, and tried to kiss me when we were parting. You should have heard my husband laugh when he found out I was "on a date." But my daughter really liked that guy, and they had a good time together. © Mamdarinka / VK
• In 9th grade, I took my dad's wedding suit made of good blue wool, which he had cherished for 15 years in the far corner of the wardrobe, unseamed it and remodeled it to fit me. Dad returned home from another business trip, saw me in a new suit, and got speechless. You could only see pain from lost youth in his eyes. I felt so sorry for him!
  I didn't know that the suit was so important to him, men usually don't talk about such things. But he didn't grieve for long. Like any loving parent, he soon forgot about his loss. And after that, he let me remodel some of his other old clothes. My dad is the best! © TuxoTyT / Pikabu

• I always give my daughter a lot of food to school so that she wouldn't get hungry. Recently I found a lot of small banknotes in her backpack. I asked her why she didn't spend her pocket money, but it turned out that she was selling my sandwiches to her classmates!
  What a businesswoman, I'm shocked! She says, "Mum, you give me too much food, I eat one sandwich and sell the rest. I'm saving for a new doll, are you mad?" Wow! © Mamdarinka / VK
• My 6-year-old daughter has been telling me all about a new cafe that her friend went to which serves "princess cakes." She says it is very fancy and people only go for special occasions when they can dress up. I had a look online, it looked lovely, and I knew it would make my daughter happy, so I booked a table. I thought we could do it as an early Mother's Day celebration, so I also invited my mom and my mother-in-law.
  My daughter was so excited, she wore her favorite dress and told everyone that she would be just like a princess. It was lovely to share her joy. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, was not so thrilled. Despite it being my treat, my mother-in-law insisted that the whole thing was a waste of money, that the cakes were beyond ridiculous in their size, and it was all a bit pretentious. She is obviously entitled to her opinion, but I could clearly see that her comments were sapping some of my daughter's joy.
  Eventually, I asked my mother-in-law to accompany me to the bathroom, and I asked her to please keep her criticisms and negative comments to herself. We were trying to have a nice day together, but more importantly, my daughter had really been looking forward to this, and it was difficult for her to enjoy when someone is constantly acting negatively. My mother-in-law said that I was giving my daughter far too much credit, she wouldn't understand half of the criticisms, and even if she did, it is important that she understands the value of money.
  Eventually, I asked her to please leave if she couldn't let my daughter enjoy herself, which is what she did. Now my husband is saying I could have just kept the peace for a couple of hours. © Adventurous_Ant1546 / Reddit

• I don't remember how old I was, but I was small. We went outside with my dad, and there I was, sticking my hands into the pockets of my dress, trying to imitate my dad and his gait. He spat, and I got a mouthful of saliva and spat too.
  On the way we met a neighbor who, seeing me spit, said, "Just like her dad." Dad was smiling. And it made me feel good. Little me had no contradictions with the world I lived in. Children are not sponges. Children are vessels that parents fill with themselves.
  Naturally, growing up, a child begins to filter what they can and can't do. And until the moment of filtering, you drink raw eggs with your father in the morning, love fishing and weave fishing nets stretched between 2 chairs in the room. © mannecka / Pikabu
• We became parents at a young age. My husband died when my daughter was 22, and since then she's literally suffocated me. She graduated from college, found a job not far from me, comes to my place every day, has practically moved to my place (she's lived separately since 18), tries to protect me from everything.
  2 years have passed, neither I nor she has had a personal life. I try to convince her to travel somewhere or go on a date. In reply, she cries, "I'm doing this for you. You won't make it alone!" And I'm 43, I have a job and no health problems. I don't know what to do. © Overheard / Ideer
• When I became a teenager, guys started asking me out. Peers from school, my older sister's friends, friends of my cousins. My dad taught me this: a girl can accept candy or flowers as a gift. The rest is a bribe for a closer relationship.
  And once, one of the guys gave me an expensive gift - a gold chain. The gift was returned, and my dad and this guy also had a conversation, to which I was not invited. But in the end, my father told me in a joking manner that the guy wanted to marry me, but asked for a cow as a dowry, and my father insisted on a goat, so they didn't agree. Daddy, I love you very much! © NataBijoux / Pikabu

• I am a dark-skinned brunette and my daughter is a golden-haired girl. She looks like a typical doll: blonde curls, blue round eyes, dark eyelashes and rosy cheeks with dimples. And by July my daughter and I turn into 2 opposites: her hair becomes even lighter, and I tan very quickly and become very swarthy by mid-summer.
  So, we just moved into a new apartment and went for a walk. And the daughter at this age has some weird quirk and calls me and my husband by our names, Russel and Irene. So, we are playing on the playground, and old ladies who live in this house start asking her questions.
  The daughter honestly reports: she is not mum's or dad's, she's her own. She moved in here together with Russel and Irene, then we'll move somewhere else. She doesn't have a daddy (daughter, why?), and Russel is at work.
  So, the old ladies start questioning me. Is the girl yours? Are you her biological parents? After that, they leave. And after some time a police car drives up to our house and the officers demand a conversation.
  It turns out that the old ladies went home and called the police. Eventually they called my husband from work, collected documents and went to the police station to write an explanatory note that the child is ours. Even though I really freaked out that day, now I smile when I recall it. © weero / Pikabu

• I'm a single dad. When my daughter was 6 years old, she asked me where children come from. I don't like to lie to my daughter, so we went to a bookshop and found a good book for children on the subject, with pictures and explanations. She took it well, although she was surprised.
  Then she went to the first grade, and some boy told her that children are found in cabbage. My daughter objected and told everything she knew. The next day, I got a call from the boy's parents. They threatened to call the child protective services and write a police report against me. "How the hell does your 7-year-old kid know such things? Are you sick?"
  I threatened to post the recording of our conversation to the parent group and notified the class teacher about the situation to prevent any provocation. She supported me. © Overheard / Ideer
• I was the only girl in a family of 4 children, and in pre-school I played mostly with boys in their games. I rarely had an opportunity to play dolls or princesses with someone. So I decided that if I had a daughter, I would definitely play all this with her.
  I got pregnant with a girl. I bought dolls, toy tableware, everything that I wanted to play as a child, but.... My daughter wasn't interested in all this at all. Since childhood, she preferred neutral games like a shop assistant or doctor, was indifferent to dolls and dresses.
  I hoped that maybe the interest will still develop, but now she is already 13, and doesn't really play toys anymore. I feel like a child whose parents are always the last to pick you up from daycare - all the toys are yours, but there is no one to play with. © Overheard / Ideer

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