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Q: My husband won’t allow our 17-year-old daughter to date. She is an excellent student, very involved in activities at school and church and never has given us any major problems.
A rather brave boy has tried repeatedly to ask my husband if he can date our daughter, but my husband won’t even give him the time of day, despite the fact that he’s a good kid from a good home. We know his family, and it’s become embarrassing for all of us, except my husband, that is. He even refuses to discuss it. The whole situation is making me feel like I’m watching Romeo and Juliet.
Everyone who is familiar with the situation, including my relatives, tells me I should ignore my husband and allow my daughter and this boy to date. Please help me. What should I do?
A: Under no circumstances would I advise you to ignore your husband and go against his wishes, no matter how irrational his position concerning your daughter and boys. And while I’m reasonably sure he is not generally an irrational person, the fact that he won’t engage in discussion and bend even a tad concerning his stand on your daughter and dating means he can’t defend it; therefore, it’s irrational (a decision or position that is driven or determined primarily by emotion and which is not supported by objective evidence). Nonetheless, your marriage is more important than this issue. Keep that in mind.
Being a father, I would bet that your husband is genuinely concerned for your daughter’s well-being. Fathers can and should be protective of their daughters, but your husband’s protective instincts have gotten the best of him here. His anxieties (I’m making an educated assumption here) have overwhelmed his good sense, and he is in danger of becoming his own worst enemy.
As for Romeo and Juliet, one can only hope that your husband’s rigidity does not result in these two young people doing something “Shakespearean.” This has the potential of resulting in your daughter (a) engaging in deception in order to be with this boy, (b) leaving home when she’s 18, (c) entering into an early marriage that has a large chance of failing, (d) harboring long-standing feelings of resentment toward her father or (e) all of the above.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard about a female child who was overprotected at home and became “wild” once she went off to college and got out from under her parents’ repressive thumbs.
If your husband allowed these two young people to date, they would have no reason to be deceptive or turn this into a soap opera. He’s actually giving them a reason to do what he probably fears most, and the consequences could be very unwelcome to both families.
Having said all that, it doesn’t sound like your husband is going to come to his senses any time soon, no matter what anyone says to him, and it definitely sounds as if everyone involved has said everything that can be said.
I certainly don’t know any magical words that would cause him to revisit his thinking on this matter, much less change his mind.
This is one of those times, therefore, when I must regretfully tell someone that “I think you’re just going to have to muddle through this.”
           
A psychologist, Rosemond answers questions on his website at www.rosemond.com.

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From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
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Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
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