I’m the dad of a 14-year-old boy. Growing up, my parents were very closed off and distant, so I never felt comfortable asking them personal questions, which honestly hurt me quite a bit. I promised myself that if I ever became a parent, I’d make sure my kid felt comfortable talking to me about anything. So recently, my son came to me and said he wanted to shave down there but was scared he might cut himself. He asked how to do it. I asked him if he wanted me to show him, and he said yes. So I showed him the process. He said, “Thanks, Dad,” and that was that. On one hand, I’m proud that I created the open environment I always wanted growing up. On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if people around me would think it crossed a boundary.
Of course not. Who else is he supposed to ask and who else is supposed to show him?
I wasn’t born in a hospital and never admitted, thus untrimmed. My Dad never had the talk with me. No one told me I had to pull my foreskin back and wash the smegma off. It wasn’t until someone dumped me because they kept getting infections after we fucked, I learned the hard way.
If the boy needs help, help. That said, get him one of those gold mustache trimmers that cost $15. No shave irritation.
I hope you warned him about how much worse razorburn/itchiness is for that area.
It’s only weird if you make it weird.
While you’re at it, teach him how condoms work.
Fatherhood has no expiry date. If your son came to you asking for help, don’t overthink. Do the right thing and help him out, regardless of what he wants to shave.
If your son came to you asking for help, don’t overthink. Do the right thing and help him out, regardless of what he wants to shave.
This should be stitched into a throw pillow. The first sentence on one side, the second sentence on the other side.
It could work for so many occasions.
So the short answer is yes. It’s weird.
The long answer is, and I have a 15 year old girl, is that pretty much everthing we do at this point is going to be weird or awkward.
Is what you did more awkward than normal also yes.
I’m not trying to save you from this sir.
If you had any idea the kind of info that mothers and daughters have to talk about, you wouldn’t worry about helping your son trim the verge :D
Seriously. “Excuse me, Mom. You put what into where?!”
He wants to shave his pubes? You should teach him before someone else does. Also teach him how to don a condom and what can happen if he doesn’t.
It’s not!
Anyone that feels like it crossed a boundary is themselves a victim of the exact same mentality you are trying (and achieving to) overcome.
Pragmatically you can’t really teach your son how to shave his nethers until he’s growing there, so any hesitation around age boundaries really don’t make sense in this case.
On top of that the request was initially from your son, not initiated by you, even if you took it a step farther to offer a demo. He wanted help from a male role model in personal grooming, and you helped.
This kind of thing can be so hard for men. As a society we talk about barriers between fathers and sons and it should be celebrated when we can overcome them to help young men navigate adolescence in healthy ways while feeling like they have support.
Your mental misgivings about what people might think are echoes of your own upbringing. You don’t have to tell people anyways, it’s between you and your son, if you have concerns about what people might think. Honestly some would think it crossed a line, but it didn’t, and you know better than anyone that it was healthy and innocent. So if you want to you can keep it to yourself, but personally I wouldn’t hide it. Not saying to bring it up randomly unprompted, but imo it should be something that you shouldn’t worry about discussing in the correct contexts BECAUSE we need more people to vocalize and hear that it’s ok, to continue breaking down those barriers. Caveat that with all recognition of respect for your son’s privacy, which again falls back on what I mentioned about context.
Bravo, sir.
You just have to ask yourself “If it was a daughter asking her mother for personal grooming advice, would things seem different?” and if the answer is ‘yes’ then it’s easy to recognise there might be a double standard there in society which maybe shouldn’t exist.
That’s a nice test, it is indeed some odd imbalance that it seems to be normalized that women being more “close” and open among each other in various kinds of ways is considered normal, while in men it is raising eyebrows.
As if any form of “closeness” is branded as feminine and men who are acting in similar ways are considered to be either gay or perverted.
The toxic emotionless, distanced sociopathic alpha male stereotype somehow still shaping our feelings about “masculinity” on a deep level, even if we consider ourselves to be progressive. And of course we see our roles of being a father or a husband through that distorted lens of unwritten expectations deep in our subconscious.
Only if he also asks you to teach his friends
Americans are so prude. lol.
We really are. Those damn Puritans!
This reminds me of an event my mom likes to recount: We moved to Germany when I was a kid. We went to a beach where other kids were running around naked. I looked around and immediately took my clothes off and ran across the beach.
My god, that sounds freeing.
I don’t see anything weird about this. Sounds like parenting.
Not weird but only if he asks you and not the other way around
I’m just going to disregard the whole “is it weird” because other commenters have already answered that and say this:
Thank you for being supportive of your son like that, not making them feel ashamed or uncomfortable for asking, and actually showing them since you know how to do it.
My dad wouldn’t even show me how to properly shave my face even when I asked, gave me a one sentence explanation, and just went back to whatever he was doing. I had to learn from YouTube and trial+error.
