Father/Daughter dates

Discussion in 'Culture' started by Yerusalyim, Jul 7, 2008.

  1. Yerusalyim

    Yerusalyim Well-Known Member

    I'm married to a young Czech lady and I have an 18 year old daughter from a previous marriage at home as well. For her 18th birthday my daughter wanted to do a Father/daughter date...dinner at a restaurant and good conversation. My wife was initially upset about this and thought my daughter didn't want her along because she didn't like her.. She had never heard of father/daughter dates. When I explained that this is fairly common in the States she was ok with it. Are Father/Daughter dates uncommon in Czech or is this just peculiar to how my wife was raised but not to Czech in general?
     
  2. fabik317

    fabik317 Well-Known Member

    as far as i know, they are next to unheard of. seeing a man with his daughter in a restaurant or wherever, i would probably assume the mother is busy somewhere else, has a headache, the parents are divorced etc. etc. but generally i wouldn't give it a second thought, but excluding the mother explicitly, just to make it a private "father/daughter" thing does seem quite odd. i wouldn't be surprised if your wife suspected some kind of conspiracy:)
     
  3. dzurisova

    dzurisova Well-Known Member

    hmmm, would it be odd for a mother/daughter to exclude the father for private mother/daughter time?
     
  4. fabik317

    fabik317 Well-Known Member

    yeah, no difference there i guess.

    EDIT: well, unless the daughter is in her early teens and she needs to discuss certain woman-specific business with her mother.
     
  5. alenastef

    alenastef Well-Known Member

    Never heard about that before.

    Sure a 21 years old girl feels odd being "excluded" by the 18 years old daughter... and vice versa. Good luck, Yerusalyim.
     
  6. dzurisova

    dzurisova Well-Known Member

    It's very common in the States for family members to want one-on-one time with eachother. Whether it be a daughter/mother, mother/son, father/daughter, sister/sister, etc. It's simply common to plan an outing, whether it be dinner, shopping, golfing, etc and purposely exclude everyone else to get in some alone time with that family member. It seems odd to me that Czechs don't desire this. But now that I'm thinking about it, my step-daughter has never requested alone time with her dad. Hmmm, perhaps I should plan it for them. They probably wouldn't know what to say to each other. :)
     
  7. eso

    eso Well-Known Member

    I think that naturally Czechs sometimes meet in "configuration" father/daughter, mother/son, sister/sister etc, but I believe they don't see it in some special way.

    I could be wrong, but maybe while Americans see things in more emotional or maybe symbolic way (maybe there is a better word) like - "father/daughter time", "to be in bad place", "quality time", Czech just see it in more pragmatic, realistic way.
     
  8. Ceit

    Ceit Well-Known Member

    I think the father/child thing (whether it's daughter or son) is only special because, traditionally, fathers never had a lot to do with the actual raising of the children. It's supposed to be "quality time" where the child gets imbued with the example of masculinity that is the father, so the daughter knows what kind of man to look for and the son knows what kind of man to be. That's how it looks to me anyway. I guess it's not as common in other countries because they don't have as much internal pressure to give the appearance of equality.
     
  9. dzurisova

    dzurisova Well-Known Member

    I just want to clarify what you are saying.... are saying that Czechs also desire the one-on-one time with a family member, but simply refrain from speaking about it but rather they simply arrange it, do it, without openly speaking about it - rather they just know it is quality and don't have to say it is. Sorta like how Czech moms & dads don't tell thier children they love them, the kids just know it.
     
  10. eso

    eso Well-Known Member

    No.

    More like if they want to spend time together they just do it - in whatever combination of family memebers - and they don't need to consider it as something extraordinary.
    Of course maybe it depends on particular family, I can only compare it with my experience with my family, or families of my friends.

    As far I know, Czechs parents say their children then they love them (mají je rádi), although mothers more often that fathers :)


    ad "quality time" - I meant that Czechs just simply say for example they like time, when they are together and don't use artificial terms like "quality time" (this term originates from newspaper article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_time )
     
  11. cecilia6162

    cecilia6162 New Member

    Yerusalyim, Enjoy your date with your daughter! Turning 18 is a special event for a young lady and will be even more special for her to spend "quality" time with her father.
    I have 2 daughters ages 18 and 22 and they both enjoy their time alone with my husband. By the way, I am taking my Daddy out to eat for his 70th birthday alone. My entire family will celebrate his 70th the next day, spending quality time together pool side with a big BBQ.
     

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