My daughter is thirteen years. Thirteen years!!! and she told me she had broken her virginity with her boyfriend. I’m still trying to let it sink. I sat her down and asked who the boyfriend was. He was two years ahead of her. I was angry. I was shocked. I thought it was a joke. I know this generation is more exposed to sexually explicit stuff early. But to think that my 13 year old girl who had just started her menses could open her legs for an equally underage boy in JHS was too much for me. I was angry and I may have overreacted. But I reacted in love. I got a cane and disciplined her in a way I had never done before. Then I instructed that I personally see the boy and speak to him
Somehow I was able to get into contact with the boy’s parents and we met somewhere with the children. They were more calm and relaxed. They said they had spoken to their son and ‘kids of today start exploring early’. I told them to make sure their son stays away from my daughter. The conversation didn’t go on as I had planned it. I thought the other parents would be as angry as I am. I thought they would be hard on their son as I have been hard on my daughter since I heard the news. My wife has travelled, and she will be away for a year. Situations like this makes me miss her. Right now, I have grounded my daughter. I’ve also taken her phone away from her and I personally drive her to school on my way to work and take a little break to come for her when she closes.
Now my daughter is acting out. She has called me irresponsible. ‘A foolish man’. This was after I had hit her for calling me irresponsible. When I cane her, she stands unfazed. She doesn’t show any pain No matter how hard I hit her. She says she hates me and she would never forgive me. I wish she will see that I’m trying my best to love her and her younger brother. I want her to grow and become a responsible girl in the future. Somewhere last week, she refused to wash her plates after eating and even when I pointed it out to her, she still didn’t do it. Anger got the best of me and I removed my belt and beat her. The metallic part of the belt hit her unintentionally and it gave her cuts around her hand. I had a call from her school counsellor the next day and they accused me of physically abusing my daughter. I had a little back and forth with the counsellor.
In the end, he threatened that if I ever lay hands on her again, the school would report me to higher authorities. I admit that I was angry and I went a little far with the belt incident. But how do we keep our children in check if we cannot even cane them? My dad was a military man and his way of discipline was more brutal and merciless than what I do to my two kids. But my siblings and I all turned out well. How do you raise such a stubborn daughter who is bent on her ways. I am scared she will get pregnant because she is obviously sexually active. Sometimes I wonder if she deliberately goes against my rules to prove she can be tough. I don’t know what to do. Anytime I try to sit and have a talk with her, she leaves me or never opens her mouth. When her mother calls, she talks a lot to her. But her mother cannot discipline her through the phone. I feel like I have failed as a father. I feel like I’ve lost my baby girl and she’s no more the confident and happy child. She is now fearful and timid around me and I only want to shape her into a responsible girl.
