Dear Prudence: I think sexual harassment is not reason enough for my daughter to quit her job

[minoanmiss]

Bad feminist and bad mom: My 17-year-old daughter just landed her first job at a restaurant near our home. I am proud of her and glad she was able to find something in our very small town. The issue is her boss. He is the owner and this is not a chain, just a single restaurant. He is old enough to be her grandfather and she sees him patting the rear ends of the other waitresses. She asked one of the women if he does that to everyone and was told, “If he is comfortable with you.” Neither of us want him to be comfortable with that, and she wants to quit to avoid that possibility. Otherwise, the job works for her with the location and the hours she is scheduled. She is unlikely to find anything else nearby and we only have one car, so driving to another town could be problematic. I have told her that what he does to the other women is wrong and that she in no way has to put up with that if and when it happens. He did put his hand on her shoulder and I showed her how to pivot away and to firmly say, “I am not comfortable with that,” and I told her to call me immediately to be picked up if she feels unsafe or pressured to accept such advances.

However, we do not have much money and she will have to work during college to help support herself. She will encounter plenty of dirty, old men and pushy, young men in her life and, even though it is completely unfair, I feel she needs to learn to set her boundaries and not just quit. My daughter feels I am not being supportive. I feel she will lose out on lots of opportunities in life if she won’t be near men behaving badly. I want to be a realistic mom, but am I being a bad mom?

A: You are not a bad mom. Your advice to her about setting boundaries is great, as is your promise to come get her if anything happens. This would all be perfect if she were telling you she wanted to figure out how to keep this job. But since she wants to quit, there are two possible lessons you can teach her at this point and you have to choose one:
1) Never quit. Money is important.
2) Listen to your intuition and get the hell out of any situation that makes you feel scared, grossed out, or victimized.

No. 1 is valid. You do want her to be able to support herself. But in the last year before you send her out into the world on her own, during a summer that is your last opportunity to share your values with the hope that they’ll shape hers, I think No. 2 is much, much more important.
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“I feel she will lose out on lots of opportunities in life if she won’t be near men behaving badly,” reflects a legitimate fear, but I want you to imagine more for her. How about “I want her to know she never has to put up with men behaving badly—especially when she is not even an adult yet”? It is not actually true that there are creeps groping people in every single environment and it kind of bugs me that you would encourage her to just accept that as a fact of life.

Again, I don’t want to minimize your concerns about the practical side of this. She does need an income. But this is really one of those situations that will save her on therapy co-pays in the future if you handle it right. Take some of the energy you’ve put into strategizing about how she might handle an abusive boss and redirect it to how she might find a different way to bring in some money in a way that doesn’t require her to set herself up to be groped.

Comments

[kiezh]

There are sides to be on here, LW. Your job is to be on your daughter's side. Not on the side of the creepy gropers of the world.

"I feel she needs to learn to set her boundaries and not just quit."

QUITTING IS SETTING A BOUNDARY. She is trying to set boundaries and you are undermining her! Stop it! Her boundaries are hers to set and there will be plenty of people to tell her she's being impractical or unsympathetic or naive or whatthefuckever to get her to drop them. You should not be one of them.

Also don't be a victim-blaming asshole if she has to quit to get away from this guy and then doesn't have money or has trouble finding another job. There are a lot of people and institions to blame for that - it is not your daughter's fault that her options suck.

[sara]

When I was in high school my mother was disappointed that I didn't take an internship I was offered at the local paper, because I knew that a couple of the girls who'd had it in past years had been expected to sleep with the editor who supervised the internship. She thought it was a great career opportunity.

As a teenager I didn't know enough to express how wrong EVERYTHING about that situation was. As an adult I can do better, and expect better for my children and all young people.

[green_grrl]

Teenagers don’t always have the experience and ease in their own skin to be able to stand firm and hold the line against pressure, especially from men in power positions. I sympathize with what LW is trying to teach here, but it’s something daughter will have an easier time implementing at 30+. In the meantime, just knowing that it’s okay to want to be safe is a great first step, even if it means getting out altogether.

[mommy]

Sexual harassment is a trampling of boundaries. Teaching a teen how to set boundaries isn't particularly helpful when their potential harasser already has a history of disregarding them.