A father wrote to Dear Abby about his own 16-year-old daughter — and he wants to warn the boy she’s using.
A father wrote to Dear Abby this month with a problem most dads never admit out loud: his own daughter is the problem.
His 16-year-old is popular, pretty, part of the “in” crowd. There’s a boy in her class — quiet, straight-A, respectful — who’s sweet on her. She is not sweet on him. But she lets him believe she might be, and in exchange he helps her with school projects and does her favors. She even has him over to the house to keep the act going.
Dad found out. Dad confronted her. And her answer is the whole story: she’s “just using what God gave her” to better her life. If the boy is happy just being around her, she figures she’s doing nothing wrong.
Read that again. Sixteen years old, and the math is already cold: his feelings are a resource, her attention is the payment, and the deal only works if he never finds out it’s a deal.
Dad likes the boy. He’s disgusted. He’s asking whether he should tell the kid — or the kid’s parents — the truth. Abby told him to make his daughter come clean and apologize, with real consequences if she won’t.
She’s right, and it still misses the other student in the room. Somebody has to teach Henry the difference between being wanted and being useful — because if he doesn’t learn it at 16, he’ll be paying for it at 36. In money, in time, in dignity.
Being helpful makes you a good man. Being helpful because you think it’s buying her love makes you a resource with a heartbeat.
-SSM