Free Milk or Buy the Cow: A Major Misconception of a Having a Present Father

First, I want to start off by saying in my best Kanye West voice that:

“My father is one of the greatest fathers of ALL TIME”. PeriodT, Pooh.

Sincerely. And truthfully. I am 30 years old and he is literally my favorite person walking this planet and that will never change.

Most of my friends growing up were not able to say the same. I watched classmates become fathers and walk in their absent fathers footsteps. So becoming an adult and meeting men (in a platonic sense: work or church) that were/are amazing fathers to their children was really exciting for me. Being a preschool teacher, I saw the pride and joy that beamed on the food or paint or marker stained faces of little ones when their daddy came to pick them up from a day of fun. Scrolling through my many timelines on social media are countless selfies of daddy-daughter dates, movies nights at the house, birthdays, pre-k graduations, and just regular ol’ days, I can’t but help to chuckle at the captions that imply their presence will stop them from being sexually active during their adolescence.

I too, recall my father taking me out on dinner dates. Talking to me about respect. Telling me to never get excited over a McDonald's meal because I deserved filet mignon. Opening the door for me, pulling out my chair, telling me how beautiful I was----Roy showed me what a true gentleman was. My father was a humble, but confident and proud man. Growing up on the south-side of Chicago in poverty--he was proud to have escaped and never needing to return unless visiting. He was proud to have given his children a life and home that did not resemble what he had growing up. He showed me, that if I was to ever get married, that’s the type of man you MARRY. A man who comes home at a reasonable time every night, helps with homework, takes his family on vacations and bowling on the weekends, financially responsible, educated, full of integrity, and a great communicator--for the most part.

As I approached the ending years of middle school, my dad began to tell me, “remember: why would a boy buy the cow if you just give the milk away for free?” This metaphor was stated in hopes of teaching me to save my “goods” for a worthy man who wanted me long term (marriage).  When you’re 16 with raging hormones, you don’t care about being “bought”. You care about the freedom to express yourself responsibly in that moment. Nobody teaches boys to “purchase” the cow. Why the fuck are we referred to cows anyway? That’s a whole different topic though. Another different topic is the fact that we choose to teach girls to exchange marriage for sex as if sex is all we have to offer in a relationship. I digress.

We teach boys:
“Be honest. Don’t tell her you love her if you don’t”.

“Don’t  say you want a relationship if you don’t”

“Make sure you use a condom so that she doesn’t give you a disease or get pregnant”

We teach girls, “nobody wants someone that everybody has had” (as if girls want someone that everybody has had.

“Save yourself because being a virgin shows your worth”.

Why do body counts matter to boys and not girls? Why do we teach girls to attach so much emotion to sex but for boys, sex is just an act of relief? Why is our entire life’s worth attached to when we have sex and how many partners we have had sex with? Is there not more to a person’s being than their sexuality? Does engaging in sex during adolescence make you a bad person?

My choice to have sex did not come from any voids. It came from being human. Sex is a natural desire and instead of teaching our youth to be fearful of it, they should be taught how to be responsible when choosing to share their bodies, IF they choose to share it. Making your child aware about all the outcomes of sex doesn’t mean they will engage, but at least they will be prepared if the opportunity is ever presented. Teaching them to fear sex is why many become exposed to diseases and is also why teen pregnancy was and still is very prevalent. Every outcome from sex isn’t or won’t be met with peer backlash, ending up on a viral video, with a disease/virus, or with a baby. I made it through most of high school and my adulthood without either. I’m 30 years old and planned my pregnancy with a great black man with whom I have a loving and healthy relationship with.

I remember standing on the steps in our home where I could visibly see my dad sitting on the couch. I think my neighbor had low-key snitched on me for having company while he wasn’t home and my dad was once again giving me the milk speech. He never asked if I was sexually active (I don’t think he wanted to know for sure) or if I was even thinking about it because he knew himself at my age. My mom was bearing babies at that age so I guess he felt it was a given. I am a lot like my father, so he could easily read the “this is going in one ear and out the other” all over my face. So instead of trying to encourage me to NOT have sex, he gave me three rules:

1) keep your grades up
2) don’t bring no chirren in this house
3) I won’t say this last one but know it was fulfilled as well.

And so I did all of what he asked. As close and as open as we were, I wish he had taken more time to really have the sex talk with me. My mother passed away in the first semester of my ninth grade year so we never had time to have the talk. My dad never made me feel like he would shame me if I had sex, he was more worried about other’s viewpoint of me and the negative outcomes that could occur. Those strategies didn’t work because of who I am naturally. I don’t care what other people think and I like beating the odds. Everything we choose to do has natural consequences-- good and bad. I believed in living a life that would lead to good consequences instead of bad ones. So I chose to be active, responsibly active. For me, that meant have sex with someone my age, that showed me they cared about me, use a condom and/or be on birth control.

I think it became clear to him that I was active when I made him take me to a doctor’s appointment that I called and scheduled for myself. At the end of my appointment I came out with a brown bag from the pharmacy. “What’s in the bag?”

“Birth control” I said plainly.

He sat silently for a moment then asked, “Why?”

I attempted to soften the blow of the reality by saying, “Because I cramp really bad and my cycles are heavy”.

He sat silently again.
“Okay Peaches, but this doesn’t give you a license to fuck”.
It had never hurt so bad to hold back laughter in my entire life because my smart mouth self just wanted to say, “I know, I’ve already been doing that.”

I think I refrained from laughing because I could see my dad was a little hurt. Hurt because 1) his little peach, his baby girl, the last of the Mohicans was growing up! She wasn’t that small baby that could fit in one hand anymore.

But also 2) because he thought all the work he put in as a father didn’t make a difference to me at the moment. All the dates, the talks, the provision, none of that stopped me from wanting to engage in sexual activity with somebody’s son.

But why should it have?

Why can men/boys have sex for fun/recreation yet women/girls have sex because of a void? I actually believe growing up in a healthy home, witnessing a healthy marriage between two people made me more free. More open. It gave me an appreciation for black men and made me love them even more because a black man loved me and treated me with respect.

When I got married, I married (at the time) a decent black man who was smart, loving, and a provider. Having an awesome black father who loved me and showed me how a husband is supposed to treat his wife is also why I was able to leave that fool when he began cutting up. There was no shame in me ending something that was bad for me. Having an awesome black father who didn’t shame for my choices-- good, bad or indifferent and telling me I could always come back home if I needed to, helped me to leave that situation.

Fathers, I share all this to say, continue to love your daughters. Love them, teach them, and help them to shape who they are. Why do you only choose to teach them the bad and scary parts of the world? It is good to prepare them for possible outcomes but don’t forget to teach them about the beauty, fun, and safety strategies of the world too. Your daughter’s worth isn’t tied to who she does or doesn’t experience sexually. Your daughters (children in general, really) aren’t your puppets. You will not be able to manipulate them and pull their strings forever. They are yours to pour into, listen to, shape/refine when needed, and yours to release to the world. Don’t spend your years focusing on that one aspect of her life. You are more than her guard dog. Spend your time taking her to do fun activities, teaching her about finances, how to be disciplined, how to be a thinker, how to make wise decisions, and what red flags are on the job and in relationships/friendships. Your presence is needed for so much more than sexual suppression; be wise with that time.