My Daughter Doesn't Confide in Me
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Thanks for listening to my call of the day podcast. You can hear my live radio program Monday through Friday from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Sirius XM Triumph 111. Kristen, welcome to the program. Hi, thank you for taking my call. You're very welcome. I'll try to be brief.

Brief, but get all the facts to you. So my daughter is 18 and she has a boyfriend. And while I wasn't thrilled with that idea, it was making her happy and I think boosting her self-esteem a little. So that was great. They don't live in the same town, so they don't see each other that often.

But I recently found out from her best friend's mom, who she confides in, that he knows her location and questions where she's been. Kristen, Kristen, Kristen. Yes. This is an unpleasant question.

What happened to the relationship with you that she confides in somebody else's mother? She doesn't like to, she thinks I'm very judgmental and that I've been working on. She just wants to please us so much that she is afraid, I think, to confide. Well, that's the next question.

Well, that's the next discussion you have with her. You've got to breach that and say, I know you spend a lot of time talking to Mary and that you have some feelings about letting us know the truth, but this is not helping you. We love you in a way nobody else does because we're your mommy and daddy. Right. Other people can care about you and someday your husband will love you and so will your kids. But right now, we love you. We brought you into this world. We love you. We nurture you.

And you're confiding in someone who will more likely agree with you. And that's not good for you. So we have to talk. These are the things I now know. Oh, then she's going to be mad at the other woman. I don't give a damn if she's mad at the other woman. You're the mother. And unless you're some kind of brutal, evil bitch, this is you're the person she needs to talk to. Agreed.

But in the meantime, we were afraid. Blow this up. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Oh, let me change that. Be afraid. Be afraid. Be afraid and do it anyway. Right. We didn't want to lose her confidant. So we were kind of. Yes, she's going to lose the confidant. Yes. That's my intention. She's 18. She's a pimply adolescent teenage girl. Right.

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So we should come out with that. We know this and have that discussion. Okay. And I know it's going to upset you and you're going to yell and scream and cry and do all that stuff that a teenager would do. But basically, we love you. We care about you. You're just beginning to go out into the world and there's evil in the world. There's stupidity in the world. There's danger in the world. And what we know about this man, male person, is that he's a danger in the world.

And if you would like, sweetheart, to Google or get you a book on how when guys ask you where you're going, who you're going with, that eventually they're going to beat you. That's kind of standard whether or not you want to accept it. It's scary and standard. And because we love you, we want to warn you about that because not everybody out there has your best interest in heart. And even though we annoy the crap out of you regularly, we care deeply that you'll ultimately be okay.

So sometimes you've got to hear things you don't like to hear because they're truth. That's how I'd like you to talk to her. Okay. I'm Dr. Laura Schlesinger. My number 1-800-375-2872. You're just a click away from some terrific deals being offered by companies that get the Dr. Laura stamp of approval. Visit DrLaura.com. Click on sponsors to take advantage of the special discounts available to Dr. Laura listeners like you.

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