I’m the dad of a 14-year-old boy. Growing up, my parents were very closed off and distant, so I never felt comfortable asking them personal questions, which honestly hurt me quite a bit. I promised myself that if I ever became a parent, I’d make sure my kid felt comfortable talking to me about anything. So recently, my son came to me and said he wanted to shave down there but was scared he might cut himself. He asked how to do it. I asked him if he wanted me to show him, and he said yes. So I showed him the process. He said, “Thanks, Dad,” and that was that. On one hand, I’m proud that I created the open environment I always wanted growing up. On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if people around me would think it crossed a boundary.
My parents never taught me personal things like this or even “the talk”. I just used the internet. However, if I were to have kids then I would probably be more open
I just did it for the first time and I’m in my mid twenties. Dad didn’t show me how to shave shit.
To be fair, I don’t think you’re supposed to shave shit.
I wasn’t born in a hospital and never admitted, thus untrimmed. My Dad never had the talk with me. No one told me I had to pull my foreskin back and wash the smegma off. It wasn’t until someone dumped me because they kept getting infections after we fucked, I learned the hard way.
If the boy needs help, help. That said, get him one of those gold mustache trimmers that cost $15. No shave irritation.
They don’t half nip your plums though
If you had any idea the kind of info that mothers and daughters have to talk about, you wouldn’t worry about helping your son trim the verge :D
Seriously. “Excuse me, Mom. You put what into where?!”
You’re a good dad. Not just because you helped your son, but even more so because he already had the confidence of knowing he can ask you a question like that.
Keep on doing what you’re doing. You’re a good dad.
This. The fact that your son asked you is incredible and shows so much trust, good for you op.
It’s not!
Anyone that feels like it crossed a boundary is themselves a victim of the exact same mentality you are trying (and achieving to) overcome.
Pragmatically you can’t really teach your son how to shave his nethers until he’s growing there, so any hesitation around age boundaries really don’t make sense in this case.
On top of that the request was initially from your son, not initiated by you, even if you took it a step farther to offer a demo. He wanted help from a male role model in personal grooming, and you helped.
This kind of thing can be so hard for men. As a society we talk about barriers between fathers and sons and it should be celebrated when we can overcome them to help young men navigate adolescence in healthy ways while feeling like they have support.
Your mental misgivings about what people might think are echoes of your own upbringing. You don’t have to tell people anyways, it’s between you and your son, if you have concerns about what people might think. Honestly some would think it crossed a line, but it didn’t, and you know better than anyone that it was healthy and innocent. So if you want to you can keep it to yourself, but personally I wouldn’t hide it. Not saying to bring it up randomly unprompted, but imo it should be something that you shouldn’t worry about discussing in the correct contexts BECAUSE we need more people to vocalize and hear that it’s ok, to continue breaking down those barriers. Caveat that with all recognition of respect for your son’s privacy, which again falls back on what I mentioned about context.
Bravo, sir.
You just have to ask yourself “If it was a daughter asking her mother for personal grooming advice, would things seem different?” and if the answer is ‘yes’ then it’s easy to recognise there might be a double standard there in society which maybe shouldn’t exist.
That’s a nice test, it is indeed some odd imbalance that it seems to be normalized that women being more “close” and open among each other in various kinds of ways is considered normal, while in men it is raising eyebrows.
As if any form of “closeness” is branded as feminine and men who are acting in similar ways are considered to be either gay or perverted.
The toxic emotionless, distanced sociopathic alpha male stereotype somehow still shaping our feelings about “masculinity” on a deep level, even if we consider ourselves to be progressive. And of course we see our roles of being a father or a husband through that distorted lens of unwritten expectations deep in our subconscious.
I mean, this is not something I would necessarily recount to my colleagues or some acquaintances, but I would say you did good. You can be proud of yourself that you were able to create an atmosphere at home where your son felt comfortable asking this question, as you said it yourself.
If it hasn’t already happened, this might also be a good time to talk about safer sex to him.
This is a very european perspective, so depending on your location and other factors, your kilometrage may vary.
I feel like it’s weird to talk about kids learning hygiene or bathing or grooming at work is weird.
But super important to actually teach your kid- and id put this in that category.
I hope you warned him about how much worse razorburn/itchiness is for that area.
Of course not. Who else is he supposed to ask and who else is supposed to show him?
I’m just going to disregard the whole “is it weird” because other commenters have already answered that and say this:
Thank you for being supportive of your son like that, not making them feel ashamed or uncomfortable for asking, and actually showing them since you know how to do it.
My dad wouldn’t even show me how to properly shave my face even when I asked, gave me a one sentence explanation, and just went back to whatever he was doing. I had to learn from YouTube and trial+error.
Americans are so prude. lol.
We really are. Those damn Puritans!
This reminds me of an event my mom likes to recount: We moved to Germany when I was a kid. We went to a beach where other kids were running around naked. I looked around and immediately took my clothes off and ran across the beach.
My god, that sounds freeing.
When I was a younger I asked my dad this same question and I will never forget how frazzled he was by it. He told me some b.s. answer like, “Oh, I don’t know. You don’t really need to do that.”
He made me feel humiliated for asking. At a certain point I could not ignore it anymore though, so when I experimented and tried to figure it out myself, I did cut myself and there was blood everywhere. I was terrified and thought I was going to bleed out. Luckily it wasn’t really that bad and I managed it on my own, but I remember how scared I was.
After going through all that, I told myself that I would help my future son if he ever asked me a question like that. You are a better dad than mine was in this situation. It’s your job to help them with whatever they need, and it would have meant a lot to me back then if my dad had helped me the way you did. I can guarantee your son appreciated it and will remember how you looked out for him.
He wants to shave his pubes? You should teach him before someone else does. Also teach him how to don a condom and what can happen if he doesn’t.
You need to tell them even if they dont adk
People are fucking weird. There’s also prudes and morons that assume any contact at all has to be some kind of horror.
But we’re supposed to teach our kids how to clean and manage their bodies. That’s the job; we do it for them when they’re too young to do it themselves, or if something temporarily/permanently disables them from doing so.
It isn’t weird to help with genital care under those circumstances either. You gotta teach kids how to wash their junk, and if they want/need to change their pubic hair, it’s part of the job to discuss it, decide if it’s the right choice at that point, and if the mutually agreed answer is yes, to teach them how not to screw up.
For real, who else is supposed to? You gonna hire a nurse or nurse’s assistant to teach them? That’s weird, and there aren’t any specialists in aesthetics that are going to agree to it in most circumstances when the kid is under the local age of consent. Too much risk.
And even that assumes that the kid is going to be okay with a stranger helping them with their genitals. Not every kid would be. For me, there’s no way I’m going to have a total stranger fiddling with my kid’s junk for non medical reasons, even if the kid was alright with it.
You did the job, end of story.
Contrast this to my mom, who taught me how to shave my legs but who forbid me from “shaving above the knee.”
That ended when I went to school in shorts and the bullies saw my thigh hair glistening in the sun.
It ended two years later, when I met a cool girl who didn’t shave if she didn’t feel like it, rocking her hairy legs without a care.
I’m still not that bold, but I found a balance that works for me. Nobody else’s opinion matters.
Preach! We should be way past the silliness of body hair choices being open for other’s opinions. It took my sasquatch looking ass a while to get there for myself, but there’s still social pushback that just pisses me off. I’m glad you found your balance :)
My dad took me in the shower when I was young and taught me to bathe properly.
