Thank you Dad for never taking me to a purity ball

So a few weeks ago, I started and never published a post about my anxiety over telling my father that B and I were moving in together. My father is very religiously conservative, and on top of it, conservatively Asian. One thing that's dawned on me in the last month or so as I've dealt with this whole moving in thing is that I'm not really sure any more which one - religious beliefs or native culture - has more effect on the conservative and somewhat authoritarian way he raised us. I used to take for granted that it was religion.

But now that I'm a little bit older, I'm kind of appalled at myself for not realizing how much our differences are actually cultural. And not only cultural, but cultural intermingled with generational. My Dad is Filipino, and even in Filipino culture in the Philippines, I've heard that there's a huge generational divide between people of my dad's generation, and people of my generation. My Dad and I unfortunately have it in double or triple doses, because since my Mom is American and white, culturally my sisters and I have always been more American than Filipino. And add on to that the religion factor, and friends, you've got a whole lot of differences between my dad and this adult daughter.

So you can imagine I was quaking in my patent leather sandals over telling him I was moving in with my lapsed-Catholic/agnostic lawyer boyfriend. But you know what? The whole thing turned out surprisingly well. I went up to the cabin with my parents the week before B's law school graduation, when all his family would be in town and chatting away about the happy news. I planned to tell him on our morning run. Let's just say I told him about 15 minutes in, and the 30 minute run ended up being a 45 minute run. With a 15 minute cool down walk. And yes he did moralize a little bit, but he listened as I rationally explained my reasons and points where I disagreed with him. And he never lost his temper, or raised his voice, which is saying a lot.

In the end, I was pretty pleased with how it went. Imagine my surprise when, at lunch last week, he tells me he'd like to take back some of the things he said. Instead, he wanted to say that he respects and supports (yes, supports!) both of us. He realizes that we are both smart and mature adults, and we would not have come to such an important decision without giving it some very serious thought. And he is behind us. I'm tearing up just thinking about it.

In light of all that, this article in the New York Times over the weekend made me appreciate my dad even more. Considering my background, my biggest feminist pet peeve is abstinence only education. A close second are purity balls, and all that they represent. I was excited to see this issue covered in the New York Times, but I have mixed feelings about the tone. There was mention of the fact that the majority of teens break their purity pledges, and that they're less likely to use condoms when they do. But throughout the article, I just felt like screaming at my laptop: this is weird, wrong, and creepy on so many levels! How anyone can calmly and impartially recount a narrative of the evening is beyond me. I realize the benefits of presenting the story that way, but part of me wanted to author to say something, anything to acknowledge how completely messed up this purity ball was, from the very concepts and values behind it, to the smallest little details of the evening. And some of the girls were so young. Do they even fully grasp what they are promising? Somehow I'm afraid that's kind of the point. A commenter on Feministing linked to this great post on the NYT article on a blog I'd never seen before, Womenstake.org. It's the National Women's Law Center's blog, and they do amazing work, so I'm sure I'll be reading it a lot more.

I really believe that the worst of my fundamentalist upbringing did not come from our home. It came from the private schools and the churches. The camps and the retreats. And some of my parents' worst mistakes were made when they were younger, newer parents. In a way, I see them as victims too. They were, and still always are, trying to do the right thing. The fathers who take their daughters to purity balls claim that they are showing their daughters they love them by purporting to take ownership over their virginity, and guarding it till they can pass her off to another man. While I'm not questioning that they love their daughters, what they're really doing is telling them is that their only value is in their virginity, or lack thereof, and in association with the man who currently has domain over it. My dad, in contrast, is showing his daughter he loves her by borrowing his buddy's pick up truck and helping her move in with her boyfriend. I'll take that type of love any day.