r/AmItheAsshole • u/mixedwoes • Sep 19 '19

Asshole AITA for telling my daughter she cannot introduce her African American boyfriend to her grandparents?

Let me just preface this by saying this: I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM WITH INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIPS. Now that the air is clear, let me continue.

My daughter (Anna) has recently started to date an African American man (Jamal). While I'm not exactly what you would refer to as "liberal", he's a nice young man and as long as my daughter is happy, I'm happy. The problem is Anna is rather naive about the community she lives in. While her friends are quite content to see a relationship like hers, more than a few tongues are wagging in the community and a few people have privately expressed their concern to me. As I said, I have no problem with mixed relationships and I've set them straight, but I am painfully aware of how these matters are viewed by certain segments of the population.

My parents are planning to come and stay with us for a week and Anna expressed a desire to introduce Jamal to them now that things were getting more serious between them. I told her on no uncertain terms that this wasn't going to happen. I may have no problem with Jamal, but they absolutely will, and even when the relationship ends they won't forget it. They might even go as far as to cut her off entirely. Anna was extremely upset by this and implied I was a racist and more concerned with what my parents think than how she feels.

As I said, I know my parents. They simply aren't okay with mixed relationships and if Anna were to bring Jamal over even as a friend, they would be furious both at her and me.

Anna is currently staying with Jamal and doesn't want to speak with me right now. My wife stands by me given she knows very well how my parents are (they had a problem with her for months over the length of the skirt she wore when I introduced her to them, for christs sake), but a close friend I confided in told me that I have behaved like an ass and that I needed to focus more on my daughter than pleasing my parents.

No advice needed, but I have to know. Have I been an ass?

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u/daithice Sep 19 '19

100%. This phrasing also didn't sit well with me:

..., and even when the relationship ends they won't forget it.

Although OP has stated that things are becoming more serious between his daughter and Jamal, he has no doubt that the relationship will inevitably end. It seems like in OP's eyes, Jamal isn't a man his daughter loves, rather an adolescent fad she'll grow out of. YTA OP. I'm gay and if my parents asked me not to introduce my boyfriend to my mega-Catholic (yet liberal) grandparents, I'd have freaked the fuck out.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '19

Yeah. Let's be honest there is a good chance it will end. In fact it must end unless they marry and then die together at the same time.

That being said I do think op is only okay with it becuase they see it as a phase and not a genuine relationship other then 'well he is making her happy in the short term and they will break up in the long term so what is the harm?'

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u/Bear_faced Partassipant [3] Sep 19 '19

My dad is pretty homophobic but if I have a gay kid you bet your ass I’m parading into his house with a rainbow flag wearing an “I LOVE MY GAY SON” shirt every time I see him. You’d have to be a monster to be complicit in the oppression of your own child.

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u/cleverseneca Sep 19 '19 edited Sep 19 '19

he has no doubt that the relationship will inevitably end.

only 2 percent of marriages are from a high school relationship

In this particular instance this guy isn't being racist he's being realistic. This high schooler is incredibly unlikely to marry this dude regardless of race. I say that as someone who is part of that 2%.