Put the shotgun away

When I think about Pinkie Pie eventually dating people my mind is filled with images from movies and shows where a teenage girl's father brandishes weapons and menacingly threatens the boys she is going on dates with.  Of course Pinkie Pie may not be dating boys, or at all, but this is what springs to mind when I think about it.

It is horrible, really.

I read a great article about this and it agreed with my views on the subject completely.  The idea that I must threaten people she cares about and chooses to associate with is insane.  Just as absurd is the idea that I should explode with rage should her heart get broken.  While I would spring into action to defend Pinkie Pie from some kind of physical assault I find the idea that I must get revenge on anyone who causes her heartache completely absurd.

Love hurts.  Sometimes it hurts just being there, and it usually hurts when it ends.  That is just a part of the price of being vulnerable and seeking big wonderful feelings.  Figuring out how to navigate that is a part of growing up, and there is no room in that education for angry fathers bent on revenge.

It is practically inevitable that she will feel hurt, cause pain to others, and have relationships that are messy and messed up.  Welcome to humanity.  While I do not wish her to be abused, I know that meddling directly in these sorts of things isn't going to help, and if anything it will hinder her growth.

I know plenty of adults who haven't learned how to navigate protecting themselves while opening up to other people, and I have a distinctly non scientific sense that parents inserting themselves into people's relationships helps create these problems.  You gotta suck, fail, and suffer to figure that shit out, is my experience, and you learn best when you make the decisions yourself and cope with the fallout.

So I won't be caressing a shotgun or sharpening an axe when Pinkie Pie's first romantic partners meet me.  I won't make veiled threats or overreact when they do something stupid and hurt her feelings.  All you can do, if you want to help your kids, is love them and pick them back up when they fall.  Even if blustering threats worked to prevent pain, which it doesn't, it is a shitty thing to do.