First things first: No one is actually reading the freaking post. No where in the post does it say the mom was going to buy a toy for her daughter or that the daughter asked for them to buy her a toy or that the daughter was going to buy a toy. The father assumed the daughter was going to buy one (with what card?) because she was on Amazon but there is no proof that’s what was actually happening (because he didn’t bother to have a conversation with her). That is a straw man argument that people are bringing up because they can’t handle a discussion about the real issues of the post.

I decided to run a little experiment. For arguments sake, let’s assume the daughter didn’t know what a vibrator was and heard the word at school. She decides to go home and google the word “vibrator”. Guess what the 3rd link was? Amazon! Isn’t that a bit more likely than the idea that mom had agreed to buy her a sex toy? Now, I’m not saying that’s what happened but there is no evidence to suggest purchasing a sex toy was even a possibility or brought up.

The real issues here imo are: 1) the dad has now damaged his relationship with his daughter in a very fundamental way, 2) there is a clear lack of communication in the marriage, and 3) the parents don’t have unity in raising their child(ren). I’m going to be focusing on 1 because that’s what really important here imo.

Let’s look at what we actually know: 1) the daughter is 12, 2) she was looking at vibrators on Amazon, 3) the dad caught her, slammed the computer shut (his words), and gave a pretty extreme punishment without discussion. 

For fact 1, 12 is a perfectly normal age for children to become curious about sex. She has probably already started puberty, maybe has already gotten her period, maybe she’s already had the sex talk. She shouldn’t be punished for being curious because it’s completely natural.

For fact 2, I reference my experiment above. There’s no proof the daughter was actually going to buy a sex toy. She might have gone to Amazon while googling a word she didn’t know.

For fact 3, the father reacted violently. His own words said he slammed the computer shut while his daughter didn’t know he was behind her. She was definitely scared and then punished without a conversation (judged by the fact mom is coming into the picture 20 min later). This sends a clear message: “What you were doing was wrong, thinking and looking at these things is wrong, and I (the dad) will not support you or help you in this area”. This is horrible. He has just complete destroyed any chance of his daughter ever coming to him for advice or help. What if a boy starts pressuring her to have sex in a few years? What if someone starts abusing her? It is so important to ensure these lines of communication are completely open because the consequences of them not being open are so dire.

So, I think mom is mostly in the right. The daughter should not have been punished and the dad should apologize to her for what he did. The only place where mom messed up with arguing in front of the daughter. I think once dad refused to give back the computer mom should have told the daughter something to the effect of “I want you to know you did nothing wrong but your father and I need to have a private conversation now” and then the fight should have happened in private. The daughter needs to know there is an adult in her life that she can go to to talk about these things. An adult that isn’t going to shame her and is going to protect her. If she doesn’t have that person she is going to turn to the internet and peers to get her information and we all know that can lead to STIs and pregnancy.

tl;dr: Focusing on if children should have sex toys completely side steps the actual issue of the post. The dad was completely in the wrong and mom only messed up by having the argument in a non-private location. The daughter did nothing wrong and deserves an apology.