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Fathers in anime, and often in Sitcoms, tend to be homicidal in protecting the celibacy and chastity of their daughters. To these endearingly overprotective dads, their daughters will always be their little girls; for a boy to even hold hands with her, much less take her First Kiss or give her heavy petting, is as bad as rape in his eyes. God help you if you are caught in bed with her, even if it's Not What It Looks Like.

Mothers, on the other hand, often see things differently. The more zealous the father is about interfering with the awakening of his daughter's sexuality, the more likely it is that the mother will help it blossom.

This is a subtrope of Doting Parent. Mothers who follow this trope enthusiastically play The Matchmaker and offer invaluable assistance, such as dressing her up for dates, setting up these dates (which will often include a keepsake from her mother for luck), offering advice to the would-be knight in shining armor on her likes and hobbies, or setting up situations that will bring the two young lovebirds closer together.

Woe betides the invariably Henpecked Husband of the wife who follows this trope if he persists on his crusade of chastity; a Megaton Punch or quietly dragging him off to a corner for a "nice long talk" on the part of the missus will usually remove his obstruction to the romance in question.

If this trope occurs in a Western program, the daughter may resent her mom's meddling even more than her dad's attempts to keep her from having a love life at all. Both will be seen as attempts by her parents to control her and she doesn't want either of them.

Anti-Smother Love Talk is where this happens with the child's safety rather than romantic future being addressed.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Haruka Nogizaka's Secret: Even if the fearsome businessman Gento Nogizaka wants his little girl Haruka Nogizaka to stay "pure" forever, his very "convincing" wife, Akiho, isn't going to have any of that, oh no...
  • In His and Her Circumstances, Yukino's mother Miyako figures out that she's pregnant before anyone else does (including Soichiro), and acts as her confidante. She warns Yukino that when she recently brought up the subject of her relationship with Soichiro to her father Takashi, his reaction was that "Yukino's too young to even kiss." When Soichiro asks her parents for permission to marry and explains why, her father's less than thrilled.
  • My Bride is a Mermaid: Compared to her psychotic husband Seto Gozaburo, who has a tendency to send assassins after his son-in-law Nagasumi, Mermaid Yakuza Queen Seto Ren was absolutely delighted when she mistook his drying of her daughter San's fins as public sex ("My oh my, kids will do it anywhere these days.") She provides (not so) helpful love potions to speed up their blossoming marriage along with advice and encouragement, when she's not occasionally trying to seduce the boy herself, that is.
  • Sailor Moon: Usagi's father Kenji was very overprotective whereas her mother Ikuko was all "bring your boyfriend home for dinner!".
  • Space Patrol Luluco: Lalaco lets Luluco borrow her Cool Starship and provides air support so she can confess to Nova. Keiji is less than pleased, but he helps anyway.
  • Tokyo Mew Mew: Ichigo has exactly this family. Shintaro's overprotective but Sakura gives her all the help she needs and more.

    Fan Works 
  • One chapter of the Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfic "A Mother's Love" (dealing primarily with the relationship between Mai and her own daughter, but containing the rest of the family as well) has this. As Ursa (the daughter, named of course after the Ursa) is both the youngest of four and the only girl, Zuko is incredibly protective of her to the point of severely frightening all her potential boyfriends. Mai reminds him that she was younger than Ursa when she fell in love with him. Zuko lightens up a little, but is still extremely protective.

    Films — Animated 
  • Ice Age: Continental Drift: Manny is extremely overprotective of his daughter Peaches. Ellie is more relaxed, though.
  • The Lion King II: Simba's Pride: Simba is overprotective of his daughter Kiara, likely as a result of his own rough childhood. He enlists Timon and Pumbaa to babysit her even when she's grown up, annoying her to no end. Nala is more hands-off and understanding of Kiara's need for space.
  • Shrek 2: Both of Fiona's parents are surprised when they discover Fiona married an ogre but her mother was far more willing to accept it and defends her choice to her father. Though as it turns out, Harold actually owed the Fairy Godmother and intended to repay her by Fiona marrying Prince Charming. Fiona marrying Shrek destroyed these plans so he feared Fairy Godmother's wrath He gets better though.
  • In Turning Red, this is a Gender-Inverted Trope. Jin does try; he personally sees no harm in letting Mei go to the concert, but unfortunately his wife is having none of it and he struggles to make himself heard.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Father of the Bride (1991): George Banksis an example of this throughout the entire movie and into the sequel. He hates the idea of his daughter getting married, dislikes her fiance the moment he meets him and continues to do so despite the young man's many attributes—a nice guy with good looks/education/job/family, and when his daughter announces her pregnancy, is further incensed and completely convinced that the young man somehow took advantage of her. His wife's feelings are the complete opposite of his.
  • Meet the Parents: Pam's mom is supportive of her daughter's relationship with Gaylord Focker, as opposed to her frighteningly Knight Templar Parent of a CIA-Agent Dad Jack.
  • Averted in 10 Things I Hate About You. The father (partly because he is a gynecologist for teenage mothers) is obsessed with keeping his daughters pure, but being widowed, there is no wife/mother to help him out and assure him that things are ok. Left to himself he goes overboard with this trope.

    Literature 
  • Journey to Chaos: Sathel is much more open to the idea of Tiza dating Nolien than her husband. For comparison, she will try to maneuverer Nolien into complimenting Tiza while her husband gives him a death glare that can be felt through a blindfold.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Happens in The George Lopez Show when Carmen brings home Jason. George insists that they interview him and he seems perfect. Angie is okay with them dating, until they find out that Jason wants to keep her a secret.
  • Roseanne warms up to her daughters' boyfriends much sooner than Dan, who's a Boyfriend-Blocking Dad to the letter.

    Music 
  • The Trisha Yearwood song "She's in Love with the Boy" has a classic example of this in its third verse, where Katie and her boyfriend Tommy come home after midnight to find her father waiting for them. The father tells Katie to head to her room as he prepares to let Tommy have it. But then Katie's mother breaks in, reminding her husband that he wasn't that much different from Tommy back in the day, and that they had faced just as much opposition from her father.
    "My daddy said you wasn't worth a lick;
    When it came to brains, you had the short end of the stick.
    But he was wrong, and honey, you are too.
    Katie looks at Tommy like I still look at you."

    Visual Novels 
  • In Clannad: After Story, Akio is torn between denial ("How did that happen?"), happiness at becoming a grandfather, and wanting to strangle Tomoya when he finds out that his married daughter Nagisa is pregnant. Sanae, however, is delighted.
    Akio: "Congratulations... YOU BASTARD!!!"

    Webcomics 
  • Lets Play Webtoon: After learning about Samara's relationship with Charles, her father Samuel Young flies off the handle and is about to assault him in public when Samantha Young (his wife and Samara's mom) expertly body-blocks him and drags him off to talk things over. In the course of the conversation, she finally manages to get him to admit that Samara is an adult woman who can make her own life choices, and her parents' job is to help her deal with any bad calls she may make — and not to prevent her from making her own mistakes in the first place.


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