Emotionally Inappropriate Relationship

There was a time when a man showing romantic interest in women was accepted because the assumed out come was marriage.  This seems totally acceptable to me.  Man sees girl, develops relationship, gets married.   As long as the mutually agreed purpose, and the expected out come of a relationship is marriage, most people are comfortable with the situation.

This is true even when large age differences exist between the man and women.  If there is a honorable reason for the relationship, morally the situation is acceptable.  At least that's my working theory.

In reality that's not how these things happen today. 

PERRY HALL, Md. - The father of a Perry Hall High School student struck a teacher with a baseball bat after police were made aware of a series of texts between the teacher, a 42-year-old man, and a 15-year-old student, Baltimore County police said.

Enter a family whose names are withheld by the press presumably because the daughter is 15.  Late one night mom and dad discover some "friendly" texts on the girl's phone.  That might not be so bad but the texts are part of a conversation with her 42 year old male teacher.  The context of the texts haven't been released but the cops are saying they weren't criminal in and of themselves.  Nothing was said that was too kinky or creepy, and the cops, despite being called at 3am aren't going to arrest the guy.

The girl's dad is a smart guy.  He knows that there are only a couple of reasons to develop a close emotional relationship with a female.  He isn't down with his teenager becoming "close" with her 42 year old school teacher, for any reason, ever.

So far dad seems like a good guy.  The daughter is a little loopy, but still might be totally innocent.  The teacher is suspect.  I'm assuming that between 3:00 am and 7:00 am someone, either the police or the daughter told the teacher what was going on because the teacher showed up at the girls house.  Dad told him to beat it.  The teacher refused to go.  Dad hit him with a baseball bat.  The police were called.

So far nobody wants to press charges against anybody else.  Which is probably how it should be.  The thing that makes me think the teacher might be a good guy that accidently got in over his head with this girl, is the fact he showed up right away to talk about the situation with her parents.  He really may be a "nice guy" who was being "friendly" to a student without an ulterior motive. We know he isn't very smart because he didn't leave when the angry man with the bat told him to.

Either way society is better off when dad's police their kids relationships.