My dad is upset about my graduation outfit
I’m 22 F about to graduate college. This problem is about my outfit for graduation photos.
I picked out an outfit, yes from my closet, but I have so many clothes and many have not been worn yet. The outfit I chose is a nice blouse (vintage with tags still on it), vintage dress pants, and vintage shoes (not been worn). My friends all love the outfit I chose and so do I.
My dad is the one taking the photos so of course I showed him prior.
He started being very rude saying:
You have no clothes.
They are all thrifted and stained.
You have put zero effort into anything and don’t care.
I did go out multiple times and buy other clothes and he was there through some of it. I sent the other outfits as well as my vintage one. So zero effort is wrong, I think he just doesn’t like my options and has to belittle me for some reason. Also I’m a full time student and I work part time, how much effort am I supposed to devote to this…I’m exhausted as is.
I can get where he’s upset but at the same time I ended up liking the vintage outfit way more than the new clothes I bought. I felt good in it and was very very excited about it. He crushed that feeling immediately.
He seems to have a “I’m always right” personality. In fact we talked about shoes earlier and he asked my shoe size, to which I responded with, “idk it varies.” Boy did that make him mad. He started rambling on about everyone having a shoe size. I said that’s true but companies don’t all manufacture the size the same way. And I then said my closet ranges from 5 1/2 to 8 and he said that was “impossible,” and started making fun of me for thrifting again, “You must have banged up worn out shoes then.”
But alright. Guess I’m lying.
I think the main problem is he googled ‘women grad outfit,’ and they all are wearing a white dress. I’m going to go get a white dress this week because it’s not worth the extra arguing, and I’ve already been crying too much over this.
I’m just not excited about anything anymore and feel very overwhelmed about how the photoshoot is going to go down.
His tone and comments just always crush me and have my entire life. And there’s nothing I feel I can do about it.
If anyone has a parent that acts like this I would love to know how you handled it.
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Edit: just want to say thank you for everyone who has commented. A lot more than I was expecting and you all have truly made me feel better.
Don’t laugh at me but I did end up finding a really cute white dress at target when I was grocery shopping. I tried it on and I do really like it and I’ll be wearing my cute ballet flats with it…which he doesn’t like cause they’re not heels I’m sure.
I’m still upset that I feel like I can’t just wear what I want in the first place. I truly do like my dress with the flats a lot more than my vintage fit because I’ve been wanting to dress more feminine.
But I feel icky for liking something my dad tries shoving down my throat. He always tried to force me to wear dresses growing up which just made me hate them and anything feminine. I’m slowly now trying to be more feminine because I WANT TO not because of him. But idk it also feels tarnished in a way. Not sure if that makes sense lol.
But with yalls encouragement I feel much better about everything and I’m just going to ignore his comments because it really is my special day not his.