The most heinous thing they can do is to ply their daughters with bed-time fairy tales.
You know, those that start with once-upon-a-time and end with a prince and a white horse and a starry-eyed princess riding into the sunset to live happily ever after. Why? Because they give impressionable minds a Sleeping Beauty complex.
They make little girl believe that one day, their prince and provider will come and take them away from all that is unpleasant. And all they have to do is be pretty, sit tight and wait.
I mean, come on. This is the 20th century. When was the last time anyone ever rode into the sunset? Most of us are still hard at work when the sun starts to go down. In any case, who can see the sun these days anyway, with all that haze.
These tales are dangerous. They turn intelligent and independent grown women into lost little girls looking for crutch instead of a partner.
I have a friend who runs an entire apartment in a company but is a tai-tai wannabe. She wants to marry major money, a man who can throw $50,000 here, $100,000 there for the charity galas that she would like to organise some time in the future.
I have another friend who, after watching Pretty Woman again on TV last week, kept sighing and saying how nice it would be to have a rich boyfriend.
Then she told me to try to snag a rich, older man so I would not have to work anymore. Thanks but no thanks.
Believe me, the thought of having somebody take care of me, completely and totally, has crossed my mind, especially after another 12 hours at work where the high point of the day is the arrival of the pizza delivery man bearing dinner.
But then, there is a price to be paid. Someone who takes charge of the rent or mortgage, the COE, the bank loan for the BMW and the credit card bills will probably also want to take charge of my life.
And I am not willing to give up my autonomy and an equal partnership for that bungalow in Nassim Road or Queen Astrid Park. Neither am I going to make a man totally responsible for my happiness.
It is a task big enough for him, taking care of his own welfare.
Besides, material girls do not do the men any good. When men believe that all women want out of them is a bulging bank account, they start to think of everything in terms of their career and the money they can earn.
I once went out with this guy who works in the financial sector. One day, he picked me up for lunch from where I work at River Valley Road.
In the 10 minutes it took to get to Ngee Ann City, he managed to tell me what stocks he owned, how much he made in the market in last year's bull run and how the value of his recently-purchased condo had risen.
He gave a new meaning to the phrase "net-worth". I found a new meaning to the words "Boring date".
"Why do men have to define themselves in material terms?" I moaned to another manfriend.
"Can you blame us?" he said, not looking up from his Asian Wall Street Journal. "That's what women want from us. Financial security.
"By the way, you know Amanda's new boyfriend?" he said, referring to a friend who just started on a new relationship. "I don't think he's going to last. She's going to dump him and upgrade to someone whose parents can give them a house for a wedding present."
You know something is not right when people start measuring relationships in terms of their market value.
In the meantime, women here complain that Singapore men are boring. Can men help it if they think the road down the aisle has to be lined with profit statements from their stockbrokers and property agents?
There is nothing wrong with marrying intelligent and successful men, but there is everything wrong with saying we want equality and expecting men to be responsible for our lives.
As a photographer friend of mine said: "Women should get their way by standing on their own feet, not by sitting on a man's lap."
And me? I think I will stick to the guys I usually date: fun, intelligent but not-rich men who do not break into pools of angst- filled sweat over their bank accounts. Guys with whom I can have good cappucino and conversation, and who are interested in things happening around them.
Here's my 20th-century theory of what Cinderella does after her prince goes to her Yishun flat to return her missing Reebok Cross Trainer. He asks her to marry him and she tells him to wait for a couple of years while she works on her MBA.
"But why?" asks the prince, astounded. "Your cousin Sleeping Beauty is married to my brother and they're living in a district 10 penthouse.
"In between her shopping trips in Paris and her mahjong games, all she has to do is be there for my brother."
"Well, that's true," Cinderella replies. "But when she asks him to spend more time with the kids, he tells her that's her job. He's too busy and stressed out working to pay off the mortgage and her credit card bills.
"Plus he has to entertain clients at karaoke lounges and make sure that joint venture company in China is successful."
So in the end, Cinderella gets her MBA, marries the prince who decides that since she works as well, he can afford to do what he wants to do, which is to pursue a career in the theatre, instead of working in some stress-filled, high-powered law firm.
They move into some flat that is not in any prime district, and create as equal a partnership as they can.
He is happy that he does not have to shoulder all the burden. She is happy he does not try to rule her life.
Of course, they do not live happily ever after. There are the usual skirmishes and negotiations and guilt that come with any dual- career marriage, but the two of them work hard to get over those hiccups.
After all, they never really believed in fairy tales in the first place anyway.