Dating

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Ok, taking a break from the reading:
I tried to post a poll, but it didn't show up! Basically, I just thought it would be fun if we brought up the question "What age did your parents tell you it was OK to date??"

a) Never! Not until I'm married & have children
b) They never mentioned it
c) 18, when I'm in college & can meet people on the same page as me
d) 21, when I'm legal! YEAH!
e) ____, I have awesome persuasion skills 8)

As for me.... it originally was (c) 18, when I'm in college. BUT! The final answer is (e) Age 16 when I convinced them that it was better for them to guide me through my first couple of dates/relationships BEFORE I hit college and make some bad decisions such as........ partying on frat row & suffering something like the "Walk of Shame". Needless to say, (e) was a win-win situation because I now I'm in this awesome relationship with my first serious boyfriend (yep, he's the winner!) & it has been one of the best decisions of my life...... other than coming to UCLA!

Please post!! This is such a good topic & varies from person to person 😀

-Ames

[Anonymous]

hmm my parents said once you finish college. but my mom knew i was dating the quarterback of the football team when I was 16. however my father didnt. but my father doesnt know much about his daughter. and yeah.. both of them kind of clued in on me and my ex bf when i was dating him senior year.

[Anonymous]

my parents like to pretend that they are "cool" with dating and that it is not a big deal for them if I date... but yah... i think they're still kinda in denial about me and my boyfriend ... calling him just "a close friend" that i shouldn't be "too serious" with... yah... so i guess the answer to your question is ... NEVER ?!

[Anonymous]

Well for me, my selection would have to be b. My parents had never been strict on whether I should date or not. The decision was left up to me alone. They believed that I could make my own responsible choice. Personally, I believe an age restriction on dating serves no purpose. If there is a reason that you believe you can/should date, why should your parents influence your decision?

Also, I believe being the second child in the family also affected my parents decision on how much to influence my dating. My sister had stricter rules on her dating but this may also be because she is a female.

In general, I must say that age restriction was never an issue in my family and dating is left for me and my sister to make our own decisions.

[Anonymous]

Haha my parents were always really strict about me dating. I was brought up basically in a little bubble, and I think it was because I am a girl. I have three older brothers so that makes me the youngest AND the only girl. Talk about over-protection from EVERYONE yeah? Anyways, once boys started calling my house and whatnot, my mom was surprisingly okay with it, and this was around freshman year. Sophomore year a boy asked me to the homecoming dance, and my mom made me say no to him even though I really liked him! That was when I really started feeling the restrictions. But once I talked to my mom about it, she eventually gave in and let me go to the dance. I later started dating him when I turned 17, and I'm still dating him now :o) So I guess...e, the art of persuasion? hehe

[Anonymous]

i have a funny hypothesis (well actually not so funny cause, well i believe, there's a high probability that it might be true). of course, this all falls apart if "mwang" is not male. i'm VERY sorry if you are actually female, but because you mentioned that your sister may have had heavier restrictions "because she was female", i assumed you were male. =I
so anyyways, with that assumed, i think its interesting how azn guys and girls have it different in terms of their dating freedoms. now, when i say this, i mean in context to the fact that we had less trouble, ESPECIALLY from our azn dads. correct if i'm wrong, but sometimes azn dads can be super strict. and i mean , out of the ordinary -____-
so what i assume is that most parents = " B "to azn guys, while they have much more of a protective-nature when it comes to their daughters. one can see how this might as well be true. i mean, for me, my parents said they were supposedly strict on this issue, but they really were not. when my brother got his first girlfriend in middle school, my parents had little idea. when they found out, they would say stuff like "andy, its important for you to wait till late high school to start dating", but they never enforced it at all. i didn't really think they cared much; i can't picture my parents at all making my brother stay home from a dance simply beacuse of age. to test my hypothesis, btw, unfortuanately can't be firmly tested. this class, unless i'm mistaken, has only three males...we simply do not have equal numbers in test subjects ...
on another note, i have a (female) friend in high school and she (And her sister) can't date until they're like way into adulthood (i KID you not). her older sister is currently over early twentities and is STILL restricted. honestly following these guidelines, however, i can't guarantee in any way. for one thing, my friend has already broken this rule, who currently has an underground boyfriend at UCI =][Edit by="afang on Apr 17, 10:14:15 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

for me it was choice b. my parents never mentioned it but there's some unspoken understanding between me and my mom. i think the general approval of dating by my parents (and all my other relatives) will be it'll be okay for me to date as long as it is someone i will eventually marry. so basically dating not for the sake of dating but for marriage.
but now that i'm in college, i feel i'm getting mixed messages from my parents. whenever guests or relatives come over and tease me about whether i have a boyfriend yet, my parents will always jokingly say "do you?" and laugh it off. my cousins in china, who are close to my age, also get same treatment at family gatherings. so i think the social norm for dating would be the parents would tell their children to date the one you will marry, but actually want them to start dating in college.

[Anonymous]

My parents actually NEVER brought up the "dating" topic and have never asked me whether I was dating anyone or not. I think they would rather not know, or they're just in denial. lol. When I was in high school, they didn't want me to date until college. Now that I am in college, i'm assuming they would prefer that I don't date until I graduate from UCLA. :@

[Anonymous]

haha. funny how this topic has the most posts and views! I talked about it with my parents a bit 7th grade and freshmen year (mostly because I had to for health class..), and they said at 16 I could go on group dates. Looking back, it makes me laugh, because what in the world is a "group date"? *shrug. My parents are really chill about things in general, and try to act really "cool" about going out with someone (or as they say, going around with someone ), but I think they were secretly really freaked out when my sister recently got a boyfriend. But on the other hand, I had forgotten that a looong time ago I promised I would let my dad interview my potential boyfriend (My dad almost flew down south to meet my sister's boyfriend. haha), so I have no idea where they fall on the spectrum.. Needless to say, they don't give me a hard time about not having a boyfriend yet or about not being able to date until I'm 30, so I'm thankful.

..and if your parents ever ask you why you don't have a boyfriend yet, just tell them you're socially malformed from all the years they told you to study so much! no no, i'm jp, don't tell them that, even though it's kind of true...

[Anonymous]

My parents didn't want me to date throughout high school. While their strictness frustrated me a lot when i was growing up, I'm now thankful that my parents were so strict. Although it washard for me to understand traditional conservative values (many of which are held by first generation Asian Americans), I do not regret not dating in high school. I feel that it is easy for teenagers to get into relationships when they are not ready.
Anyway, to answer the question, I think my parents would be much more leniant about my dating in college than when I was living at home.

[Anonymous]

I have two older sisters, so I guess I had it easier since they were the ones to first test the waters with dating age and boyfriends. I think once we were in high school, though, my mom didn't really care whether or not if we had a boyfriend, so long as we weren't going out with them ALL the time. I think for the most part, if we kept up our school work and didn't go out late into the night, we were more or less ok.

But we never really discussed the right age or anything - it'd just more or less happen. Since my parents had all girls, I think they were particularly protective about going out late at night or becoming too involved with a bf. My sister's 26 now (and a pharmacist) but I know that my mom still does not let her choose her bfs indiscriminately. She had a bf who only had a high school diploma and was working as a mechanic (but he really was the sweetest guy and treated her very well) and my mom threw a HUGE fit. While I understand why Asian parents are really protective and think they should have a say in everything, I also think that they have to realize (especially when we're older) that it's our own lives as well....

[Anonymous]

In my case, my parents, or at least my mom, were rather lenient in terms of letting me date. Since I lived with my mom and my dad worked in China, he didn't really have much say. They never sat me down and told me "this is when I will let you date", or "you're too young to date now", so I really respected them for that. I remember my first "boyfriend" was in the 8th grade and my mom thought it was really cute and she was all enthusiastic about driving us places (haha). I think she trusted me with making the right decisions so she decided not to tell me what to do. With my current boyfriend (who goes here too), there were a few tense moments during senior year because I would come home too late sometimes but now that I'm at college, that problem is definitely solved. Since I've been at UCLA, I invite my boyfriend home all the time and I'm kind of like the 3rd child in his family. It's pretty interesting seeing how all of our parents have such different styles of parenting.

[Anonymous]

With my parents, my dad was always pretty uninvolved with making decisions, but I think that his general desire was that I never dated. Realizing that this was a rather unrealistic expectation, he was always suspcious of, and just didn't really like any of the guys in my life.

My mother on the other hand, liked to pretend that she was a "cool mom," and that she wouldn't care if i had a boyfriend, but this was DEFNITELY not the case... whenever I even talked about a guy, she as very suspicious and critical. As a result, relationships that I had in high school were consistently kept below the radar.

Now, she knows that I had relationships and such in high school, so hopefully things will be easier on my sister!

[Anonymous]

My parents never mentioned an exact age that was appropriate in their eyes to start dating. When i did begin dating though, I kind of kept it quiet from them, but I know that they suspected something. They never disapproved of me dating anyone, and later they just accepted that I'm going to be meeting people. By some of my Asian friends, I've been told that I'm lucky that my parents allow me to date in high school. My parents even support me and help me out sometimes with relationship problems...by telling me that boys are stupid. Essentially, they just don't me to be hurt, and i think all parents are like that--and in that case, by making their children avoid dating, it's one less emotional stressful situation to deal with.

[Author]

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