Loving in secret
Generational views of romance can be a barrier to us all.
Growing up, my parents’ views regarding relationships were puzzling to me.
I first noticed their seemingly judgemental ideas surrounding romance when I was twelve-years-old. During the summer break, my fourteen-year-old brother, Dylan, had routinely been going on “walks” for hours at a time. My mother suspected that this was a cover for his real operation: visiting a girl that he had recently become close with, named Lily.
One afternoon, my mother asked me to follow Dylan from a distance on one of his excursions, and offered me a $5 reward for this. I found this amusing at the time—and profitable—so sure enough, I tailed after him all the way to an apartment building where he went inside with Lily. I reported this back to my mother, and she held an intervention with my brother, stating that he was too young for relationships.
In addition to my mother’s hostile reaction towards love, I was influenced by my father, who all but ignored it. He never opted to comment on my brother’s relationship, or hold any conversation regarding romance.
As a preteen boy, I found my parents’ regard to romance very contradictory to the media I was consuming. I could recall various examples of young teenagers engaging in relationships, like Mike and Eleven in Stranger Things, or Greg Heffley’s courtship of Holly Hills in A Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Not to mention, my friends, who, too, were in relationships at the time.
My parents’ dismissive attitude towards young romance made me feel estranged from my peers and it seemed like nobody else lived in a household where “love” was taboo. Once it became time for me to engage in relationships, I realized it was more convenient to keep my romantic encounters private from my parents.
For most of high school, I would disguise my dates with girls as hangouts with male friends that my parents were already familiar with. As for relationships with other boys, I would introduce my male partners with my parents as my “friends.” While my parents never expressed direct homophobia, it seemed like I would be unable to discuss sexuality openly with my family, especially considering their reaction to my brother’s relationship.
However convenient, keeping this side of my life hidden from the knowledge of my parents was difficult. Keeping partners a secret can hinder the quality of the relationship, as well as lower one’s self-esteem and heighten stress levels. These implications took their toll on me, and at the age of 16, when I decided to reveal to my parents that I had been dating a girl for a few months. The announcement was not met with as much pushback as I expected. My father, a stoic, workaholic man, barely even acknowledged it. My mother reacted positively, but expressed frustration at the fact that I hadn’t told her before.
Since then, I have been more open with my parents regarding relationships. My father still has not referred to my current long-term partner as my girlfriend, despite us dating for over a year. My mother, despite me and my girlfriend both being adults, still enforces strict boundaries on my relationship. When sleeping over at my girlfriend’s house, my mother falsely believes that I am sleeping in her basement, because she does not condone us sleeping in the same room.
When considering why my parents are so dismissive of young love, I often settle on the fact that they were simply brought up in a different environment, and romance has changed a lot. Throughout modern history, relationships and love have proven to be constantly developing facets of human interaction. From the eras of courtship in the 18th century, to the modern concept of dating apps, the ways people fall in love have changed drastically. Our parent’s generation who grew up in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, see relationships differently. However, this was also a time when advancements were made in the acceptance of sexuality.
The Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s was a broad social movement that aimed to establish more open feelings around sexuality, causing major changes to opinions around relationships. This movement was begun by second-wave feminists who believed that common conceptions around marriage and relationships solely benefited men, like the notion that single men could have sexual relationships, but single women could not. This was typically seen as a positive thing, but many communities and groups did not support this movement.
Including sexuality, many other topics often experience scrutiny from older generations. This includes forms of personal expression, like dyed hair, tattoos, and piercings, or digital technology. Cultural differences are often the cause of this generational friction, and modern conditions of romance are very different from those which our parents grew up in.
My experiences with my parents’ feelings around love are surely not unique. Many of those around me now have experienced the awkwardness, dismissal, and even hostility that comes with our parents’ generation having views on young love. Due to these generational differences, taboo feelings and uncomfortable conversations about relationships with our parents are often inescapable.
But, it is important to try to avoid internalizing these feelings. Disdain for young relationships is not only harmful towards our own self-esteem, but carrying these views into parenthood, when the time comes, can harm our children, too. We must break the cycle.
Celebrating love between young people is important, and we must ensure that however different it may be in the future, we continue to embrace it.
