Are my parents right?

[icecreamqueen3]

I am 15 and I dont wanna date but my parents like to ask me why I haven't and say that i should be by now because they have at my age. Are they right? I dont desire to do anything with anyone at this age personally

If u are able to share some statistics of around how many people date at my age it would be helpful cause maybe that can get them to understand you know

[Latha]

Hi there, Icecreamqueen

You don't have to date if you are not feeling any interest in it. I think it is great that you have a clear sense of what you don't desire for yourself, right now.

Your parents are not right that you should be dating, because it is an optional activity. Safe relationships are based on consent, and for that to work, we must have the option to choose not to be in a relationship at all. Even if your parents were dating around your age, and even if 99% of your peers were dating now (which we know is far from the case), it would still be okay for you to not date.

I went looking for the statistics you wanted, and I'm having trouble finding recent numbers on dating for people around your age--most of the data is for people a little older than you. For example, this report from the Pew Research Center in 2015 suggests 35% of teens have been in a romantic relationship. Based on what I've heard, I don't believe that number has increased significantly in the decade since, so it is safe to assume that the majority of people your age are not dating at any given time.

If you shared these ideas with your parents, I'd hope they would stop making comments about how you should date. To make how you feel very clear to them, you could tell them directly that their comments bother you and ask them to stop. Is that something you've tried?

[icecreamqueen3]

Yes i have thank you

[Heather]

Hey there, icecreamqueen.

Are your parents around my age? I'm asking to give you a little background info just in case, just so you can know where their heads might be at to make sense of why they're coming at you like this (even though I agree with Latha, they're exerting pressure on you when they do that, and that's not okay). Sometimes it can be helpful when trying to deal with parents to know what they might be thinking. If they keep bringing this up, it may be you need to talk more with them about all this, including setting some boundaries at any point you want or need them. <3

In my generation, it was not only very common to be dating by 15 -- and sometimes even years earlier -- but to be having various kinds of sex by or near this age. Some people my age also grew up with a lot of social pressure to be in those relationships or interactions because there was a lot of cultural emphasis on those kinds of relationships or interactions showing who was or wasn't a "loser." On top of all that, consent education was nonexistent, and so a lot of people who were in those relationships or in sexual interactions were saying yes and doing things that they didn't necessarily want to be doing or even understood were a real choice. Lastly, a lot of people my generation, especially if they were not queer, also didn't learn that closeness can and does exist in all kinds of relationships: that we and others could experience deep love with friends, for instance.

But not everyone were in dating or sexual relationships or interactions because of social pressure: some of us genuinely wanted to be in those things. At the same time 15 in the 70s, 80s or 90s was often a very different 15 than now. Heck, I left home at 15, which was early, but most of my peers left home, full-stop (not just for college) by 18. Many of us had jobs all through our teens. We were a kind of independent that came from a lot of neglect, and that made a lot of us probably more sexually or romantically precocious than we might have been otherwise.

That all said, a lot of adults are really concerned right now about young people's frequent lack of intimacy, which is usually a valid concern because so many young people right now express being so painfully lonely and are having such a hard time figuring out how to be social IRL. It may be your partners are worried about you not having closeness, period, and are just only focusing on romance/dating, for whatever reason. It might be worth asking them about that, too, if these conversations continue.

[icecreamqueen3]

Oh wait yes they are actually and I can see why they come to these conclusions knowing about how different it was at that time and i see what u mean about the closeness thing i did lose a few friends over the course of a few years but the group is still strong tho I don't have siblings but im fine with it I mean I cant miss something ive never had you know my parents have alot of siblings

I told them about the statistic and it shocked them lol

[Heather]

Yeah. Because I have stayed working in sexuality and the sexuality of young people since I was in my 20s, I've watched these things shift over time. But most adults only pay attention, or a lot of attention, to what's going on with young people if and when they have children, and even then, usually only to a stage at a time (parenting is a lot of work, so, to be fair, it isn't like a lot of parents have a tone of free time to do reading on every stage of human development and trends for all of it -- if it wasn't my job, I wouldn't either!). <3

I'm glad you brought them that current statistic and that it sounds like you're able to talk about this together in a way where they hear you!

[icecreamqueen3]

Yes thank you