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Bringing a prospective boyfriend/girlfriend home to meet your parents is often nerve-wracking.
What happens if your parents disapprove of who you've chosen to spend your life with? Or, maybe, even worse, what if your parents try to set you up with someone that you don't find appealing? How can parents and their children learn to agree about something so important?
While mate selection is a fundamental part of the evolutionary process, not to mention the subject of countless books and research studies in zoology and evolutionary psychology, applying those same scientific principles to human beings is always difficult. Especially when it comes to the often-rocky family conflicts that can arise due to parents and children disagreeing about mating choices. In some cultures, this can even become a life-or-death issue.
Since parents and their children aren't inclined to see the world in the same way, they are going to have different ideas about who would make an ideal mate. While a son or a daughter might prefer someone who has the qualities that would make for a good romantic partner, parents might prefer more "practical" qualities such as financial security, emotional stability, or temperament. In many parts of the world, arranged marriages are still widely practiced and parents typically look for mates who would benefit the entire family, regardless of how the son or daughter might feel about the match. This often generates emotional confrontations and, in countries where honour killings are common, the risk of a child being killed for "dishonoring" a parent's wishes is very real.
Even in countries where children are usually free to make their own mate choices, the conflict between parents and children over these choices can still be gut-wrenching. Psychologist Marvin B. Sussman first wrote in 1953 about the different ways that parents attempt to influence their children about mating choices. Among the different strategies used by parents were, according to Sussman, "cajolery, persuasion, appeals to loyalty, and threats."
Parents might also try to shape the mating choices of their children by "setting them up" with likely candidates, often under social situations controlled by the parents. Many parents belonging to specific ethnic communities encourage their children to join ethnic social clubs to ensure that their children limit their mating choices to the "right kind" of candidate and not become involved with someone with a different cultural, religious, or racial background. And that assumes that their child is even interested in someone of the opposite sex. If not, the child/s "coming out" is often more likely to lead to conflict.
More recent researchers have identified other strategies that parents often use to influence who their children choose as mates. Though these strategies vary widely across different cultures, they can include:
- "Hardball" tactics such as deception, threats, and even physical violence to intimidate their children
- "Coercion" tactics are slightly less extreme but still involve yelling, name-calling, and demands that their children conform to the parent's wishes
- "Chaperoning" tactics involves controlling the social situations where a child can meet a potential mate to ensure no contact with "unsuitable" candidates
- Similar to chaperoning, "prevention" tactics means restricting a child's freedom of movement or appearance to avoid attracting unwanted attention
- "Monitoring" tactics involve spying or other ways of violating a child's privacy to ensure they are not getting involved with the "wrong type"
- "Guilt trip" tactics have parents making their children feel guilty about their behaviour.
- "Emotional manipulation" is similar to "guilt trip" approaches since it involves parents relying on acts such as sulking or whining to influence their children
- "Carrot and stick" tactics involve using financial incentives to get children to comply with their wishes
- "Use relatives and friends" tactics focus on recruiting relatives or friends of their children to help convince them to reconsider their mate choices (particularly common with sons)
- "Social comparison and moral advising" tactics involves presenting children with role models of "correct" behaviour to influence them to make desirable choices
- "Matchmaker" tactics involve introducing children to desirable candidates and otherwise advising them on ways to make them appear more attractive
- "Advice and reasoning" tactics involve friendly advice on romantic relationships including advising children about the correct direction to take.
- "Whom one should marry" simply means having parents present their children on the specific qualities they should be looking for in a mate.
The tactics that a parent may use will vary widely depending on the specific circumstances involved. Mothers and fathers are likely to favour different tactics which can also vary depending on whether the child in question is a son or a daughter. For that matter, there can be certain tactics that parents can use to discourage potential mates they regard as undesirable. This can include "dirty laundry" tactics designed to gather information about them that can be used to break up the relationship.
So, what predicts the type of tactic that a parent might use to influence their children? Not surprisingly, one research study shows that most parents prefer to rely on "advice and reasoning" approaches though they might resort to more coercive tactics if that fails. There also appears to be strong gender differences at work with mothers being more likely to manipulate the mating choices of their children than fathers. While this also varies across different culltures, parents seem more likely to rely on manipulation tactics to influence who their daughters marry and they tend to be more liberal with their sons.
Other factors influencing the kind of tactics parents use include the personality of the parent (especially personality factors such as conscientiousness), the personality of the child, and the age of the parents (with younger parents being more manipulative than parents who are older). There are also likely to be enormous cultural differences, especially concerning the use of "hardball" tactics that can lead to physical abuse though the actual research is still limited.
How parents can influence the mating choices of their children has varied widely throughout history and across different cultures. Whether they rely on providing friendly advice or resort to more hardball tactics that have the potential of jeopardizing their relationship with their children can often depend on the kind of family relationship that already existed.
But what about the manipulation tactics that children can use to force their parents to accept their choice of partner? More on that next week.
To be continued
