""I think it starts with the subliminal messages that we send our girls," Michelle Obama replied before revealing the one question she avoids asking her children. "I have two beautiful daughters. And, you know, you find yourself slipping up and going, 'Are you dating anyone?' It's like, let me not make that the first question or the second question, or a question at all.""
""In our girl group, when it comes up and we do that, I try to talk to my mom friends about it and what that's doing," she continued. "What are our own insecurities as mothers? That we're like, 'Well, you seem happy, and you're on a track, but do you have a boyfriend?'" She said that inquiring about a child's dating life might seem insignificant, but it adds to the "social pressure" that women face."
"Michelle Obama explained, "You see everybody getting married. So I think we have to be mindful of the way we craft questions, not just to our daughters but to our sons. How we talk about what happiness is and we have to work hard to separate our fears and insecurities as parents, we have to separate that from our kids.""
Parents often send subliminal messages to daughters by prioritizing relationship status. Asking "Are you dating anyone?" normalizes dating as a primary indicator of happiness and increases social pressure on young women. Mothers should examine their own insecurities and avoid making dating status the default conversational topic. Questions about relationships should be carefully framed for both daughters and sons to avoid conflating partnership with fulfillment. Parents need to separate their fears and insecurities from their children's identities and focus on teaching children to cultivate internal sources of happiness and purpose before seeking fulfillment through partnerships.
Read at TODAY.com
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