Straightforward: my 29-year-old son is dating a 16-year-old girl he met at a jazz festival this summer. Openly. He had a same age long-term girlfriend until last year, when they broke up amicably. We really loved her, she was basically our daughter-in-law and we’re still in touch. His current girlfriend’s parents know about their relationship & are cool with it. For the record: it’s also legal in our country. We don’t think it’s right though, he’s a grown ass man while she’s a high schooler. He’s also very successful professionally, handsome, takes good care of himself, has a good personality, etc. so it’s not like he’s lacking options. He just says he likes her - that’s his why. He’s not a bad person, I know that, but still this whole situation has changed our perception of him quite a bit. We’re having a rough time to say the least.
He should reject her because he should be opposed to such a large age gap. FWIW this fails the half + 7 rule by a LOT (5.5 years).
Why should he be opposed to age gaps? This argument bases on it being wrong by default, but why would that be the case?
I hope you are not serious about the rule meme being an indicator
We should be opposed to significant* age gaps in principle because we cannot trust the person who has power in the relationship, nor the one who doesn’t, to determine if the relationship is healthy or dangerous.
*honestly, the 1/2 + 7 meme is shockingly accurate at determining this
I 100% agree with you and what you are saying is already being enforced by law. OP already clarified that they are both of legal age.
Surely the law can’t determine what the morally correct age is, because the law varies by state.
Exactly. Which is why Im wondering how so many people here are extremely confident that they can.
I think it’s more of an “err on the side of caution” thing.
How is ‘this is disgusting and your son is scum’ erring on the side of caution and ‘evaluating the relationship objectively and making sure they dont abuse each other’ isnt?
How could we, as commenters on this post, possibly evaluate this relationship objectively?
(And, “your son probably shouldn’t do that” is different from “this is disgusting and your son is scum”. You keep strawmanning the worst version of my argument that you can think of. Please don’t.)