For Aragon Spanish teacher Maria Cheever, dating was prohibited by her parents until she was in college. “I had an older sister who was not interested in dating at all, and my other older sister and myself were interested, but my parents said ‘We’re very strict,’” she says. “I just felt like it should’ve been taken case by case, because I was a good student and I really felt like I could be trusted, but my parents just had this very ‘one-size fits all’ rule and I didn’t think that was fair.”
Like Cheever, it is common for Aragon students to be prohibited from dating.
Some parents believe their children are too young to date. AP Environmental Science teacher Nihal Abdelnaby allows only her eldest daughter, who is in college, to date.
“You look and somebody’s dating at twelve. At twelve what are you hoping to gain? What are you learning from that experience?” Abdelnaby says.
“Are they just dating because TV tells them to? Somebody that you’re going to be with for the rest of your life, why are you going to meet them when you’re ten? You’re going to grow up, your personalities change, your whole world view will change,” she adds.
Culture is another aspect. Senior Ahmet Bolak’s Tongan culture plays a heavy role in his relationships. “My mom’s side is Tongan and she’s pretty strict about who to date,” he says. “They want you date later, instead of early in high school. That’s [their] way of life, [like] in Tonga. I think they’re just waiting until I go to college.”
Likewise, religion can have a strong impact on dating policies. Christian and Islamic holy books never say explicitly when it’s appropriate for their practitioners to date, leading to different interpretations.
Abdelnaby says, “Some Muslims might not even allow [dating] at all. Others will say yes. Some Muslims will say they have to be officially engaged before they can do that. Some other Muslims will say no, if they want to talk to each other, it has to be while they’re chaperoned.”
On the contrary, junior Justin Lee’s father, a Christian pastor, lets him date. Lee says, “I don’t think there’s a need to completely follow every rule. There’s definitely a lot of [dating and Christians who date non-christians].”
Peer pressure is another factor in students’ decisions to date, but many Aragon students seem not to care about their friends dating.
“I haven’t really found that one person that I really want to date yet,” says sophomore Jessie Yeung, who is not allowed to date until her junior year. “If my friends have a boyfriend, I don’t really care.”
Even though Cheever’s parents were strict about her dating, she is comfortable with her son Oscar, a sophomore at Aragon, dating.
“Because my parents had these rules, it made me lie to them and it made me go behind their back and I didn’t want my kids to do the same thing to me,” Cheever says. “It’s really difficult to avoid it if you’re interested in it, especially at the high school level. I mean, people around you are like ‘Oh, he likes you, she likes you.’”
However, Cheever still has her own rules for dating. “I very much want the other person’s parents involved. So everyone feel comfortable and happy and the last thing I want is any girl that [Oscar] dates to feel like she has to lie or sneak around,” she says.
Cheever says, “I see their point and completely respect everyone’s reasons. My parents were very strict, and other people didn’t agree with it, but they respected it, and I appreciated it.”
