This question came up while I was answering a QOTW, in which a 29-year-old woman was bemoaning her inability to date properly because her parents wouldn’t allow it. She’s still sneaking out of the house. She’s contemplating asking her significant other to get in on the conspiracy. It’s all very Sixteen Candles is you ask me.

Here’s what I said…

But afterwards, I got an interesting response from a young woman who appears to be Asian or Hispanic:

Omg! Why do Americans think it’s a problem for adults to stay living with their parents?? In my culture women who live at home are more likely to get married. Women who adopt the western customs and live alone take a longer time to get married because they’re too busy “dating”. Some don’t even get married at all. Living with your parents is a good thing because it keeps unscrupulous men at bay because if they have bad intentions, they will not want to face your family so they will move on to the next vulnerable single woman living alone. Even if a woman does not live with her parents, she should not live alone.This guy should man up and meet her parents. My husband met my entire family before we even got intimate. My comment isn’t going to be popular but whatever. Keep wasting your good years living alone and dating.

Granted, this is cultural. Americans are fiercely individualistic and independent. Many other cultures are more focused on family and the collective. I guess it’s not a problem if you’re going to date the people familiar with such mores, but asking a gainfully employed, corn-fed, apple-pie-eating, NFL loving guy to understand it all might be a bit of a challenge.

What say you?