![\"Two](\"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dear-carol-dating.jpg\")
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Dear Carol,<\/strong><\/p>\n My parents are super strict about dating, <\/span><\/strong>and it\u2019s really hard. My brother had to break <\/span><\/strong>up with his girlfriend because they made it so difficult, and now I feel like I can\u2019t move forward with someone I really like. We\u2019ve gotten close, but I\u2019m scared of how my parents will react. What should I do?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n – Confused And Stuck<\/strong><\/p>\n Dear Confused And Stuck,<\/p>\n No easy answer. There may come a day when <\/span>you get to make decisions on your own, but <\/span>if you live with your parents and depend on <\/span>them, you\u2019re not quite there yet. Deep down, <\/span>I hope you are aware that your parents care <\/span>about you and only want the best for you. <\/span>Can you arrange for one or both to meet this <\/span>person first? Would that make things better? <\/span>(Perhaps they would not like them\u2014or any<\/span>one.) It can be hard to be both the obedient <\/span>daughter and the growing teen. I hope that <\/span>you\u2019ll always choose people who are kind <\/span>and smart and that someday your parents <\/span>will approve of your dates. It may help to say, <\/span>\u201cHe makes me feel more confident, and we <\/span>both love music\u201d instead of, \u201cBut I really like <\/span>him and he\u2019s so cute!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Carol Weston is the author of 16 books, including\u00a0Girltalk<\/em>,\u00a0Speed of Life<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Ava and Pip<\/em>. Follow her on Insta\u00a0@carolwestonnyc<\/a>\u00a0and visit\u00a0carolweston.com.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Searching for more help? Check out more Dear Carol advice here:<\/strong> Dear Carol, My parents are super strict about dating, and it\u2019s really hard. My brother had to break up with his girlfriend because they made it so difficult, and now I feel like I can\u2019t move forward with someone I really like. We\u2019ve gotten close, but I\u2019m scared of how my parents will react. What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2399,"featured_media":314403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[286,284,283],"tags":[546,150,320,42,3874,1091,285,51,7758],"class_list":["post-309566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crushes","category-dear-carol","category-life","tag-boyfriend","tag-crushes","tag-dating","tag-dear-carol","tag-dear-carol-advice","tag-girlfriend","tag-life","tag-life-advice","tag-strict-parents"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlslife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\ud83c\udf41 “Dear Carol, My friends don’t listen”<\/strong><\/a>
\n\ud83c\udf41 “Dear Carol, Is everyone faking wanting to be my friend?”<\/strong><\/a>
\n\ud83c\udf41 “Dear Carol, Help with my crush confusion”<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"