Isn’t it fascinating how we all supposedly live in this brave new world of fluid relationships and boundless acceptance?

Picture a Gen Z-er passionately explaining how love knows no boundaries, gender is a construct, and traditional values are as outdated as last year’s iPhone.

All well and good… until Mom starts dating a married man.
Suddenly, our progressive champion transforms into a Victorian morality guardian faster than you can say “double standard.”

The same person who champions polyamory in their gender studies class is having a complete moral meltdown over Mom’s choices. All that talk about “love is love” and “relationships are social constructs” evaporates faster than morning dew when Mom dares to colour outside the traditional moral lines. Suddenly, they’re channelling their inner pastor, spouting the same conventional morality they mock on TikTok.

The truth is, we’re all playing at being modern while our emotional operating system is still running on Family Values 1.0, a system deeply ingrained in us by societal norms and expectations.

Sure, we’ve slapped on some shiny new interface updates – rainbow flags here, divorce-positive messaging there – but crack open the code, and you’ll find the same old programming: Dad should be firm but not too emotional, Mom should be nurturing, but certainly not sexual, and God forbid either of them start acting like actual human beings with desires and flaws.

The corporate world loves to trumpet their support for all types of families, plastering their ads with every possible combination of human connection. Yet somehow, when it comes to our own flesh and blood, we’re still measuring love with the same rusty yardstick our grandparents used. We want our parents to stay in their neat little boxes, preferably gathering dust on a shelf, while we run around breaking all the moulds.

It’s easy to be progressive about other people’s lives. The real test comes when it’s your mother choosing a path that society and you have been conditioned to judge. Suddenly, all that talk about “love is love” starts sounding much more theoretical than practical.

Maybe we haven’t evolved quite as much as we’d like to think. We’re just better at pretending – at least until it hits close to home. Then the mask slips, and underneath, we’re still those same scared kids who want Mom and Dad to stay exactly as they are, frozen in time like some sort of emotional museum piece.

The future of love? It’s looking suspiciously like the past, just with better PR. We’re all living in tomorrow’s world with yesterday’s hearts, pretending we’ve moved past judgments while clutching our pearls behind our smartphones.

Long live the matriarchy!

May harmony find you,

Irena Phaedra