YOUR parents aren’t as backwards or as phobic as you believe. Here are five things they’re totally cool with through gritted teeth:
Sex between consenting adults
Thanks to their generous ‘live and let live’ attitude, your parents can just about stomach the idea of consenting adults of myriad persuasions knocking boots. Just so long as they don’t have to hear about it or approve of their lifestyles. That would be taking things too far.
Extinction Rebellion
Concerned about the environment but not down with hippies gluing themselves to trains, grudging approval is offered on the grounds of the greater good as long as you don’t get involved. But their hearts still thrill to see police efficiently rounding them up.
Vegetarians
Non-meat eaters confuse your folks more than the idea of renting well into your thirties. After all, why live on a healthy diet of leafy greens when you could be clogging your arteries with bacon fat? It wouldn’t be so bad but the one vegetarian option on every menu is always so in your face. Vegans are neither understood or condoned.
Foreigners speaking other languages
This is A-OK with your parents as long as they’re not working in the hospitality industry within earshot of Great British customers. If that heinous crime were to happen then they should be deported for their disloyalty to the Crown, even if they’ve lived here for generations and have full British citizenship.
You still living with them
The housing market is bonkers right now, and the pandemic isn’t making things any easier, so your parents totally understand that you’ll be staying in your old room for a while yet. However the second a reasonably priced bedsit or garage pops up in the classifieds your mum will be leaving highlighted adverts on your pillow.