This mom wrote a letter to her 7-year-old explaining why she won’t let her watch “The Bachelor”
Moms and daughters have been bonding over watching The Bachelor together since the show’s pilot first aired in 2002. But while adults and older children can (hopefully) roll their eyes at the reality show’s unrealistic portrayal of “true love,” it’s easy to forget that the show may lure in younger viewers with its fairy tale-like promises of romance.
That’s why, when 7-year-old Billie-Violet asked her mom (the empowering blogger Constance Hall) if she could watch The Bachelor, Constance rejected her proposal.
This resulted in a fight between Constance and her daughter, who felt that the decision wasn’t fair. While the show may not be suitable for children due to its bleeped-language, occasional fistfights, and the whole “Fantasy Suite” aspect of the show, Hall’s reasons for her denial go much deeper.
Addressing Billie-Violet, Hall wrote in a now-viral open letter:
Constance acknowledged several other “contests” she’s witnessed her daughter and their friends get into at school and at home, but said that the one part of life that you should never compete for with your friends is love.
“Because there are no winners and there are no losers with love. In your life you will love a man and he will love someone else, it happens to everyone. But that someone else didn’t win and you didn’t lose. You might meet someone else, you might decide you like women, you might just love being alone. But you will never lose.”
Our collective heart grew three-sizes bigger while reading that! Then, Hall, got to the true-meaning of love, beyond the fictionalized reality version:
“Because the day your friends fall in love should bring you SOOOOOO much joy. The absolute funnest part of falling in love is debriefing and dissecting and repeating every single thing that he said to you with … Your friends, because they WANT to know, they love the fact that you are in love. They don’t sit in a corner at a cocktail party staring at you and bitching about you to other girls who they also hate because they are all COMPETING for love. That’s just not how it works.”
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Yes! Girls, none of us need a “final rose!” We need a mom like Constance! The post has been liked 84K times, and the comments section is filled with thousands of other parents supporting her decision. We are li-ving for her entire post, which you can read below.