A new survey by dating app Hily highlights the complex relationship Gen Z and millennial singles have with their mothers when it comes to romance. While many young daters draw clear boundaries around privacy, they also continue to place surprising value on maternal advice and approval.
Among the 2,700 Gen Z and millennial participants surveyed, a significant portion reported that their mother’s opinion can be a deciding factor in their relationships. Forty-one percent of Gen Z respondents and nearly a third of millennials said they would not date someone their mother dislikes.
Despite this, privacy remains paramount. More than half of respondents emphasized the importance of maintaining control over what they share, both on dating apps and with family. Over half of Gen Z and millennial women, and an even greater proportion of men, reported being unlikely to discuss the intimate details of their love lives with their mothers. Some take it even further – 58% of women and 40% of men admitted to actively hiding romantic relationships from their moms.
Still, advice from mom isn’t unwelcome. A majority of Gen Z and millennial daters, particularly women, say they’ve accepted relationship advice from their mothers. For some, that influence extends to using dating apps – Hily’s poll found that around 6% of young women and 5% of young men have even let their mothers swipe on profiles for them.
Overall, Hily’s findings make it clear that there’s no consistent role for mothers in dating – trusted confidantes to some, intrusive observers to others – but also points to opportunities for dating platforms to offer better privacy controls and smarter filtering tools, as well as ways to loosen them in situations where a user may want to open up and get some swiping support.
