Son Traveling with Older Woman
Question
Our 24-year-old son is socially drawn to older women who have ‘motherly’ personalities rather than young men his age. His entire circle of friends is like that. His best friend is a divorced Jewish woman in her 50s who has two sons of her own around his age. He is not romantically involved with her and has no desire to be. Their friendship is purely platonic. He just considers her his best friend and they hang out together and talk on the phone a lot. This makes us uncomfortable, but we have no control over him because he is legally an adult. And his friend is older than both of us.
He is planning on taking a long road trip with her this coming summer in which they camp out most nights in separate tents, occasionally stay in separate hotel rooms, and see the national parks and Disneyland. He thinks this behavior is kosher. We think otherwise. He ignores our instructions not to do this, and legally we have no recourse. What do you think as a rabbi?
Answers
Whilst I share your disquiet at your son’s behavior I am not sure, as you write, that there is anything particularly that you can do to stop it. According to Jewish Law your son’s behavior is forbidden on a few levels. It is forbidden for your son and his female friend to be secluded anywhere. That would include camping together even if they are sleeping in separate tents. There is an additional prohibition against nurturing personal relationships between the genders even if they are platonic.
Best wishes from the AskTheRabbi.org Team