Finally, your child agrees to bring home someone they’ve been dating for a while. The pressure is near, you’re eager to meet their new spouse. Before you know it, the doorbell rings, the door slams and dead silence fills the room and you notice their spouse is old enough to be your parent. In situations like this there should be an age gap limit when it comes to dating.

People across the world were astonished when a story ran in Fox News this past summer about a mother of a 16-year-old girl, Courtney Alexis Stodden who approved of her daughter marrying her manager, 51-year-old Doug Hutchinson, who Fox News describes as, a lost actor,

When viewing the couple on TV, viewers thought about every issue they could face if they were in the same situations. From lack of maturity, to friends seeing them as unacceptable, to a lack of performance and possible public humiliation.

Nowadays dating someone who is significantly older or younger than you is viewed as trendy, but after seeing Stodden and Hutchinson appear on a few daytime TV shows such as “Good Morning America,” “TMZ” and “The Clicker,” this brings questionable thoughts. What is too old and what is too young?

Dating someone 30 years apart versus dating someone closer in age could result in a generational gap. Meaning because they have such a significant age difference the other person can have a lack of knowledge about new technology or current trends where you find yourself teaching the other person about today’s changes.

Lack of maturity can also play a major role in the relationship.  Either one person has a lot of wisdom and can handle situations with much thought or the other can just take risks and make unwise decisions.  Their lack of maturity will show how they handle each other, creating an unbalanced relationship.

Another reason why there should be an age gap limit is because one may see themselves as the superiors. They would act more like a parent instead of a spouse. In addition, one spouse can keep reminding the other of the age difference between the two, making too young jokes or too old jokes.

Whether it’s a man dating an extremely younger woman or a man dating an older woman or vise versa it is still not right.

By setting an age limit, couples can avoid situations like these so before anyone thinks about dating that older woman, younger man or vice versa, make sure they take every issue into consideration.