As the youngest of the 6 O’Neal children, Me’Arah O’Neal is understandably the most protected. Though almost 18, and a phenomenal basketball player, she is babied, a norm for any youngest sibling.
And while being the youngest has its own perks, the disadvantages are undeniable too. Not only do your parents, especially when your father, Shaquille O’Neal, is one of the most celebrated basketball players on the planet, try extra hard to protect you but your brothers and sisters also end up taking certain parental duties.
One of which is overseeing your little brother and sister’s dating lives. The feeling of getting to know your teenage brother or sister has started dating is a shocker, which is exactly what happened to Me’Arah’s oldest sibling after her latest instagram post.
Meezy announced that she’d ‘joined’ Tinder U, in the sponsored post, a feature on the popular dating app that allows students in universities to meet other people at the same school with similar interests. Me’Arah said she was invited to a party, and couldn’t go without a plus-1, and hence used the app’s feature to find someone to go with.
He wrote, “You go on dates??? Yeah I’m bout to crash,” and followed it up with another comment indicating his disbelief that his baby sister is grown up now. He said, “Wait wth!”
Not all her older siblings reacted this way, though. Amirah, 4 years her senior, and a college basketball player at LSU, was more interested in the money her sister was minting with the sponsored post. Tinder is, after all, a global brand. She commented, “cha chingggggg $$$$$$$$$$.”
We know how two of her siblings have reacted, but what does her father think of his youngest daughter dating? Well, Shaq doesn’t know about Meezy’s post, but he does have a few ground rules for his daughters regarding their love lives.
Shaq’s dating policies for his daughters
The big fella has two rules for his daughters when it comes to dating. The first is only for them, as he once revealed on his podcast, “Don’t bring no boys to my house unless you got a master’s. I don’t want to see them, at all.”
A bit harsh? Perhaps. But O’Neal’s rule is likely a product of his own parents’ expectations. He staunchly believes in the importance of quality education and wants his children to follow suit.
The second rule is a blanket rule for all his children, and that has more to do with age than educational qualification. On an episode of The Ellen Show, Shaq famously said, “My sons can date when they’re 18 and my daughters can date when they are 24.”
Of course, this raised a few questions from Ellen and she asked the 4x champ why the conditions were different for his boys from his girls.
Shaq claimed his daughters were smarter than his sons, and he had greater expectations from them. He didn’t want them to get distracted from their goals, which, in his head, justified the different requirements. But when has any child ever let a parent have a say in their dating life?