Speculation on Brittany and Santana’s Home Lives

This is for andiamproud, in response to her question about Brittany and Santana’s possible home lives. Everything after the cut is utter speculation.

I have a ton of speculation, but obviously nothing concrete.

Honestly, sometimes I wonder if the Glee kids aren’t all orphans or something—aside from Kurt, Finn, Quinn, and allegedly Rachel—because none of their parents ever seem to show up to their concerts or events.

I can see a couple of different scenarios working for Santana’s home life, based on some very incidental evidence and her general character traits:

1. Her having avoidant or somewhat neglectful parents who buy her love with gifts, but generally ignore her. (Hence the boob job and her rather swanky-looking bedroom in “Sexy”…) This would make sense if what she says about her dad being a doctor is true.

2. Her coming from a divorced household in which her parents share joint custody. This might explain her claim that she comes from Lima Heights Adjacent, even though she also purports that her father is a doctor, as it is possible that one parent (probably her mother) lives on “the wrong side of the tracks,” while the other parent (probably her physician father) owns the posh home we glimpsed from the inside in “Sexy.” In this scenario, I would imagine that Santana might use her father’s residence as the main place for her hookups, particularly with Britt, as he would probably be gone a lot while on call.

3. Her having such a reactive temperament—sorry, now I’m borrowing terms from the human development field—that she is simply difficult to parent, regardless of how her parents try to nurture her. If this is the case, it is possible that Santana remains aloof from her parents, purposefully keeping them in the dark about her love life and extracurricular activities.  

We perhaps get one clue concerning Santana’s home life in “The Rocky Horror Glee Show” when Mr. Schue passes out the permission forms for the show. If you watch carefully, it seems like Santana takes out a pen and fills in all the information on the slip as Mr. Schue addresses the group, rather than waiting to take it home. Of course, Kurt also takes a pen to the form, but I suspect he was merely signing his own name, whereas it looks like Santana completed the whole thing herself, perhaps even forging her parents’ signatures.

My best guess, based on this sketchy—at best—evidence and Santana’s personality is that she either has avoidant parents or simply likes to keep her parents out of the loop. Based on her disdain for Puck’s poor credit score in “Acafellas” and her voiceover wish to marry a “super reliable” NFL player in “Silly Love Songs,” I also conjecture that, somewhere along the line, someone (possibly her mother) taught Santana, either in word or deed, that the best way to ensure oneself an easy life as a woman is to find a man to provide for you. I also guess, based on the fact being part of a nationally ranked cheerleading squad of the type Sue Sylvester runs (what with clinics, camps, gear, etc.) would prove expensive, that Santana must have at least one parent capable of paying for her participation in sports. (Ditto on that last point for Brittany, of course…)

I would agree with you that Brittany probably has some fairly tolerant and easygoing parents. (I know Heather Morris has voiced an interest in having Kristen Wiig play Brittany’s mother. Perfect, right?) All we know for sure, of course, is that Brittany has at least one younger sister, who also participates in sports (“The Power of Madonna”).

Based on how open and loving Brittany is towards everyone, I would guess that her family is probably fairly physically affectionate, though it is possible that her parents are also somewhat aloof or avoidant, if one considers that Brittany seems to have a lot of free time for casual sex, uninterrupted by parents.

In a behind-the-scenes look around the Glee lot, Heather Morris revealed that the props department had actually carved notches into Brittany’s bedpost to indicate how many hookups she had had. If we count this detail as corroborating Brittany’s claims to have made-out with nearly everyone in school, then we can assume Brittany spends a lot of time in her bedroom engaged in various sexual activities. From this, we can infer that her parents either don’t care that their daughter is so sexually active or they don’t know. Again, as is the case with Santana, I can imagine scenarios for Brittany involving divorce, parents who work long hours, or Brittany simply deceiving her [somewhat naïve] parents by choice.

In any case, the show hasn’t really given us anything concrete to go on with these two, so obviously everything I said here is highly, highly speculative. I would so love to know more about the kind of homes from which Brittany and Santana come, but I don’t know that RIB will ever go that far with them. Honestly, I’m kind of amazed that the powers that be have even allowed us to see into Santana and Brittany’s bedrooms, as they typically reserve non-school storylines for the Chosen Five (i.e., Finn, Rachel, Quinn, Rachel, and Kurt)!

 That was quite a ramble from me… my apologies.