What’s It Like When Your Mom Is the ‘Golden Bachelorette’?

When Brenden Martin suggested that his mother apply for “The Golden Bachelor,” ABC’s dating show spinoff featuring an older cast, he had wanted to help her expand her dating pool beyond the small city outside Seattle where she lived.

It seemed like a good idea until Mr. Martin, 37, found himself struggling to look directly at the TV screen while his mother, Faith Martin, received a near lap dance from a shirtless Chippendales dancer.

“It was just bizarre and awkward to see Mom having some guy 10 years younger than me dancing up on her,” he said.

Mr. Martin’s own son, then 8, had been watching, too — but mercifully left the room before his grandmother’s boudoir photo shoot.

As reality dating shows start to look beyond TV’s longtime fixation on twenty- and thirtysomethings to embrace an older generation of singles, a novel experience has emerged: the strangeness of watching a parent date, flirt, kiss and perhaps even fall in love on national television.

Ahead of the “Golden Bachelorette” premiere on Wednesday, the show’s first star, Joan Vassos, 61, has four adult children who are preparing themselves to watch their mom woo and be wooed by 24 men. Her son Nick Vassos, 34, is cheering for his mother — up to a point.