BF-GF sleepovers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t believe everything you hear. This is not common at all.

I let my DD have her boyfriend stay over but they are both 20 and in college. No way would I let this happen in HS. Pretty sure I’m an outlier.

We are non-White, non-Christian UMC immigrants from a moderately conservative society. My kids did not even have the time to date in HS. They dated in college, but, we were not told about it and we never asked. They knew that we would not approve of random BFs and GFs being paraded in front of us. They knew that they had to find people we would approve of and only come to us when they needed the permission to marry.

You sound like the parents of one of my friends (who slept around like crazy) and then married her DH without telling her parents. Crummy parents.

I knew a Muslim girl like this in college. She slept around like crazy but upheld the virginal act for her parents. I don’t know if she married a Muslim.

[Anonymous]

I understand this might be tolerated in some parts of DC area, but in my social circles it’s certainly not allowed and shocking.

[Anonymous]

Does it matter? What matters is what you want for your home?. You're a parent of a teen you should be comfortable setting limits and not worrying about the other mommies at this point.

[Anonymous]

I know quite a few parents who have allowed this. It's weird to me and not something that I'm ok with.
I recently had another mom ask me if we allow significant others to sleep over in high school as she was getting pressure from her son that "everyone he knows is doing it."

FYI--this is a wealthy, highly educated, mostly WASP crowd of parents.

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't happen in my house but I've been surprised to hear friends and colleagues talk about it as commonplace. One colleague mentioned that his daughter, then a HS junior, routinely stayed at her boyfriend's house when they were out late; they also took solo trips together. I was dumbfounded.

[Anonymous]

Some families allow this, some don't. Disregarding the occasional logistical reasons like late nights/snowstorms, etc., those who do allow it are just accepting of what is going on (i.e., sex). Also, age matters a lot. 14 vs. 18 is a very big difference.

Among those who don't (which are most, but not by the majority you'd think), I believe:

1) Some don't as a way to pretend that their teens do not have sex, even when they know they do. It's a "I'm not going to make it easy for you," which still signals that it's wrong and potentially dangerous but in a subtle way. It keeps the conversation shut down, which can be beneficial in the short-term (avoids the awkward!) but potentially negative long-term (teens don't feel it's okay to ask parents questions or share concerns, and/or lie).

2) Others don't because they truly believe it prevents teens from having sex. It doesn't generally, because obviously sex can take place anywhere (well, almost anywhere) at any time. So it's about control.

3) A third group doesn't actually care but doesn't allow it because they don't want to be judged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some families allow this, some don't. Disregarding the occasional logistical reasons like late nights/snowstorms, etc., those who do allow it are just accepting of what is going on (i.e., sex). Also, age matters a lot. 14 vs. 18 is a very big difference.

Among those who don't (which are most, but not by the majority you'd think), I believe:

1) Some don't as a way to pretend that their teens do not have sex, even when they know they do. It's a "I'm not going to make it easy for you," which still signals that it's wrong and potentially dangerous but in a subtle way. It keeps the conversation shut down, which can be beneficial in the short-term (avoids the awkward!) but potentially negative long-term (teens don't feel it's okay to ask parents questions or share concerns, and/or lie).

2) Others don't because they truly believe it prevents teens from having sex. It doesn't generally, because obviously sex can take place anywhere (well, almost anywhere) at any time. So it's about control.

3) A third group doesn't actually care but doesn't allow it because they don't want to be judged.

Haha no. Those who do are just permissive and lack boundaries. They think they are somehow getting ahead of something or making it safer but really just effing their kids up same as those who allow drinking to practice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know quite a few parents who have allowed this. It's weird to me and not something that I'm ok with.
I recently had another mom ask me if we allow significant others to sleep over in high school as she was getting pressure from her son that "everyone he knows is doing it."

FYI--this is a wealthy, highly educated, mostly WASP crowd of parents.

You can't be serious? This group has some of the worst parenting instincts.

[Anonymous]

This didn't come up for me when I was a teenager, but my wife's parents did allow her boyfriend to sleepover in high school (and me when I came along as a boyfriend freshman year).

Based on that experience, the stakes for this are a lot lower than you might think. They had sex, but never when he was sleeping over and they'd already been having sex before the sleeping over started. The same was true for us, my sleeping in her room during visits to her house didn't change the amount of sex we had at all. Her high school relationship ran its course exactly like most high school relationships and the sleep arrangements didn't change anything there.

Allow it or don't, but I'm not convinced it matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some families allow this, some don't. Disregarding the occasional logistical reasons like late nights/snowstorms, etc., those who do allow it are just accepting of what is going on (i.e., sex). Also, age matters a lot. 14 vs. 18 is a very big difference.

Among those who don't (which are most, but not by the majority you'd think), I believe:

1) Some don't as a way to pretend that their teens do not have sex, even when they know they do. It's a "I'm not going to make it easy for you," which still signals that it's wrong and potentially dangerous but in a subtle way. It keeps the conversation shut down, which can be beneficial in the short-term (avoids the awkward!) but potentially negative long-term (teens don't feel it's okay to ask parents questions or share concerns, and/or lie).

2) Others don't because they truly believe it prevents teens from having sex. It doesn't generally, because obviously sex can take place anywhere (well, almost anywhere) at any time. So it's about control.

3) A third group doesn't actually care but doesn't allow it because they don't want to be judged.

Haha no. Those who do are just permissive and lack boundaries. They think they are somehow getting ahead of something or making it safer but really just effing their kids up same as those who allow drinking to practice

Correction: Those who do allow it are just MORE permissive and have DIFFERENT boundaries. It's all a sliding scale, and varies by family, culture, teens and their age. I'm not actually saying it's okay (we did not allow it, but comically I'd put us in category 3). I'm just saying I find these categories of parents in relation to this topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m told that it is commonly accepted by parents that their teenagers will have sleepovers with their boyfriends or girlfriends. I completely floored by this concept and not sure if I should believe what I’m hearing. Is this really a thing these days where parents just go along with this or even enable it on summer trips?

lol NFW unless they’re in their mid to late 20s and long term dating or something.

[Anonymous]

I think my initial instinct is to say “no way! Shocking!”

But on the other hand my son and his girl friend have been dating 18 months. She is very nice. I guess I can imagine a scenario in which I would let them share a bedroom. I also remember when I was 16 and I went skiing with my boyfriends family and we shared a bed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some families allow this, some don't. Disregarding the occasional logistical reasons like late nights/snowstorms, etc., those who do allow it are just accepting of what is going on (i.e., sex). Also, age matters a lot. 14 vs. 18 is a very big difference.

Among those who don't (which are most, but not by the majority you'd think), I believe:

1) Some don't as a way to pretend that their teens do not have sex, even when they know they do. It's a "I'm not going to make it easy for you," which still signals that it's wrong and potentially dangerous but in a subtle way. It keeps the conversation shut down, which can be beneficial in the short-term (avoids the awkward!) but potentially negative long-term (teens don't feel it's okay to ask parents questions or share concerns, and/or lie).

2) Others don't because they truly believe it prevents teens from having sex. It doesn't generally, because obviously sex can take place anywhere (well, almost anywhere) at any time. So it's about control.

3) A third group doesn't actually care but doesn't allow it because they don't want to be judged.

+1

The parents that are supposedly stricter don’t understand how to make the transition of their children into adulthood. Sex happens, can’t see why is that such a problem. Likely the culture of the parents is that they hide romantic affection with each other in front of the kids, assuming it still exists.

The parents that don’t allow also fall into several categories.

1. Cultural taboo, sex is perceived as something shameful, that should be kept after marriage, or put some value on (female) virginity of low number of sexual partners.

2. Parents assume that having a romantic partner in high school is a distraction from more important things like academics and extracurriculars. These parents usually want tight control over what their kids are doing.

3. Don’t care, but don’t allow it because they don’t want to be judged.

Age and maturity matter, if you’ll treat your 20 something year old that graduated college, the same way as a 13 year old middle schooler, you wont have a good relationship with your adult child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some families allow this, some don't. Disregarding the occasional logistical reasons like late nights/snowstorms, etc., those who do allow it are just accepting of what is going on (i.e., sex). Also, age matters a lot. 14 vs. 18 is a very big difference.

Among those who don't (which are most, but not by the majority you'd think), I believe:

1) Some don't as a way to pretend that their teens do not have sex, even when they know they do. It's a "I'm not going to make it easy for you," which still signals that it's wrong and potentially dangerous but in a subtle way. It keeps the conversation shut down, which can be beneficial in the short-term (avoids the awkward!) but potentially negative long-term (teens don't feel it's okay to ask parents questions or share concerns, and/or lie).

2) Others don't because they truly believe it prevents teens from having sex. It doesn't generally, because obviously sex can take place anywhere (well, almost anywhere) at any time. So it's about control.

3) A third group doesn't actually care but doesn't allow it because they don't want to be judged.

Haha no. Those who do are just permissive and lack boundaries. They think they are somehow getting ahead of something or making it safer but really just effing their kids up same as those who allow drinking to practice

+1

[Anonymous]

Not in our household. Not at 19 either. You can share a room in our house when there's a ring on someone's finger and not before