17 year old son planning on tricking us to spend night with gf -gf’s parents away

[Anonymous]

It’s weird to me that the same parents writing papers for their college aged kids and calling employers to negotiate salaries for their kid think it is fine for teens to have sex sleepovers. They are adults for sex but children for the other parts of their lives?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love all this moral high ground.

He's 17. This is normal, talking back is normal, arguing normal.

Lying not great, but again typical at this age.

Always keep lines of communication open. Very important at 17. Does that mean he gets to unilaterally do what he wants nope.

Consequenses for lying for sure.

Double talk about protection. I'd even take him to the store.

Would I allow sex in my home nope. Would I have told the girls parents their plans. Yes. Do not want anyone who is 16 becoming pregnant on my watch. I would also tell them because that's what parents do. Will they find another place to have sex, yes.

This is so normal.

I don't think anyone is saying this is outside the range of normal behaviors it's just that several of them are disrespectful as all get out. A 2 year old who is frustrated and bites bc they can't get another kid to leave them alone and can't articulate that is in the range of normal,but we don't think it's a good behavior to encourage!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love all this moral high ground.

He's 17. This is normal, talking back is normal, arguing normal.

Lying not great, but again typical at this age.

Always keep lines of communication open. Very important at 17. Does that mean he gets to unilaterally do what he wants nope.

Consequenses for lying for sure.

Double talk about protection. I'd even take him to the store.

Would I allow sex in my home nope. Would I have told the girls parents their plans. Yes. Do not want anyone who is 16 becoming pregnant on my watch. I would also tell them because that's what parents do. Will they find another place to have sex, yes.

This is so normal.

I don't think anyone is saying this is outside the range of normal behaviors it's just that several of them are disrespectful as all get out. A 2 year old who is frustrated and bites bc they can't get another kid to leave them alone and can't articulate that is in the range of normal,but we don't think it's a good behavior to encourage!

That's a terrible analogy. Come back when your kid is out of elementary. You have no clue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, what kind of teenage experiences did you guys have?

When I was 17 I did this exact thing. I spent the night at my boyfriends when his mom was out of town. Yes, we had sex. [many times, not just that specific night]

We are celebrating our 25th anniversary this year. I don't think it was awful what we did.

The kind where my parents didn’t let me be a teen whore.

You think a 17 yo having sex, with their boyfriend is a whore? Really?

I think children who live in my home and do not provide for themselves do not get permission to spend the night in my house or anyone else’s house to have sex. You can wait until college for that.

So a SAHM that does not provide for herself does not have the autonomy to make decisions about her body, her H does?

Stupid way to state it.

They will just have sex during the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s weird to me that the same parents writing papers for their college aged kids and calling employers to negotiate salaries for their kid think it is fine for teens to have sex sleepovers. They are adults for sex but children for the other parts of their lives?

And you know these are the same parents because...?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m parked outside the friend’s house where his phone says he is and texted and called him and he hasn’t come out.
I think he’s at the gf’s house but left his phone here. I’ve been here for almost 3 hours.
Do I stay here or go to girlfriend’s house? If I go there he could say he just went to pick up his car and left his phone at friend’s house. If I stay at friend’s he will have to come here to pick up his phone and will have to explain why his phone is here and has been all night while he hasn’t.
But the question is should I stay here at all? I can’t ring the door bell because I don’t want to wake up friend’s parents. So short of catching him out why am I here?
I could go to gf’s house and ring the bell since her parents are not there but she could say my son is not there and he could nip to friend’s house, get his phone and go to gf’s house as if that was the plan all along.

The question still is-am I acting like a normal rational woman? Should I just go home and wait for him and dish out the punishment? What purpose will catching him in the act serve?
I’m so confused.

To answer your question no, you are not acting normal. Three hours sitting outside of the friends house is crazy. Not wanting your son to spend the night with his girlfriend is perfectly acceptable and I 100% agree with you. Having said this, hunting him down and staying out the house is not OK in this situation. You have told him what is acceptable in your home, you told him what your expectations are, now it’s on him to make the choice. If he doesn’t follow the rules he suffers the consequences. Sitting in a car outside for three hours is nuts.

OP- what happened-- no, it's not rational to sit outside the friend's house. You give the lecture and consequences later in private, you don't stalk and humiliate your almost adult-aged son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love all this moral high ground.

He's 17. This is normal, talking back is normal, arguing normal.

Lying not great, but again typical at this age.

Always keep lines of communication open. Very important at 17. Does that mean he gets to unilaterally do what he wants nope.

Consequenses for lying for sure.

Double talk about protection. I'd even take him to the store.

Would I allow sex in my home nope. Would I have told the girls parents their plans. Yes. Do not want anyone who is 16 becoming pregnant on my watch. I would also tell them because that's what parents do. Will they find another place to have sex, yes.

This is so normal.

I don't think anyone is saying this is outside the range of normal behaviors it's just that several of them are disrespectful as all get out. A 2 year old who is frustrated and bites bc they can't get another kid to leave them alone and can't articulate that is in the range of normal,but we don't think it's a good behavior to encourage!

That's a terrible analogy. Come back when your kid is out of elementary. You have no clue.

Not the PP. I am mom of a 16 yr old dating her BF (17) for 18 months and I think the analogy is pretty good. I think my teen and BF are probably sexually active (she’s not sharing that with me so I can’t be sure). They respect our rules thus far. I love the BF. If given the opportunity to do what’s OP described, it wouldn't surprise me if they did. It would piss me off and there would be a consequence (some sort of grounding) for such a flagrant disruption. But, this wouldn’t happen in my house because I won’t leave my teens at home unsupervised (I may feel differently senior year (I know kids mature and change pretty quickly as teens).

[Anonymous]

Op I do not understand the not going on family vacation? Or you changing that.

That's not a negotiation.

If he's not part of the family then he can get a job and start paying rent.

Stalking him outside GF house no. If you could not get him to go on family vacation, why did you think that would go well?

Unfortunately, you are pushing him right to the GF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s also not just the sex. It’s the disregard for her parents’ and our rules and lying and dodging calls and texts that is upsetting

Agreed.

Hopefully GF will be out of the picture during freshman year. If he's a senior maybe only 8-9 months to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the OP. First of all thanks for all the very helpful perspectives.
To address the texts issue, he said his phone crashed and he’d lost access to the Appleid-this was the day before. He asked me for the password and I sent it to him. When he reconnected his texts started coming to my phone just at the time he was making his plans. At first I though they were my 9 year old’s texts which do come to my phone but I saw some non-9year old language popping up so I opened the texts.
I sort of panicked to be honest. I didn’t want him to know I’d read his texts. He’s become so so prickly these days and Im walking on egg shells all the time. I was nervous about telling him. We’d just had a huge huge argument just 2 days prior because he simply refused to go on our long planned family holiday and told us the day we were supposed to leave. His sisters (11 and 9, who think the world of him) were in tears begging him to come. He was adamant -clearly because he’d planned all these events with his gf while her parents were away. To cut a very long and painful story short, his sisters really wanted him to be with us so we rescheduled the trip but it was a very ugly situation -his sisters crying and begging him to come, us reasoning that it was a planned family holiday and he should prioritize family etc. but he just stood there uncaring and sticking to his guns which is so unlike him-he’s such a soft, kind hearted boy.
Anyway we had formed an uneasy truce (the protecting the relationship before they leave ) so I just did not want to bring the texts up. I changed the settings in my phone so I could no longer see his texts and just reminded him before he left that he needed to be home by 12 because he insisted on taking his car and that if he felt he would break the 12 curfew to leave his car and uber home. He said he would definitely be back by 12 and, because he’d also said in the texts that he did not feel comfortable carrying out the plans, which is more in line with his usual behavior, I thought he’d rethought them and decided against them.
At 12:15 I get a text saying he’s spending the night at his friend’s. My antennae were immediately raised because of what I’d read in the texts. I reminded him that sleepovers were always off the table and that he could hang out for a while since he said there were other friends there but to be home by 2.
I saw the dots appear when someone is about to reply but he clearly decided to just ignore me and he never responded so I called and he didn’t answer. I sent a text saying I was not going to bother home anymore but that I expected him home by 2 or to expect to stay home for NYE. Again I saw the dots but no reply came. That was why I went to the friend’s house.
Anyway as you all know I decided to come back home.
He arrived home at 11 am all antagonistic about the texts I’d sent him “after he’d fallen asleep”. He said he did nothing wrong, that he’d told me he was spending the night and had promptly fallen asleep.
I know he is lying because I know he saw my texts evidenced by the dots that appear when the respondent is replying (I saw them after both texts but no reply arrived) but he chose to ignore me. I have no real proof that he slept at his gf’s house except the texts. It’s conceivable that they all (gf included) slept at the friend’s house. It is also a conceivable that he executed his original plan and left the phone at his friend’s and collected it this morning or that his friend drove it to him and he simply drove home. I don’t know.

I haven’t yet responded to him. I told him I was tired and would discuss later.
I have no idea what to do. Give him the benefit of the huge doubt and accept that he slept at his friend’s and just penalize for not responding to my texts when I know he received them so that he could spend the night -which is a hard rule at our house except if it’s a designated vacation away with friends?
This is my first go round. I do not want to push him away but I do not want him to think he can flaunt all rules because he’s going on 18 in 9 months. I know it’s normal for teens to rebel but his rebellion covers a lot of things here and I had not even considered the statutory rape issue. I just thought it was disrespectful to defy her parents and stay when they had specifically said he could not.

I am stumped.

You rescheduled a family vacation for this brat?! With his little sisters crying and begging him? Good Lord.

It's beyond time for you and your husband to sit down with him and tell him in no uncertain terms that the disrespect and lying stops NOW. I mean, I get it. He's going to college in the fall and wants to be independent. That's all well and good, but he doesn't get to just be a jerk for the next 8 months.

This just isn't acceptable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was one of the posters with a son and daughter that mentioned statutory rape and really don’t care if it’s technically legal or not. I was thinking of DH and my reaction if we found out our teen daughter had her older BF sleep over when we were gone. Sure, maybe it wouldn’t be illegal but we’d try to make his life hell and hers. That’s what we’d be warning our son about. Angry parents.

I don’t know what we would do in your situation but I admire how calm you are being. I’m following for advice if we end up in a similar situation someday.

You can make your daughter’s life hell if you wish. But if you tried to make his hell for an entirely legal act, you would be the one facing charges for harassment.

LOL. Like anyone is going to have one ounce of sympathy for the boyfriend when the girl's parents don't want their teenage daughter's older boyfriend sleeping over and having sex with her while they are out of town. You are out of your mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. While I don’t think it’s appropriate for a just 17 and just 16 year old to spend the night together I would reluctantly consider it if her parents were onboard. Going behind her parents back while they are away when they have expressly said he should not be there is wrong surely?

Yes. 100%


It’s not that it hasn’t been done before as in typical teenage behavior. That doesn’t mean it’s ok to deceive and lie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So the GF family is going away and leaving their 17 yo DD home alone when they know she has a boyfriend around? Presumably they're okay with them having sex...clearly that's gonna happen.

The lying and disrespect is the issue...of course maybe that's a reaction to OPs intense helicoptering here.

Never underestimate the power of denial. My parents would never have believed that of me. They would have (and did) believe I was spending the night with my friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was one of the posters with a son and daughter that mentioned statutory rape and really don’t care if it’s technically legal or not. I was thinking of DH and my reaction if we found out our teen daughter had her older BF sleep over when we were gone. Sure, maybe it wouldn’t be illegal but we’d try to make his life hell and hers. That’s what we’d be warning our son about. Angry parents.

I don’t know what we would do in your situation but I admire how calm you are being. I’m following for advice if we end up in a similar situation someday.

You can make your daughter’s life hell if you wish. But if you tried to make his hell for an entirely legal act, you would be the one facing charges for harassment.

LOL. Like anyone is going to have one ounce of sympathy for the boyfriend when the girl's parents don't want their teenage daughter's older boyfriend sleeping over and having sex with her while they are out of town. You are out of your mind.

The girls parents should not leave a teenage girl home alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s also not just the sex. It’s the disregard for her parents’ and our rules and lying and dodging calls and texts that is upsetting

Agreed.

Hopefully GF will be out of the picture during freshman year. If he's a senior maybe only 8-9 months to go.

Right. Because when this GF is gone there won't be another GF who wants to have sleepovers.