Leave your sister along .She is an adult , she can party have boyfriend . what is the big deal? she can even get marry or get pregnant . You are in America is a free country . Do not tell on her. grow up lady hello. I get Marry at 22 have my firth child at 24. I am glad that no body get in my way .I am very happy with my life .I have done what ever I wanted a live I am happy.

Yes. My brother and I are very close and talk pretty candidly with each other. We just get each other in some ways that no one else quite does, including our spouses. And we're lucky that it's a supportive and remarkably non-judgmental relationship.

Part of that is having each other's back. Growing up, that meant looking out for each other and keeping each other's secrets. As little kids we had little secrets. As bigger kids we had bigger secrets. Nothing horrible, but we shared plenty with each other that we didn't want shared with our parents. So we didn't. We kept things between us, even when our parents pryed.

As adults, we're the same way. We still talk about the important stuff in our lives and we keep it between ourselves . . . and sometimes our spouses, who are included in the sibling "circle of trust." But it wouldn't occur to us to share each other's stuff with our parents. That's up to us individually.

We talk about our parents, but there is also a parent code where I talk about my sibling to my parents. So really there is no code because everyone talks about each other.

Anonymous wrote:OP, as someone who comes from a Muslim background, your action and impulse to basically tattletale your adult sister to your parents, is a big part of the reason I've detached from those cultural roots. I can't stand not feeling like I'm allowed to live my own life.

You should not have to cover for your sister. But there is no need to tattle on your sister - which comes off as a kind of jealousy (especially coupled with your previous post/question)

Let your sister explore her own options. If your parents ask, keep quite and tell them to talk to your sister themselves. It's not your business.

NP here.

I'm not sure that OP's telling the parents to deal with sister themselves is going to work here. Won't the parents take it out on Older Sister if she doesn't rat out Younger Sister and the parents later find out that the elder did know (or at least suspect) what was going on? I think from OP's post here and her earlier post about her sister, these parents might just make things very hard for the OP if she doesn't do her cultural duty and tell on her sister. Not saying she should do so -- in fact, I'm with those posting that OP needs to tell her parents point-blank that they need to communicate about her sister WITH her sister, and not with her, at all.

But I can see the parents in this case threatening to yank money or support from OP if she doesn't fulfill what seems to be the expected role of overseeing younger sister. OP did say that's exactly why the parents sent them both here together, after all--to keep an eye on each other.

OP: Do your parents ever threaten to withdraw support from you if you don't "do a good enough job" keeping your sister behaving as they see fit? Do you feel able to tell them what we're saying here -- "From now on, you need to contact her and I will not be responsible for her behavior because she is an adult" -- or do you think that doing so will cause them to turn on you and blame you for whatever she does? Or even cause them to reel you both in and force you back home?

I hope you can use the distance from home to break away from what sound like some very crippling expectations about your role in relation to your sister.

OP, as someone who comes from a Muslim background, your action and impulse to basically tattletale your adult sister to your parents, is a big part of the reason I've detached from those cultural roots. I can't stand not feeling like I'm allowed to live my own life.

You should not have to cover for your sister. But there is no need to tattle on your sister - which comes off as a kind of jealousy (especially coupled with your previous post/question)

Let your sister explore her own options. If your parents ask, keep quite and tell them to talk to your sister themselves. It's not your business.

In your case, no, I wouldn't have told. I would just keep telling them I didn't know, I haven't talked to her, they should call her, etc.

In my own case, the only times I've told my parents something is when my younger brother was driving drunk in high school and when he called me from college saying he was going to kill himself. I think those are vastly different - serious potential harm to others and self and life-threatening implications.