Italian American on dad's said. If he'd had his way sleepovers would have been completely forbidden. Mom managed to get him to allow some.

Anonymous wrote:Growing up in an Italian American family in the 70s sleepovers were never allowed. It was just never done. I still don’t get them. My kids did them maybe once. I don’t like them.

Italian American family. Born in 1970 in Fairfax County. Sleepovers were a big thing. I had them and went to them.

When I was growing up, sleepovers started around age 7 or 8 I think. For our kids now (ages 12 & 15) they each started sleepovers around age 6 and both still do them now.

I worked for child welfare so if ever there was a parent who was like "I need to know the parents and the kids before even a playdate, never mind a sleepover", it was me. But especially in elementary school, we got to know her friends and their parents. We hosted sleepovers and our kids went to other people's houses. We literally NEVER had any problems.

Tweens and teens gets a little tricky, they do get louder and stay up later to a degree. But I enforce a level of quiet after midnight that they respect and many of them pass out when it's lights out/quiet time.

Both kids are now vaxxed & the 1st slumber party for the younger one when it was safe (post vax, before Delta variant) was at a new friend's house. I feel like because my DD has a phone & I met the parents and asked to see where everyone would be sleeping, but I don't feel as much like I have to already know the parents before she sleeps over, I just need to have met the kids and heard about them a lot and then check the home out before our kid stays over. And she can always call to be picked up if she's uncomfy.

But at that 1st slumber party when I picked DD up, she had a great time (parents took them to an outdoor county fair type thing then to an outdoor pizza place, then home) but she also said at like 1:00am most of the girls decided to sneak out and go to a PARK near the home. Only 2 girls stayed back and in bed (mine being one of them) and when she told me this and I realized the parents didn't notice or care, that was it, no more sleepovers at this girl's house.

And our oldest, he used to do more sleepovers younger, now not so often, more often when they go out and do stuff outside (go to an event, play sports, or we take them somewhere) and then they want to come home, eat (they make their own stuff a lot now), and play games. We know the parents of the friends he goes back and forth with pretty well and we all communicate so it's really just to spend more time doing what they'd probablyl do alone if no one was visiting.

I did a LOT of sleepovers in high school, mainly because my friends and I were spread out so far in our city, and we just enjoyed doing it. I got to know my friends families, their cultures (I went to high school in New York City, amazing diversity at my school) and also the differences in class (my friends who worked in their families businesses after school so I helped them if I was hanging out, vs the ones who lived in much fancier apartments/houses and had housekeepers/nannies living in and cooking). My parents were very inviting and we had an indoor pool in our apartment building so I was popular as a sleepover destination too.

And - and HELL NO this is not going to be the rule with our kids, but they're not on DCUM & this is anonymous so I'll say it here - when I was 13 and my parents were both traveling for work sometimes, instead of me needing to stay at someone else's house, I was allowed to invite a friend over and we stayed alone in our apartment. Inevitably word would spread among my local friend group that my parents weren't home and there were knocks & doorbell rings for ages, people wanting to come in and "hang out". And the benefit of being trusted with that kind of responsibility was I took it seriously, I never let others in, there were never any "it wasn't supposed to turn into a party" things, never had to kick anyone out. And I told them it was because I knew them and no way were they coming to hang out and mess up my house! So that was interesting, but that option will NOT be given to my kids, not even when they're 16. It's too easy for that to get out of control, then and now.

Anonymous wrote:18 yo son has a male and a female best friend, the three of them still get together for sleepovers. They've known each other since K, they had them all through elementary, but they fizzled out by the time they started middle school, but had a resurgence towards the end of junior year when we were all vaccinated.

Admittedly we weren't sure about letting them start again at first but there's never been any drugs, alcohol, sneaking out or "fooling around" just them getting together to eat junk food, play video games and have goofy fun together until the early hours of the morning. They've always followed the rules we have in place and we still remind them we're trusting them. I think it's great for them to still get together and just have silly fun time together and relive their younger days.

Do they sleepovers at each other’s homes or is your house the main house?

Never really done them.

18 yo son has a male and a female best friend, the three of them still get together for sleepovers. They've known each other since K, they had them all through elementary, but they fizzled out by the time they started middle school, but had a resurgence towards the end of junior year when we were all vaccinated.

Admittedly we weren't sure about letting them start again at first but there's never been any drugs, alcohol, sneaking out or "fooling around" just them getting together to eat junk food, play video games and have goofy fun together until the early hours of the morning. They've always followed the rules we have in place and we still remind them we're trusting them. I think it's great for them to still get together and just have silly fun time together and relive their younger days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sleepovers allow girls to explore their non-binary sexuality with each other in a safe environment; the key ingredient is to provide privacy. Much less common occurrence with boys.

I didn't have this experience at all. I slept over at someone's house or they at mine almost every weekend growing up. Nothing like this ever happened. We made popcorn, watched movies or tv, did our nails, played games, it was all good clean fun.

Yeah, same...

I LOVED sleepovers for a lot the reasons mentioned: fun, got to see how other families lived, got to know the parents better (other adults in your kids life can be a good thing), try new cooking/meals we didn't make in our house. But at night- that is when you would have deep conversations, eat a bag of hershey's kisses, watch movies, experiment with makeup and hair...that is the kind of stuff we did. Nothing sexual- at all.

My kids do them regularly with one close family. But my kids also go to sleep-away camp for the summer too. Kids getting out from under their own parents 24/7 is a good thing.

Times have changed. Sure plenty of sleepovers are non-sexual still, but yes, girls especially will experiment with eachother as teens. It's way more common these days then it was in our day. Not saying everyone does it, but you can no longer assume it won't happen. This is the generation that is into the whole fluid sexuality stuff.

The school FLE actively encourages kids who are curious to try same-sex exploration now.

Things have certainly changed.

In the 80’s yes. Today? Nope. Too many crazy parents. Plus I stay up all night.

My kid doesn't get why when he prefers his bed in his home. I'm not opposed if I knew the family really well but I don't encourage it and if I did I'd want them in our home vs. theirs. But, with covid, nope.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sleepovers allow girls to explore their non-binary sexuality with each other in a safe environment; the key ingredient is to provide privacy. Much less common occurrence with boys.

I didn't have this experience at all. I slept over at someone's house or they at mine almost every weekend growing up. Nothing like this ever happened. We made popcorn, watched movies or tv, did our nails, played games, it was all good clean fun.

Yeah, same...

I LOVED sleepovers for a lot the reasons mentioned: fun, got to see how other families lived, got to know the parents better (other adults in your kids life can be a good thing), try new cooking/meals we didn't make in our house. But at night- that is when you would have deep conversations, eat a bag of hershey's kisses, watch movies, experiment with makeup and hair...that is the kind of stuff we did. Nothing sexual- at all.

My kids do them regularly with one close family. But my kids also go to sleep-away camp for the summer too. Kids getting out from under their own parents 24/7 is a good thing.

Times have changed. Sure plenty of sleepovers are non-sexual still, but yes, girls especially will experiment with eachother as teens. It's way more common these days then it was in our day. Not saying everyone does it, but you can no longer assume it won't happen. This is the generation that is into the whole fluid sexuality stuff.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Growing up in an Italian American family in the 70s sleepovers were never allowed. It was just never done. I still don’t get them. My kids did them maybe once. I don’t like them.

I’m not sure what being Italian has to do with it. I grew up in the same time and has lots of sleepovers. Many were with cousins and so many of us ans the relatives would be in the same house. But more often they were with friends. Everyone was always welcome and they were a joyful part of my childhood. We would stay up and talk and eat all night. My house always had a ton food. We would sleep with sleeping bags in the living room or on the back porch.

Now as a parent, I don’t like them because my kids are so cranky the next day. But I allow it occasionally with certain friends because i remember how much fun we had.

Italian-Americans and also Latin American cultures do not generally allow sleepovers. With respect to Italian Americans there are several funny self-deprecating memes about Italian American fathers saying no to a sleep over by saying “isn’t our house good enough? You don’t like our home.”

Anonymous wrote:This is a weird question. Who didn’t like sleepovers. God. I bet you are the parents who didn’t send your kids to sleep away camp

Right? Sleepovers were a staple of my childhood, one on one until middle school unless it was a birthday party, then I had a group of friends and it was a rare weekend where i didn’t spend at least one night at someone’s house. We never did drugs, drank, or had boys/girls that we were sexually interested in over. We ate junk food, stayed up too late, talked about crushes, and watched movies. The worst things that happened were we were tired the next day and we occasionally got our hands on an R rated moved. But that would have been like “Dazed and Confused” at the time. Of the 4 friends plus me, 3 were not at all sexually active until college and two us tried a couple drinks the summer we turned 18.

This is a weird question. Who didn’t like sleepovers. God. I bet you are the parents who didn’t send your kids to sleep away camp

Anonymous wrote:What’s up with eating all night?

Would you prefer they purged?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sleepovers allow girls to explore their non-binary sexuality with each other in a safe environment; the key ingredient is to provide privacy. Much less common occurrence with boys.

I didn't have this experience at all. I slept over at someone's house or they at mine almost every weekend growing up. Nothing like this ever happened. We made popcorn, watched movies or tv, did our nails, played games, it was all good clean fun.

Same. We made up a lot of dances (or copied the choreography) to popular songs, created skits, watched movies, took Cosmo quizzes (my kids now take Buzzfeed quizzes), baked or made ice cream sundaes, made pancakes or waffles in the mornings, etc.

People... times have changed!

I'm sure you were not wearing skimpy clothes, vaping, "experimenting", etc. Now a days, that's all normal.

"Now a days?"

I was a tween/teen in the 80's. Teens have always behaved like teens.