<p>
</p>
<p>No offense taken, Berurah! You are right about brainwashing…we all do it all the time. I think it’s an essential part of parenting! Most of us on this forum have probably been brainwashing our children since they were quite young that they <em>would</em> be going to college.</p>
<p>I also agree that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to practice a courtship philosophy if the kids were in a more mainstream educational environment. I think this is the problem for my S that I told about who wants to court the girl he has liked for 3 years. They are now both at a big state university. It’s very mainstream. They fortunately have a small group of friends there who were raised like they were and are sympathetic to their situation. The rest of their friends just think they are crazy for listening to the girl’s dad. I think that a more traditional courtship (all outings chaperoned, etc.) would have worked fine if she had stayed at home and attended college locally. Since she is not at home though, I think it is expecting too much to ask them not to be behaving as bf and gf. Asking them to behave as if there is no romantic relationship when there is one is one of those closing the barn door after the horse is gone kinds of things.</p>
<p>Again, I understand her parents’ perspective that being in a serious relationship for 3-4 years is not compatible with remaining sexually pure until marriage. Personally, I think they should just plan on marrying sooner. It’s kind of complicated though, because of S being in ROTC. It’s not impossible…just complicated.</p>
<p>I know some people think it’s odd to encourage their kids to marry young like that, but again…we haven’t raised them the same as everyone else. If there’s one thing our kids understand, it’s that marriage is a solemn vow and it’s for life. We’ve made sure they know that marriage is sometimes hard and sometimes they won’t feel like they even like their spouse, much less love them. Therefore, they know that it’s important that they not get involved with someone until they know them quite well and make sure there aren’t any deal-breaker issues with that person. We believe that’s the best protection against divorce or an unhappy marriage. Like someone here said earlier, learning how the other person treats his/her family and others can be really helpful in knowing what he/she is really like. (Unless he treats his mom really nice because he’s a mama’s boy, but that’s another issue for another day!)</p>