<p>Yep ,it’s true ! D is bringing the Swedish guy home for the holidays . He will stay with us for 2 weeks . I hope that my D’s old friends talk her out of the possibilities of having a 3 years younger boyfriend …the funny thing is how calm my H is . We are paying full tuition for her at Harvard . My biggest nightmare is that she will go thru the next 3 years and not look within her classmates for "true love " . We will insist that they wait till boy graduates from college before they marry . Then after Harvard , my D could move to Sweden and settle down and do zilch with that fine education . Please give me some of that CC wisdom ! I realize alot can happen in 6 years . Maybe they will meet someone else . She will have spent 7 weeks with him when she returns to US . I guess it could be worse - she could be pregnant ,or decide to be a Harvard DROPOUT !</p>
<p>If you don’t approve of this relationship with your adult D dating a several years younger non-adult boy you can not support or enable it by telling your D that you’re sorry, but you won’t permit him to stay in your home over Christmas - that it’s nothing against him personally, but you won’t allow this 15 y/o kid to stay in your home given the relationship with your adult D. By accepting him staying in your home you’re accepting a certain amount of responsibility for him, including, IMO, making sure he doesn’t eventually become an underage father due to his time in your home.</p>
<p>Turn this around - if you had a 15 y/o D who wanted her new-found 18 y/o boyfriend to come stay at your home for a couple of weeks, would you allow it?</p>
<p>I also don’t get what this boy’s parents are thinking in allowing this.</p>
<p>missed that he was 15. Not to be indelicate but doesn’t that fall under statutory rape in the U.S. Is this not opening both you and her up to some possible big trouble? Something not right here.</p>
<p>When I was in college one of my friends did a semester abroad in Germany. While there she met a Swedish teen. He was quite attractive, and knew how to charm and flatter her. After she got back he started sending pushy letters and gifts to her, begging to come for an indefinite stay. He was so persistent it got creepy. She sent the gifts back to him unopened. He kept pushing to come. She asked him why he wanted to come so bad, and he said that it was because So. Calif was the Corvette capital of the world. So, it wasn’t her he was after, it was a free place to stay while he cruised around in a Corvette.</p>
<p>If I were in your position, I wouldn’t allow the 15 year old boy to stay in my house. It would be as if I approved of my college age daughter dating an underaged boy. It’s not like he’s just a little bit younger. He’s 15 for crying out loud.</p>
<p>It is a long time from August to December. This kid might not even be able to travel then.</p>
<p>As for not using the fancy Harvard education if your DD would end up relocating to Sweden, well there are plenty of Ivy and Ivy-peer grads who aren’t using their fancy educations right here in the US. You may want to think over your reasons for encouraging DD to study at Harvard.</p>
<p>Would not allow my S to bring home a high school age girl to stay. He has a hs gf now and she can’t stay with us. I would think that a worse nightmare would be she gets pregnant now by this boy and he abandons her. Good luck.</p>
<p>PS - It’s ok to say no…sometimes I think we all say yes too much. No wonder they tend to call this “entitled” generation.</p>
<p>This isn’t a difficult one, really ( and don’t even begin to think about “years in the future”…). Just tell your daughter NO. it’s your home and your rules and the whole idea is absurd. The boy is 15, and it’s already been pointed out here that this is legally an issue of statutory rape- that sort of thing, should it ever come to it, on her record, would keep your D out of Harvard and a good many other places! Social and sexual mores in other countries may be very different from the US and the boy’s parents might be fine with this escapade, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be. If your D is angry with you,tough- she can move out, get a job and pay her own tuition, which I can guarantee you will not happen. Set some boundaries now and you’ll all be happier.</p>
<p>Assuming that you an work out the awkward parts of the relationship, I would not necessarily write off Sweden post Harvard as a ‘total loss’. Much of the EU (PIIGS excluded) enjoys a decent to good job situation, and assuming your daughter is studying something useful, I’d take my chances in Sweden’s job market with a Harvard degree any time over a constipated (to put it mildly) job market in the USA. </p>
<p>As a dual EU/US citizen I am working to get my kids EU passports as well for the same reason. Sweden has some excellent universities (Lund comes to mind), and for some specialty programs most kids would give a kidney or two to attend (Architecture…).</p>
<p>So, if the relationship is ‘serious’ (and I’m rolling my eyes much like the King Pig does in Angry Birds) and it plays out this way, go for it. I work with Swedes on a daily basis and have done so for a decade, and they’re cool - a couple are even funny :-). </p>
<p>Having said all of the above there are short term issues that are major red lights - at 15, the kid is in High School? Harvard? how did the relationship evolve? If he’s 10th grade at Malmo High School and they met in a chat room that’s one thing, if he’s a sophomore at Harvard that’s quite another. My reaction would be quite different depending on the above answer - one could even try a Turbo favorite, invite the kids’ parents as well :-).</p>
<p>You do know what Swedish boys do at Christmas time, right?
<a href=“Photo and Video Storage | Photobucket”>Photo and Video Storage | Photobucket;
<p>Sorry. Just kidding. (I believe the daughter met SB when she was volunteering in Sweden.) I agree with what the other posters have said about this really being up to you. Invite his parents to come too. And if you are truly uncomfortable with the planned visit, say no.</p>
<p>I don’t see why you have to say yes or no at this point. It’s a long time till Christmas. The answer for right now is that you have a lot of concerns about it and you’d like to think about it. There’s a decent chance that by the time November rolls around she won’t even want him any more. I do kind of like the idea of inviting the parents to come too.</p>
<p>But if this does turn out to be a lifelong relationship it’s certainly not a waste of her education to end up in Sweden, or perhaps he’ll end up in the US. It’s a much smaller world than it used to be. </p>
<p>I agree the age difference seems odd, but I certainly know plenty of people (who were older when they got married) with larger age difference who have made it work.</p>
<p>They may very well break up before Christmas anyway. You don’t even need to think about it yet.</p>
<p>And don’t get all wigged out and be thinking so far in the future. It’s just a new (young) friend at this point.</p>
<p>My daughter was 17 when she decided to go to Austin, Texas, for college. I was concerned. Seriously. I thought she would meet and marry someone pretty much like J.R. Ewing and settle in Texas (far away from family) forever. </p>
<p>She’s done at UT, got a great education, and absolutely loved UT, Austin and Texas - but she has no Texan fiance’ and no particular urge to settle there.</p>
<p>I am far more relaxed about “picturing the future” with my current h.s. senior son. If he picks a school in an area that seems unusual or concerning to me, I will be able to tell myself “Hmm, he’ll have an interesting four years there.” (Thank you to mantori suzuki for helping me not freak out as DS considers - !!! - University of Mississippi.)</p>
<p>I am trying to say what eddieodessa just said: “Don’t think that events happening now will strongly predict what will happen four years from now.”</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>
This makes it sound like a done deal. Did you actually agree to let her do this or did you leave it all up to her? There’s no way I’d allow it for all the reasons you already know and that have been posted here. If you really don’t want this for a variety of reasons, you need to tell her right away so you can deal with it up front and so he (and perhaps she) doesn’t waste money on non-refundable airline tickets (watch out for that upcoming excuse).</p>
<p>Just curious, where did she meet him? Is he in the states now for some reason (boarding school or something)? In that case, you might allow a shorter visit. It wouldn’t hurt to meet him – if you don’t, you have no real basis to judge him except his age. He could look for another friend to stay with for the rest of winter break. </p>
<p>I would not worry about her moving to Sweden for now, at least in terms of “wasting her education”. If she marries him someday, she would be legally able to work there if they lived there. And I visited Sweden last summer, and LOVED it (have been trying to figure out how I could go live there someday myself since I left!). If my kid was going to live overseas, she could pick a lot worse place to go. :)</p>
<p>Also… don’t think you can go “insisting” that they wait until he graduates from college for them to marry. They will legally be adults, and will likely do what they want to. My parents thought they could place conditions on my decision to marry right out of college, and got a rude awakening. You need to realize that by four years from now (when your D graduates), she WILL be making her own decisions. And she is the one who has to live with (or without) this person for the next 60+ year in a marriage. No one else, not even a parent, can or should make that decision for a person (IMHO).</p>
<p>I think you are worrying unecessarily. Don’t understand whether you are paying full fare at Harvard has anything to do with this situation.</p>
<p>Just wanted to reiterate that no matter what you think the age of consent should be and related issues, it might be valuable to check on statutory rape laws in your state. In my state, an adult having sex with a 15 year old is in violation of the law. The question of becoming a registered sex offender then comes into play. This would seem to be a very sound reason for you to refuse to facilitate the visit. (Apologies if your D’s relationship with SB is such that statutory rape is a non-issue.)</p>
<p>I think you are worrying about things you shouldn’t be worrying about because they are either far off/low probability events OR even if they are likely, they are entirely out of your control (such as long term future issues, getting married too soon, moving to Sweden, not using her education wisely) , yet you aren’t worrying about the things that are in your control (communicating how uncomfortable you feel about the big age difference, having this 15 year old staying with you during holidays). </p>
<p>Switch it around so that you ignore the far off future and focus on dealing with the present; and in that regard, lots of good advice here to follow from the other posters.</p>
<p>What’s all this about Harvard ? Did you think by virtue of going there your D will somehow be exempt from making strange/dumb decisions? </p>
<p>Personally I think when her friends – those at Harvard and elsewhere – hear your daughter has a 15 year old boyfriend they will give her such a hard time about it, that the boyfriend will vanish in New York minute…</p>
<p>^katliamom, I found Harvard parents to be generally very kind and sensible, and don’t normally feel the need to mention their S/D’s school in every single post. Fauxmaven is just a very interesting person ;)</p>