<p>A group of us parents has been discussing a scenario and I thought I would throw it out there some CC input:</p>
<p>Your DS / DD is 20 years old, in college, and has been in a very serious monogamous relationship for over a year. DS / DD has moved out of your house and is living with partner in a one bedroom apartment. The couple is obviously sexually active. The parents did not block them from living together. </p>
<p>When the couple comes back to your house to visit what are the sleeping arrangements? Separate rooms or together? If separate isn’t that a bit hypocritical? Or is it a comfort issue?</p>
<p>The parents this happened to did consent to the couple sharing a room, but it was explicitly discussed with the couple that nothing sexual was to happen while visiting. I should add that there are no younger siblings in the house. If there were the answer would have been separate rooms. </p>
<p>How very 1970’s of you to even think it. (Iron Maiden, wasn’t that a 70’s band?)</p>
<p>In my case there’s no issue - they get one room. But, its your house so do whatever makes you most comfortable. If they don’t like your choice, they can get a hotel room - at their own expense, of course. But understand it might mean you seem much less of DD.</p>
<p>We are lucky enough to have a guest room. (Well, it’s the home office/recreation/etc. room, but it has two twin beds.) While the kids were still young we referred to it as “the guest room” even when it was in heavy use for computer, crafts, whatever. Everyone in the household knows it’s for guests. That’s where guests go. I don’t care who is sleeping with whom, when the kids have a friend over, they go in the guest room. I don’t get to tell my adult children what to do under their roofs, and they don’t get to dictate who sleeps where under mine. When my kids get married, their spouses will be more than welcome to share a bed/bedroom/whatnot with their “lawfully wedded”.</p>
<p>Everything is easier this way. My SIL recently tied herself up in a knot over her son and what she thought was a GF who was staying there. Turned out it was a platonic friend who was mortified to hear that she was staying in the same room (a queen bed) with the son.</p>
<p>Nicer to let the guests stay in the guest room (if you are lucky enough to have a room with a bed and nobody else in it) than to presume who is doing what to whom.</p>
<p>College students will do what they do when they are at college, and really when a D is 20 is not the time to try to teach moral values. Hopefully you have done your job many years ago. </p>
<p>However, some parents are very strict about sleeping in separate bedrooms prior to marraige, and that is their choice. My girlfriend and I once stayed with an old friend from high school one night. Not only we were not allowed in the same bed, we weren’t allowed in the same house! He actually arranged for one of us to stay in a different building because we weren’t married! That’s his choice.</p>
<p>The one thing that my Dad did learn is that being excessively firm with grown children is a good way to push them away, and sometimes you have to allow them to be themselves when at home. That makes them more happy to come see you and feel more comfortable while at home.</p>
<p>(The flip side is this is the DD could turn this into “you don’t like him, do you Mom”. I can only imagine that trying to pass judgement on a college students choice of significant other is a bad idea.)</p>
<p>The first time D ever came home with BF, we had them stay in separate rooms but we are fortunate to have had the space. Now that they were living together for over a year and they were coming home for Christmas, we like the guy and all… they both stayed in the guest room. We did not need to have a conversation with them about sex because well… she was raised by us and heck, I can’t imagine having sex in my inlaws house and I’ve been married for 20 years!! I especially think that if they’re living together this shouldn’t be a problem. Of course, if I didn’t like the guy in the least, I’d be lying to say I wouldn’t put my morals up as the objection when in reality I just didn’t like him!</p>
<p>They could sleep together at a hotel before marraige. I just would not be comfortable with any of my kids sharing a room with a significant other before marraige. Besides when all the kids are home there is barely enough room for them so any girlfriends or boyfriends would spent the night in another part of the house.</p>
<p>I think it depends greatly on the family, and the relationship. I would have been very uncomfortable with it at 20. Not so much at 25. However, I’m pretty sure my kids would not have wanted to share a room in my house with a significant other until they were married. I’m okay with that. But I’m one of those strange parents who wouldn’t want my kids living with a girlfriend before they were married. Not for any moral issue, but rather logistics. Hard to break up with someone who think isn’t “the one” if you’re living with them. If you’re commited enough to live together, then get married.</p>
<p>Just to clarify - this is not an issue with my kid. I just thought it was interesting. Opinions we’ve heard are all over the place. </p>
<p>And yes, Iron Maiden IS a band and have been since the late 70’s. Their last album a couple years ago was worldwide their biggest seller of all time. New one on the way this summer!</p>
<p>My parents have a very simple rule: If married, do what you want. If not married, not the same room unless same sex (and not in a relationship, but that’s never been an issue yet).</p>
<p>Oh, dear. No, that is not a conversation I will ever be having with my son and his partner. How in the world would this be enforced? And why is their grown child’s sex life any of their business? I simply cannot imagine discussing my adult son’s sex life with him, even if it is to tell him to refrain. We’ve been open and honest about sexuality his whole childhood. Now we’re done. </p>
<p>If you’re living together and you come to visit us, you get one bedroom and that will include our kid. I prefer the Miss Manners method of being too polite to notice any noises including what sounds like one single guest creeping down the hallway to another single guests room. I put my own spin on it but turning my white noise machine up to high so I truly cannot hear anything I wouldn’t want to hear.</p>
<p>My understanding is that the conversation was with their child without the partner present and was along the lines of “you two can stay in the one room but please remember we are here too and don’t want anyone to be uncomfortable”. I think the message was clear without being explicit.</p>
<p>I think there is no right answer to this question. It is totally dependent upon the value’s of each family and the young people involved. What feels right to me may seem immoral to you. I lived with my dh for over a year before marriage. My d knows this. She knows that we have no problem with sexuality in the context of loving , committed relationships and our disapproval of casual sex. When and if the situation arises for us we will act in accordance with our family morals. She would also know that if she was in the home of her significant others family she would have to abide by their wishes. I am sure she would respect them!</p>
<p>In my parents’ house, while I was growing up, the guest bedroom was on the third floor, along with my bedroom and my brother’s. Guests were assigned to the guest bedroom. If relatives and their SOs were visiting, the male would be assigned to a bed in my room and the female to the guest bedroom. My parents hardly ever came up the stairs to the third floor. No one did bedchecks. No one asked, and no one told.</p>
<p>That system worked really well for many years. Then once we had so many guests that the room arrangements really didn’t work unless longstanding live-togethers could be assigned to the same bed. So that was pretty much it for the system.</p>
<p>So far, we’ve basically used the same system in our house. Both kids are over 21 now, and restrained, polite people. I can tell that in the near future I am going to stop caring altogether.</p>
I think this is a good way to handle it if you feel this way: “I’m not going to dictate morals to you, or what you do when you’re not here, but when you’re staying here I’m going to insist that you behave in a way that doesn’t creep me out.”</p>