<p>Just wondering how you have handled a college bf or gf coming to stay at your house during the summer.</p>
<p>I made sure any handling was done where I could not see it. ;)</p>
<p>I think that the handling of the situation is based on what you are comfortable with. I would be up front, have a sleeping arrangement discussion ahead of time and let your child know your expectations…even if it feels awkward. </p>
<p>I was fortunate that my daughter brought up the topic years ago when one of her girlfriends had a college boyfriend come to visit for the first time. My D asked what her Dad and I would do if she wanted to bring a boyfriend home. This was before it was really applicable. It gave me time to think about what I actually would be comfortable with…if any parent can ever be comfortable with the notion of their child having a sex life. :o </p>
<p>Personally, I would handle things differently for an eighteen year old than I would for a twenty two year old…no matter how important the relationship seemed to be to the couple.</p>
<p>The situation has not occurred at my house, but my first thought is to have them sleep in different rooms at night but make sure that they have plenty of opportunities to have the house to themselves in the daytime.</p>
<p>I’m not uncomfortable with the idea of my kids having sex lives; it’s the only way I will ever get grandchildren. ;)</p>
<p>When my son was 20, he had a girlfriend stay here a few days. I told him fine, but that they would sleep in separate rooms. Of course, at 7:30 in the morning, I saw him go from his room to hers; then at 9:30 they both got up.</p>
<p>I’m not sure that qualifies as successful.</p>
<p>I don’t permit unmarried sleepovers with the opposite sex in my home, period. Regardless of their living situations at school. The girls S wanted to have sleep over…my H asked the girls if they were allowed by their parents to have our S sleep in their rooms at home. Answer was always “NO.”</p>
<p>The handling of these situations is going to vary depending on your family situation and how comfortable you are having significant others stay in your house. If you have very young children, that may also affect your arrangements. Once they were in college, we allowed our Ds to make the determination themselves. I am not a fan of ‘let’s make pretend’ and if they were inviting boyfriends to stay with us, they were established relationships. It works for us, just as it does with friends who visit who aren’t married. We have three sets of friends in this situation, one in their 30’s, one 40’s and one in their 70’s! It doesn’t make us any more or less comfortable when the age of the couple is different. As they say, YMMV. :)</p>
<p>Because of our kids’ ages, it worked out that we had the youngest kid in middle and high school as our reason why older kids visiting with g.f. or b.f from college had to sleep separately, regardless of how they arrange their bodies on campus.
Of course my youngest knew everything there was to know, but still we wanted to preserve a “sense of the house” through his graduation from high school.</p>
<p>By the time the youngest began college, the older two were recent college graduates. For the grads, the rule was: you’re my guests, so you tell me how you want to be while here. Especially I realized: they were older than 21 and I had my own adult middle-aged siblings staying over with significant others and didn’t separate them! When does it end, after all.</p>
<p>So now I say my rule was “always”: separate through college years/age 21 but older than that: you’re an adult couple so you tell me. That’s not really a rule, but more of an historical description of how life actually played out. I wrote rules after I needed them. When I needed them, I said I didn’t have to make rules because it was my house and my sensibilities mattered. My sensibilities still matter, but I feel no need to police them anymore. </p>
<p>By age 21, they probably are so disgusted to be doing it in their own parents’ house when they can wait a few days to return to their own shared residences places to retreat to, it’s less of an issue. </p>
<p>The youngest has no one to corrupt but the dog, but he’s held to the “college=separate bedrooms” formula anyway just so his elder sibs aren’t infuriated he got a privilege they didn’t.</p>
<p>Very funny p3t!</p>
<p>It seems hypocritical to me to separate the kids when you know they are doing it elsewhere.</p>
<p>So the guest has privacy dressing, etc. they are given the guest room, but nobody discusses where they sleep.</p>
<p>My only rule is that I don’t want to hear them.</p>
<p>This is slightly off-topic, but subject reminds me of an issue I’m having with D in our college search. </p>
<p>In discussing a certain college with a co-worker, she mentioned that a friend of hers had gone there for freshman year but left because it was too conservative. The school clinic would not prescribe birth control to freshmen women. I mentioned this to D, and remarked that that was something we should consider asking when we tour colleges.</p>
<p>Now in the Q&A sessions we attend, D sits slumped in her seat begging “Mom, please, please don’t ask about birth control!” And here I thought she’d be so proud to have a hip Mom…</p>
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<p>Thanks for making me laugh!</p>
<p>Chi - maybe just peek in at the health clinics during the tour instead of asking in front of everyone… D’s school has big glass bowls on the coffee table in the waiting room; one of cough drops, one of individual packets of Advil, one of condoms. Help yourself.</p>
<p>I may change my mind years from now but with D just having finished freshman year, it is separate rooms; neither she nor her boyfriend have a problem with that anyway.</p>
<p>My daughter " came out" as a junior in high school, I didn’t figure it out until the end of the next year. 
So needless to say before then, she had stayed over at girlfriends houses & they’ve stayed here. I still am not sure who was a " girlfriend" however.</p>
<p>So since then, she has had * boys* or should I say, a young man- from high school, stay overnight. He slept on the floor in her room.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids are overtly sexual, which makes it easy for me. ( It makes it easier to pretend they are ten)</p>
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Whenever my oldest sister, well into her 30s, visited with her long-time boyfriend (they broke up after six years of dating), my parents put them in a room that has two twin beds. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>emeraldkity4, that brings up a good question… Would most parents disallow same-sex sleepovers (after years of allowing them) if their child turned out to be gay???</p>
<p>I have allowed the bf/gf to stay in the room with my kids. It sort of got away from us, and I decided that I wasn’t going to have a double standard (OK at school, not OK at home). Just wasn’t worth it. Started fairly early (before the end of hs) with my son due to someone becoming a gf who I thought was a platonic friend. D was a soph in college before the bf came to stay.</p>
<p>I make up the bed in the guest room for all overnight guests. I tell guests that the bed in the guest room is ready and that there are towels in the bathroom. I demonstrate how the light switches work (we have weird light switches). Then I make a point of going blind until the friend has left. I have no idea where people are actually sleeping.</p>
<p>“I see nothing!”</p>
<p>Both kids went to college at the same time, so there was no real need to protect innocent sensibilities.</p>
<p>^ I think that’s often the best plan for college students, especially younger ones.</p>
<p>I have to say, this question is part of the reason my boyfriend isn’t coming to stay this summer.</p>
<p>I come from an ethnic background and my parents were horrified (okay, that’s a little overkill, but it was pretty bad) that I even have a boyfriend. My mother refuses to discuss him and told me it probably wasn’t a good idea for me to date anyone until I was out of graduate school. This isn’t a fling - it’s been near 8 months, which I know isn’t long, but for college (at least mine) is a major deal.</p>
<p>We live on opposite coast, so the summer thing is difficult. With rising flight costs and both of us working, we agreed to try and make a visit work, but neither of us were hopeful.</p>
<p>He’s open to the idea of coming here (though I’d have to pay since he currently does not have the funds which for some reason makes me a little squicky) and not only would this be a BIG deal for my parents, it terrifies them. A high school boyfriend put his arm around me while we watched a movie in the family room (with my entire family present) and if you hear my mom tell it, we were having raunchy porn star sex on the family room floor. So yeah, part of the reason I haven’t pushed him to come here and am much more amenable to going there is because I know my parents would just… freak out. It upsets me because he’s a big part of my life and so are they, but I can’t seem to meld the two.</p>
<p>Sleeping arrangements wouldn’t be a question - my parents are deeply religious and very pro abstinence until marriage, and I have a 13 year old sister. That’s fine, honestly, if I had younger children in my home, I’d probably feel the same. But it is and will be a long three months.</p>
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He’s open to the idea of coming here (though I’d have to pay since he currently does not have the funds which for some reason makes me a little squicky) and not only would this be a BIG deal for my parents, it terrifies them.
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Can you just hold out for the rest of the summer?As the parent of a D, I’d be doubly doubious if the kid didn’t even shell out for the plane fare… … so how much did he even care? etc… Can you find a way for the significant other to begin communicating with family? Text your mom? PUt him on the phone when they call?</p>