S had sex with his GF in our house :(

Parent Cafe
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<p>bbgg, Although I don’t share the same expectations as you (no premarital sex), I’m surprised at the harsh tone of some of the comments. I had the same reaction to a similar situation. (My D went to a weekend home with her BF alone. She had lied and told me that his family would be there.) I was very upset that she had lied to me. We have always had a close, open relationship. Truthfully, I was also upset that she was having sex, even though I knew she was on the pill. This, after the fact that we took her to the doctor for the prescription! I wished that they would wait until they were older and honestly, it broke my heart a little bit. The lie on top of this felt like such a betrayal.</p>

<p>Well, it has been two years since, and I’ve gotten over it and there has been no irreparable damage in our relationship. What helped me was time, and the realization that she still espoused our values even though she made that one big mistake. You have to pull back and see the big picture. Sex is normal. Your S having sex is not a reflection on his moral character. I agree, he is not yet a man, but it sounds like he is trying hard to become one. And I don’t mean because of sex, but that he is trying to engage with you in a mature manner. That he and his GF are willing to sit down with you is pretty brave and responsible! How many teenagers would have the stomach for that conversation? (Not me.) It is also a reflection on how much he values and respects you.</p>

<p>Ultimately, your S’s sex life is his own business and you will just have to accept that. The important thing is that he is in a respectful, affectionate relationship with the person he is having sex with. My own acceptance was a gradual thing. I had to accept that she was growing up. </p>

<p>On a side note, it did feel a bit hypocritical that we supported her being on the pill but didn’t condone her having sex. Sometimes you have to be pragmatic and flexible, because life demands it.</p>

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<p>bbgg, you are wise to seek advice. I have read many a post from pained teens whose parents do not accept them for who they are or the choices they have made because the parents are, by nature, very different or have made different choices. </p>

<p>I’m counting on all of you caring people to advise me when I need it (and you do!:)).</p>

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<p>its ironic that in a country where we have an epidemic of obesity and we can’t seem to control our drive to stuff our faces, we also feel ( thank our Puritian forefathers) that the equally compelling drive to procreate is something that it is simple to " just say no" to.</p>

<p>I think as a parent- you do the best job you can in transmitting your values to your children, the reasons behind those values and giving them the tools so they can learn to make their own decisions using their experience and intelligence.</p>

<p>I think one of the hardest things is to realize that our children are not clones, they are not going to replicate either our “good” decisions, or repair our " bad" ones.</p>

<p>We also have to put things in perspective.
Where do we want to spend our attention and energy?
Do we want to spend our time making sure our roses don’t have aphids or blackspot 24/7, or do we want to be able to enjoy the flowers themselves?</p>

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<p>bbgg, I always hoped my children would wait for marriage. They know that. D has always respected our family rules and we’ve always been open and honest with her about our reasoning behind those rules. </p>

<p>S is a different matter. He’s now a college sophomore and still does not respect our rules - which include not having sex in our house. So, he will not be living at home next summer. He will be getting his own apartment that he will be paying for himself. He can have all the sex he wants there. </p>

<p>I see nothing wrong with expressing your disappointment to your son. I will tell you that I’ve tried some of the punishments you’ve used- taking the phone and the car- and they truly were useless and on occasion led to worse activities. A strong expression of disappointment with an outline of future consequences should it happen again might be the path to take here.</p>

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<p>It is not clear to if these two young people are entering their senior year in high school or are getting ready to leave for college, and if they are 17 or 18, and that makes a big difference. Regardless, you get to set the rules for your house, and you get to say whether you will continue to financially support an 18 year-old. If your son is 17, he needs to go by house rules. If he is 18, he needs to decide if the rules are too onerous or if he would rather make his own rules while making his own way financially and logistically. The GF should not enter your home unless she has your permission, and certainly it is inappropriate for her as an invited guest to ignore family rules. She has no obligation to meet with your minister, and to ask her to do might be considered insulting to her family religious culture. My best advice would be to pick your battles very carefully…you will only have the emotional and psychological capital to wage a couple of them, and then the other side will retreat, withdraw, and no longer engage. That you do not want. As parents we do a lot of regrouping and re-evaluating, and we are humbled again and again by our limitations. They sound like good kids with strong hormones…worse things could happen. One thing I have told my children is that as adults they get to make their own decisions, but I also get to have my own opinion, judgment, expectations. It is not my responsibility to make it easy for them to please me…sometimes it will not happen; and sometimes I have to accept and live with things I do not like, which is my problem. Good luck.</p>

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Fair enough … but it is also not exactly unheard of for young adults to “sneak around” parental rules they do not agree with but have not yet confronted their parents about. I would bet the majority of CC posters fooled around in some form at a one of the parents houses when they were not supposed to … 3togo raises his hand. After discussions about the home owner sets the rules how many jokes are there about expecting to hear footsteps in the middle of the night?</p>

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<p>Lucily I am still able to talk openly with my son. He brought me home some cookies today which was nice. I am thinking deeply about our punisment and will make adjustments if need be. We all need to time to process this. He has been given the car so that he can go to community college etc.</p>

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<p>I suppose I am embarresed. I have always been knwon as the control freak parent. Which S told me he was glad for in most cases. Oh well! LOL</p>

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<p>The time for free and frank discussions about expectations (and the temptations that ALL young people face, whether it’s sex, drugs, alcohol, academic dishonesty) is well before these folks are confronted with those issues. And those conversations should keep on happening. I talk to my kids about this stuff all the time. Mostly it’s “theoretical” chats, but sometimes they open up and share more. <em>That’s</em> what I want to have happen – that my sons would feel comfortable talking to me or their dad about the really important stuff, and possibly even before choices are made. </p>

<p>While our children may not always make the decisions we would hope for them, we do need to keep the channels of communication open, regardless. We all broke our parents’ hearts in big or small ways growing up, too. That’s the price of parenthood.</p>

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<p>Yes we did CountingDown. Thank you for your post</p>

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<p>No, no, I am the control freak. When my older daughter told me that she wanted to discuss birth control, while I was driving 70m/hr, I nearly drove off the road. I had to pull off to the side. If there was a brown bag, I would have put it over my face.</p>

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Very true, but assuming that a kid who lives with his parents for 18 years knows exactly how his parents would feel about what he chose to do, I can only say, what did he expect would happen? </p>

<p>Hey, disagree with your parents’ rules all you want, but you pays your money and you takes your chances.</p>

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<p>“I’m surprised at the harsh tone of some of the comments.”</p>

<p>I’m not! Welcome!</p>

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<p>OK … and sex in the house is pretty core value for parents to have rules about … but as a parent I try to … 1) be careful to try to not set-up rules that make it quite likely one of the kids will eventually want to break them … 2) be wary of unintended consequences of any punishment.</p>

<p>In many families just by asking the question “are you having sex with your GF/BF?” sets the child up for a lose-lose situation (let’s assume over 18 college age kids for a second). An honest answer of yes leads to disappointed parents and possibly punishment … an answer of no is lie and leads to diappointed parents and possibly punishments … for the child it is a lose-lose siutation.</p>

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<p>A couple of thoughts about posts:</p>

<p>Why is the son an adult not subject to parental input/rules and yet the GF’s parents would have a right to be upset if OP talked with her about this?</p>

<p>Whatever exactly OP is upset about, it is all about a betrayal, I would assume something like, 'bad enough you had sex, but did you have to have it at my home when I told you to stay out" a double betrayal.</p>

<p>If some other rule had been broken, it would matter what it was, if GF came for homework it is not as bad a betrayal as if son dealt drugs, there are varying degrees of bad.</p>

<p>I have no problem with reading texts or email if a parent has a gut instinct something is going on- a parent friend who buried her head in the sand has an unmarried Dd with 2 kids; a parent who was nosy, but not nosy enough caught a kid doing drugs, but in hindsight could have discovered it sooner before as much damage was done; a parent who ignored a heavy drinking kid all through HS, calling it normal hijinks ended up with a kid in alcoholic rehab at college age. If you think there is a problem, you are really morally obligated to check…that being said, I would not support just reading all the kids info for the fun of it or to be nosy.</p>

<p>I do think that our society tends to have a segment of advice that is all about being almost hands off where sex is concerned, kind of a 'they are going to do it, so just be okay with it" </p>

<p>I think it is okay to tell your kids that sex is a huge commitment, that a girl can end up feeling used if she has sex for the wrong reasons, that STDs are a lousy potential lifetime outcome (herpes is forever;)), that once you are pregnant or got a girl pregnant, your life is changed forever (even if the decision is adoption or abortion, you are still changed by the experience), that even adults who are very experienced and not guiltily fumbling in the back of the car end up with birth control failure babies- I cannot tell you how many friends I had with a 3rd child by accident, people on the pill, people with IUDs, all sorts of experienced people with every reason to use BC properly still got pregnant (raises hand!)</p>

<p>There is nothing wrong with not wanting your kid to have sex, there is nothing wrong with telling them that and there is nothing wrong with having your rules in your house. My kids all know that there is no unmarried sex in my house, lots of guy friends over the years have slept over, in the upstairs room and I expect them to be capable of handling their hormonal urges such that they can handle my rules in my house. I know they will likely have sex before marriage, but not at my house (when I am home or not) I don’t tell my 24 year old what to do on her time at her place, but she respects without question my rules at my house.</p>

<p>There are too many girls who do have sex for the wrong reasons and end up being hurt by it (maybe not the DDs of the parents here who are reading this, but many of my DDs girlfriends had have bad experiences, so why not try to protect them from that)</p>

<p>By the same token, OP has to think seriously about what the REAL issue is, what is the true betrayal and how do you want to address it? Both requiring your rules be respected and realising there are some behaviours that you cannot control, but you can at least require not ot occur on your turf.</p>

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<p>I don’t agree that all rules parents set or good rules. The OP, her rules were fair, but not all rules set by parents are fair, age appropriate, healthy or realistic.</p>

<p>Our kids have all broken our rules, and for parents to think otherwise, that is being naive. We all broke our parents rules.</p>

<p>Also, just becuase you can check texts, doesn’t meen you should. What did our parents do before we had all this technology. They talked to us. </p>

<p>To the OP, what if the girl was in the house and there was no hankypanky, would you still have given the same punishment?</p>

<p>As well, for young adults, taking away phones, etc is too jouvenile a punishment, if a punishment is even warranted. </p>

<p>If your son was 20 and had sex in your home, breaking the same rules, would you have taken away the car?</p>

<p>I am all one for respect and young adults and their parents. And I think just your son knowing how sad he has made you, how hurt, and how hard it will be to trust him again is plenty punishment enough. You have double punished him imo.</p>

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<p>I am stunned by how many parents here seem to disapprove of two college-age people having sex. It would never have occurred to me to disapprove or be disappointed or to think about punishment. I have always thought that people of that age having sex with each other was normal, expected behavior. What’s to disapprove? </p>

<p>In my more idealistic, romantic moments, I want my grown offspring to have sex mostly in the context of caring, long-term relationships with nice people, but even if it’s a drunken one-night stand with an inconsiderate stranger, it’s none of my business.</p>

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<p>This is about two high school students, not “two college-age people”. There is a BIG difference, albeit not in age. </p>

<p>I was no angel myself, and maybe that’s why I really hoped my own D would wait to have sex. I gained absolutely nothing by not waiting until I was older.</p>

<p>Now, I accept that my sophomore college D has a sex life. But in HS? That was a different story for two reasons: she lived at home, and she was younger, both in age and experience. There is a huge psychological difference for the child and parents, once they leave home, even if only for the shelter of college dorm life. Their sex life is a lot easier to ignore. And thank God for that!</p>

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<p>In 24 hours, 137 posts, and 5721 views. </p>

<p>Sex sells. Illicit sex sells better. :)</p>

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<p>I would like to draw the line somewhere between “drunken one night stands in our home” and “young adults not having sex at all”.</p>

<p>LongPrime,
I think most of us are interested in giving the OP multiple perspectives on her circumstances.
That is not to say you are factually wrong in your post. Using the car without permission and wrecking it would never have attracted this much attention.</p>