<p>^^^^</p>
<p>In my parents house you didn’t share a bed unless you were married…period.</p>
<p>That rule didn’t just apply to their children, but also to their brothers and sisters that visited their house.</p>
<p>Their rule applied to me and my SO while I was pregnant and after my son was born when it was very apparent what was going on outside of their home (and I was an “adult child” in my mid-20s at the time).</p>
<p>It was their house, their rule, and I respected it.</p>
<p>Silly? Perhaps, but then again if I’d known that my son had tried alcohol at some point, that doesn’t mean I’m going to open my liquor cabinet to him. If I knew he’d gone ‘joy riding’ before getting his license, that doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly going to let him take the car whenever he wants. If I ever found out he’d experimented with illegal substances, that doesn’t mean I’m going to supply them for him or even give him a place to use them. The rules we set go a long way toward communicating our morals to our children. If my son wants to sneak around and do things I don’t approve of, then he’s no different than most other teenagers out there, but I will not communicate to him that those are behaviors I support. Just because the horse got out of the barn once doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t lock it back up and keep it from continuing to run wild.</p>
<p>And I on the other hand am fairly liberal, but I’ve seen too many young lives impacted by the consequences of starting sexual relationships before they were ready. And in too many cases seen the lives of their children as they struggled when they were neither emotionally or financially prepared to be raising a family.</p>