<p>^^^Haha. I guess I feel the same way oldfort. My D1 has had her current bf for almost 2 yrs. They have traveled together, visit each other regularly (he is a grad student at the university she graduated from and she now works in a different location.) But at our home, they sleep in different locations.</p>
<p>I’m conflicted. I do not actually tell them not to sleep together. And her Dad and I lived together before we married. But clearly they get that their sleeping apart is my prefence.</p>
<p>I don’t get why that is my preference.</p>
<p>I do fairly regularly attend church. Not evangelical or catholic, but Christian. Was raised evangelical. Maybe that has something to do with it.</p>
<p>as a teenager, I don’t even understand what would compel someone to have sex 20 feet away from their parents when there are plenty of other places. </p>
<p>honestly, a car may not be comfortable, but it’s a whole lot less uncomfortable than knowing your mom is hearing you. as long as people are being safe, it shouldn’t matter whether it’s happening in a car, at a party, etc.</p>
<p>free love. just not in the bed you used to pee in as a child.</p>
<p>I am supportive of my kids having sex in my house or their car or under the stars. Both boys–college grads now–probably had sex in my house. They never displayed it any more than my husband and I would have displayed it. They got the WORD which was NO BABIES outside of marriage, watch your health. The sex that I knew about was with girls in long term, committed loving relationships. They continue to have the most wonderful long term girl friends and are talking about marriage now.
Grandparents in this family also supported the loving relationships of their grandchildren. Airplane tickets for vacations to visit were purchased, bedrooms assigned (you kids have the double), and loving enlarged.
This is not a drug crazed, alternative group of people. We are families with values, jobs, contributions to our communities. Just so happens we think private enjoyment of sex is natural and a growth opportunity like many others as we grow into adulthood.</p>
<p>Back when telephones were attached to walls and televisions had six channels, my then-boyfriend and I had sex in his room in the apartment he shared with his father. His father was almost certainly aware of this, although I doubt it was openly discussed. </p>
<p>A generation later, my son and his girlfriend had sex in his room in our house. I was aware of this, although it was not openly discussed.</p>
<p>I don’t consider this a particularly difficult situation for the parent. You simply consider the alternatives, realize that they are worse, and keep your mouth shut (and you don’t knock on a closed bedroom door if you happen to come home at the wrong time). After all, you used to be in the same situation, and you didn’t want to have sex in a public place where you could be assaulted or robbed and where you didn’t have access to comfortable furniture or a bathroom. Your kids don’t, either. In particular, a considerate young man (the kind we’ve raised, right?) does not want to put his girlfriend in an uncomfortable, unsafe situation. Condoms are only one aspect of safety.</p>
<p>Young people form relationships. This is normal. They have sex. This is also normal. I see no reason why they shouldn’t be able to have it in their own homes or their partners’ homes.</p>
<p>No way am I allowing a 15-17 year old child to have sex in my house. Now if we are talking 20 something year old, already graduated college and their steady boy friend for years then just maybe. The only thing I like about they way the Dutch handle teenage sex is the fact they double Dutch. Which means they make sure they are using a hormonal birth control and a condom. </p>
<p>This is what I have told my oldest. You must always be using two forms of birth control at all times. </p>
<p>My oldest has not even kissed a boy yet so no problems so far.</p>
<p>Exactly. I’m pretty sure when my 21 yo had her boyfriend visit, that he also “visited” her room. But, when we woke up in the am, they were not in the same bed.</p>
<p>But, how would you work this with a high school student? Realistically?</p>
<p>'You can have your boy friend in your bedroom with the door closed after you have been together X number of years and are in a committed, monogomous relationship."</p>
<p>“No, you cannot have Jack in there, because you just met. I don’t care that Steve used to sleep in there with you.”</p>
<p>I mean, what? It’s too much work for me. </p>
<p>Of course, neither of my girls have brought this up. I don’t think the 16 yo WANTS a boy to sleep over, and I don’t think the 21 yo wants to talk about it with me. It’s not as if she “lives” here year round anyway. What’s a week here and a week there, anyway?</p>
<p>For the parents of high school sons who allowed their kids to have sex in their rooms? Did you contact the parents of the “minor” girls to make sure they were okay with that? Or, did you just decide, for yourself, that it was okay? Just curious.</p>
<p>This is not a judgement against other parents, just my personal view. I always thought it is too early for kids to have sex in high school, emotionally it is a lot for kids to handle. We talked about it with our girls. D1 didn’t have any serious BF in high school she said in hind sight, she is glad she waited. D2 is almost done with high school, and also no meaningful BF to date. Whenever they’ve had guys over, they always had their doors open. My girlfriend would like to say, “both feet on the ground.”</p>
<p>Yeah. I really don’t “care” what other people want to do in their own house. I’m just lazy. I can’t figure out how you work this one out with your kid.</p>
<p>It’s not like they are going to have the same boyfriend the entire time they are in highschool. It just seems like a lot of work, to me, as a parent.</p>
<p>I have a lot of trouble with the “ickiness” comment. Not that I don’t understand the feeling, but I think the feeling is wrong, I think it’s a terrible thing to communicate to your children (not that I haven’t communicated it), and I wish there were a better way.</p>
<p>We have not devoted any significant effort to stopping our children from having sex, in our home or out of it. It would have been useless in any event – when they were in high school my wife was working two hours away, and was only home on weekends and every other Friday, and I rarely got home from work before 7:30/8:00. They had plenty of privacy. And after the older one went to college, the younger one didn’t even have to cope with a censorious older sibling.</p>
<p>I agree that high school is probably too early to become sexually active, but so what? It didn’t stop me, or my wife, or about 70% of the people I know. All of whom agree it was too early. Everyone starts too early, except for the people who start too late. I did talk about this with my kids, a lot – why I thought it was too early, what the consequences were for me and for the girl involved, what I wished I had done in retrospect. Those were good conversations, and I hope they contributed to better emotional balance for my kids, but I really don’t know.</p>
<p>Anyway, on the main point: The issue never came up for us in high school, since all sexual activity occurred in the afternoon. (Not that I know that any sexual activity occurred at all. But I suspect.) We did allow mixed-gender sleepovers if there was a reason for it, but there were never any active couples involved (I am confident that no sex was involved in these), and if a parent or kid wanted a single-sex room it was provided.</p>
<p>On a couple of visits home while he was in college, our son brought a girlfriend with him. We let them stay in his room. Shoot us. I didn’t think it was icky. I didn’t contact the young woman’s parents beforehand, but I met them in between the visits, and I don’t have any doubt that they were OK with it. (Maybe grudgingly OK, but OK.) Our daughter has never burdened us with this issue; to tell the truth, at this point we sort of wish she would.</p>
<p>No, I would not allow my high school age son or daughter to have sleepovers with his or her significant other. I agree with oldfort that sex in high school is a lot to handle emotionally, and we encouraged both my son and daughter to wait. Fortunately, both took our advice. My son brought his girlfriend home from college when he was 20 and she was 19. They slept in my daughter’s room, the girls in the queen size bed and my son on the trundle bed. I knew that she was basically living with him at school, but this was not school, this was my house, my rules.</p>
<p>JHS-- I asked if the parents called the parents of the “minor” girls, not college girls.</p>
<p>But, I will say that my daughter only visited her BF’s house one time, and after that insisted he come to our house, and a major reason was because she was put in the BF’s room and she had NO PRIVACY. She felt like she couldn’t breathe.</p>
<p>At our house, they each had a room, a bathroom, some space. If they chose to do something else, who cares?</p>
<p>My daughter called me during that visit. She was whispering. “Why are you whispering?”</p>
<p>“There are people around.” She spent a week without five minutes alone. She was drained by the time she got home.</p>
<p>In HS no way. We had a rule with our DS that he was not allowed to have anyone over (M or F) when at least one parent was not home. We always came home unexpectedly and our neighbor watched the house as well. Only one incident and it was dealt with harshly. Had an open door rule even when we were home. </p>
<p>DS then went to college and got very serious with a lovely young woman. They were very open with us that they spent all of their nights together at school. When he brought her home I pulled him aside and told him sleeping arrangement were up to them but no sex please. They stayed in the same room and there were no issues. It was a bit wierd the first night though.</p>
<p>Of course, if your high school kids are not having sex in your house or the other kid’s house, they may be doing it at someone else’s house.</p>
<p>There was a guy at my son’s high school who lived a block from the school and whose parents didn’t come home until late. He rented out the bedrooms in his house by the hour to classmates in the afternoons. He had a nice little business going.</p>
<p>I suspect his parents knew but didn’t say anything. One of the nice things about being a parent is that if you don’t “officially” know something, you don’t have to do anything about it. The parents might have complained if he didn’t keep up with getting the sheets washed, though.</p>