<p>I first made the ‘icky’ comment on this thread, and I should point out I made the comment without actually endorsing it. Because I don’t. But I do think that ‘ickiness’ is an important part of the reason many of us don’t want to think about our kids (or parents) doing it in our homes, especially not in the room next door.</p>
<p>Think about it- almost all biological functions that we perform ‘in private’ are at some level ‘icky’. Taking a d<strong>p or a p</strong>s is also biologically wholesome and healthy and sometimes even enjoyable, but these are also considered ‘icky’ and nobody wants to do or see these things in public. We have places we call by the euphemism ‘restroom’ for that.</p>
<p>I understand Vicarious. I just wanted to make sure that I made my point as well - that teaching your children that sex - making out - whatever - is supposed to feel good and to never ever do it when it doesn’t.
I have never noticed any activity in my daughter’s room
And I know that the best way to shut my kids up is to say, “Watch, I’m going to kiss your father now.” Wroof - they’re gone or shut up on whatever it was that they were saying.<br>
And when my 80-year-old mother mentioned that Viagra was a great invention I told her with great feeling that that was too much information (even though it gives us all hope for the future.)
Happy Thanksgiving!</p>
<p>Agreed. We started talking to our kids about sex from a very young age. The discussion was always age and maturity level appropriate. One of the points that we made is that a sexual relationship will take up some of your time/emotions/brain space…etc. And, while having sex in high school is no more morally right or wrong than having sex in college…it is different because the maturity level of the individuals is different. Just as it is in appropriate to to tell at 10 year old … okay, your at the stage where you can fix your own meals, decide completely what to wear,and hand out with whom ever you wish here at our house…it is just as in appropriate to tell a 13-18 year old (the possible ages of HS students) that it’s okay to schtup your SO in the house.</p>
<p>Well…at 17 I was not living at home with my mother, but instead with my (also 17) yo boyfriend, at his parents home (and we were both in HS). That was 37 years ago, and while times may have been different, it worked for us. We lived together for 2 1/2 years. I am still very close with his family, and his children and his brothers children consider me an aunt. </p>
<p>Because of my own (positive) experience, I would absolutely invite my son or daughter’s SO to stay over, but it would have to be ok by the other side as well. I would not go against that.</p>
<p>The unwritten question at our household was how the parents should behave once the kids came to age. We shared a wall with DS which wasn’t thoroughly soundproof, and he tended to study late, and that may have been one reason we closed off that chapter in our lives.</p>
<p>that may have been one reason we closed off that chapter in our lives … awww dad! You could still have had $ex in the morning, even if your son was studying at night, right?</p>
<p>In answer to the question about allowing my DS and his SO sleep together, I’m not comfortable with this going on when I’m around, mostly b/c it would make me feel awful if i “happened upon them” by mistake. But eventually, I could accept his SO here if they’ve been a couple for many years.</p>
<p>I remember shortly after I got married, my new husband and I were staying at my parents’ house over a holiday, and H and I were in the bedroom and I was getting undressed / changing my clothes. Now, of course, there was nothing wrong (and everything right, ha ha) with my changing my clothes in front of my husband. For whatever reason, my mother walked in and I didn’t realize it as I was pulling my sweater over my head at the time. Now, of course, I wouldn’t think twice about changing my clothes in front of my mother, either. But there was something that was really odd to me about not being clothed in front of both of them, together. That even though neither was a boundary-breaker by themselves, changing clothes in front of the two of them together was a boundary-breaker. I think somehow that relates to what we’re talking about here - levels of intimacy, but not with several people at once. (Well, unless that’s your thing, and who am I to judge …)</p>
<p>When I was in college in my early 20s, my SO invited me to spend the weekend with him at his mom’s house. I must have asked a 100 times, “Are you SURE that’s OK with her???” Sure we were spending almost all of our nights together at college, but to spend a weekend together at his mom’s house? That definitely would not been acceptible at my parents house. The next morning, he left the house for some reason and I took a shower. Right after I got out of the shower, his mom lightly knocked on the door to introduce herself to me when I was wearing nothing but a towel. Now a couple decades later, I’m still horrified by that.</p>
<p>My SO had a younger brother in HS who had a girlfriend at the time. We would spend the evenings together having dinner or watching TV and then the two of them would go upstairs together. I definitely wasn’t comfortable with that. Then I watched my SOs mom call the young girls parents and say that “she had fallen asleep on the couch and she didn’t want to wake her up, so she’d bring her home in the morning.” If I had known how to get in touch with those parents, I think I might have intervened and told them the truth that they needed to hear. It was just a few months later when we got the news that his younger brother, a junior in HS and his girlfriend, a sophomore in HS were expecting a baby.</p>
<p>That seems to be was has been left out of this thread, that their ARE consequences to having a sexual relationship and although protection offers a certain degree of protection, if it fails are young adults at a point that they are ready to handle these potential consequences? Perhaps it’s just because I’ve seen it too many times in my life… I have a cousin, who by the time she turned 30, had 4 children with 3 different men, the first of which was born when she was still 17. My younger sister got pregnant while still in high school. My SOs girlfriend mentioned above struggled to finish HS after her daughter was born when she was still, I believe, 15. I, myself, was born in August of the year that my parents married in May. My roomate in college was an unexpected baby born to a married couple while her mother was on the birth control pill. I now have a close friend in his 40s who had a vasectomy nearly 20 years ago and found out about a year ago, that even that didn’t prevent his newest daughter from arriving. And I could go on and on with other stories of friends and relatives who had not intended on brining a new life into this world and some honestly trying to prevent it, but some times mother nature has other plans.</p>
<p>It is not just about the ‘ickiness’ or about the privacy, it’s about whether these young adults are prepared for the consequences they may be facing. I wouldn’t have given my son a beer when he was 13, although that is perfectly legal and acceptible in other cultures. I wouldn’t have given him the keys to my car when he was 10. And I don’t condone him having a sexual relationship in HS. Besides the fact that I’m too young to have anyone call me grandma, right now my son is an outstanding student with an incredibly bright future and I will not know that I supported anything that could have a devestating impact on that future.</p>
<p>My hs boyfriend’s mother was open about sexuality (too open … she would greet us and then basically point us towards his bedroom, where we could go for hours without being interrupted … which wasn’t a good thing; we would have benefitted from the proverbial finished-basement-with-footsteps-overhead). If it snowed out, she would offer to call my parents and ask if I could spend the night, at which I always grabbed the phone and said, “No!! Please don’t ever ask that!”</p>
<p>OTOH, when I was in college, I would stay over my then-boyfriend’s now-husband’s house on the weekends periodically. They, like my parents, were much more of the “here, dear, here’s the guest room, sleep tight” and then consciously be unaware of any night time movements. However, they had to have known what was up. One time, now-MIL (who is a major prankster type, and loves to stir up things) came into H’s room at 11:30 at night or something to “fold the laundry and talk” - of course I dived under the sheets, and she sat down on the bed just inches away from my head “to talk.” I am quite sure she knew that I was suffocating under the sheets, and she went back into her own bedroom and she and FIL-to-be laughed their heads off.</p>
<p>^^ @ post 68, I agree that there should be a lot more discussion of the consequences of having a sexual relationship, especially for teens. The question of unwanted pregnancy comes to mind first, but that is not the only consequence. A lot of heartache can ensue when one child takes the relationship seriously, and the other not so much. The emotional turmoil can be quite a big deal as well. I think young teens are ill equipped to handle such heavy feelings and this is another reason that many parents do not support this behavior. Of course if it is equally meaningless and well protected on both sides…well, only kidding here.</p>
<p>I think older teens may not be so well equipped emotionally either, but that’s just my opinion, and after 18 it becomes a more awkward concern for parents of “adult” children.</p>
<p>BTW, what is “too old” (to wait until)? 35?</p>
<p>I am pretty conservative, but the more I think about it, what’s the difference?</p>
<p>When you are not home, they are probably fooling around in your home.</p>
<p>When they are in a parked car, they are probably fooling around.</p>
<p>When they are at the other parents’ home, and those parents aren’t around, they are probably fooling around.</p>
<p>When they are at some friend’s house, they are probably fooling around.</p>
<p>If the horse is already out of the barn, what’s the point of locking up the barn?</p>
<p>For example, when I lived in New York City, and was already in my 30’s, and I went down to Florida to visit my parents, I would sometimes bring a girlfriend, and they made us sleep in separate rooms. Kind of silly, no?</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>
<p>DS was living in a studio close to his college in the gap year after college. One of his very close college friends at one time would like to crash at his place with his girlfriend. DS declined because he thought he might be put into an awkward situation when three of them were in one room overnight. They are still close friends after this event.</p>
<p>Is he too conservative? Maybe he has unknowingly inherited our standard. When he was a high schooler, he and his then girlfriend would like to come to our house and they might stay in his own room (not overnight, just during daytime). The girl’s family is very conservative, and we believe the girl’s parents would not allow her to come to our house – because the girl likely dared not ask her parent’s permission. It appears that the “acceptable” place for their date is her family room, under their family’s supervision. Going to a movie theater as a couple was prohibited by her parents also. We respect their family’s “standard”. So we said no to them, as we did not want to do something that was not approved by her family.</p>