<p>i, too, did not encourage my oldest son to have his girlfriend “sleep over” when my youngest was still in high school.</p>
<p>however, i do want the girl to know that i respect her and i will let her make the choice what she wants to do. i would hate to assume that just because my son brought someone home for a visit that she had to sleep with him. therefore, i suggest there are room"s" upstairs and that they can make themselves feel at home. i let them decide what they want to do. it is fortunate that our bedroom is on the first level; the rest are either in the basement or upstairs and everyone can do what they feel is best for them. i am comfortable with whatever they decide.</p>
<p>Where would you draw the line - if your 15 year old was having a very serious relationship with someone, and probably having sex, would you let them sleep in the same room in your house. I don´t think anyone would say a 15 year old couldn´t have as intense of feeling as a 21 year old, and he/she could be just as mature. </p>
<p>No, not in my house. If they want to sleep in the same room, they could stay at a hotel (old enough to sleep together, old enough to pay for a room). I would not pay for my daughter to live with her boyfriend either. What they do outside of my house on their own, it´s none of my business. </p>
<p>Whether people think it´s pretentious or not, I do believe in a certain decorum. We say thank-you, please, would you be so kind…we could certainly cut out a lot of verbage if we didn´t bother with those words. It would certainly make our life a lot easier if we didn´t have to wear any clothes when it´s hot out, but why do we? We do it because it makes people uncomfortable when people don´t.</p>
<p>I am very open minded with my girls. I was the one who took D1 to visit a ob gyn when she wanted to go on the birth control, and I sat in the office with her. At the same time, I do expect her to behave a certain way in front of me. She has had few boyfriends visit us and even go on family vacations, but it would never cross her mind to ask to share one room with her BF. She told me that she is spending few days with her BF in NYC in 2 weeks, and they are staying in a hotel, no objections from me, none of my business.</p>
<p>Family policy is non gender, nonspecific-any guest gets the guest room prepared for them with fresh cut flowers, yummy snacks and the fancy embellished, overly embroidered towels in the guest bath room.
Plus why would you take away the comical sneaking into his/her room at night and then back in the very early morning scenario?</p>
<p>Because it doesn’t need to be a topic of conversation. I’d put them in separate rooms, and if there were to be nocturnal traffic after the rest of the household had gone to bed … well, so be it. I just asked my kids and they agreed - they would feel awkward sleeping with a bf/gf in our house.</p>
<p>H’s mother put us in separate rooms when we were dating but of course figured there was nocturnal traffic, so just to mess with us, one time she came into H’s room late at night under the pretense of putting laundry away, and sat on the bed right next to my head, since I had dived under the covers and was in danger of suffocating :-). She knew darn well I was there, and was just messing with us. I am quite confident she left the room, went into her room, and she and FIL-to-be laughed their heads off.</p>
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<p>Why does it have to be a moral stance? One doesn’t have to disapprove of premarital sex in a committed relationship, to not want to put a college student / young adult in the same room as a boyfriend or girlfriend in one’s house. It can be a decorum stance, too.</p>
<p>LOL pizzagirl …i can picture that so clearly!</p>
<p>my S1 brought a girl home for a visit and at the time i knew they were living together in nyc. I asked him what he wanted to do… i was the one uncomfortable but only because he has younger brothers and i worried what they would think. they ended up in same room, didnt phase my younger ones at all. (btw…S1 now married to that wonderful girl)</p>
<p>eta…should have added, if it was a more casual relationship, or only a few months etc…i would have just prepared the guest room…but at that time they had lived together for over a year</p>
But that’s what I am asking, because I see the definition of “decorum” ultimately stemming from morals…no? How do you differentiate the two? </p>
<p>And it sounds like we all have a line we don’t cross (age, dedicated relationship, younger siblings in house, etct.) Everyone just has a different line.</p>
<p>and batllo…you made me laugh. (you too Pizzagirl…your MIL sounds like a hoot!)</p>
<p>The first time I was in a committed relationship and having sex, we went to visit his parents for the weekend. His mom offered to put us in the same room, and I was horrified. I simply would never have done it. And still don’t have sex at my parents’ house or dh’s mom’s house. As someone said above, no one wants to hear the parents/kids having sex. If ds brought home a girl for a couple of days and couldn’t bear to sleep in a separate bed for a couple of nights, I wouldn’t think it was a very mature relationship after all.</p>
<p>I can see others’ perspectives and, if my ds dates one of your dds and you want them to room together, that’s fine. But in my house I would think they would have to be in a very long-term relationship for it to happen and for younger son to be out of the home and in college himself. </p>
<p>For the record, dss and I have a pretty open relationship and talk about this stuff. They know I don’t expect them to be virgins upon marriage.</p>
<p>I think the 15 year old comment is apples and oranges. In what world is a 15 year old as emotionally mature as a 21 year old? Come on…</p>
<p>Our DS is putting himself totally through college on scholarships. His GF works two jobs and goes to school. They support themselves and pay their own rent and expenses. We occasionally help out because we want to. </p>
<p>So in our household they are adults in a committed relationship. We treat them as such. To insist in separate room when they visit just seems hypocritical to us with these two. YMMV</p>
<p>Pizzagirl…I enjoyed that story…sounds like something I would do.</p>
<p>I would be O.K with my sons or daughter sharing a room in my house if their relationship was more than just in the dating stage. If they are serious and in a commited relationship than I would not see a problem…of course this situation has not happened yet so who really knows. I don’t know what my husband would think of this although I suspect he would rather not see it in his face.</p>
<p>*** I just asked my husband…He admitted that he would turn the other way if our sons shared a room with a young lady but it would not start out that way, but my daughters significant other would be put in the downstairs room on the pull out couch and he would make it clear that he was to stay there.</p>
<p>Dbwes - my younger sister is 8 years younger than I am, so when I started college, she was 10. My parents just didn’t need to have a 10 year old wondering why her sister was sleeping with so-and-so. What we did on campus was a different story altogether. </p>
<p>Honestly - I just think it’s a little tacky in front of younger children. There’s no need to be blatant about things.</p>
<p>I think in my mind it has everything to do with how well you know the SO.
I have no problem with responsible pre-marital sex, either. But I would feel very weird and wonder about what vibes I was giving off to a boy or girl that I didn’t know by just casually ushering them into a room together.</p>
<p>dbwes, it’s not like I feel like I’m “protecting” the younger child from anything. I just feel like I’m setting a standard. You would have to know my particular second child. A king-sized sense of entitlement.</p>
<p>Not to open another can of worms, but I’m also relatively sure ds1 drinks occasionally in college. And I’m OK with that. But I’m still not going to serve him alcohol in our home, where the second one will see this and think it’s fine for him, too. Trust me, he’ll think it’s fine for him. Now could I do it and keep reinforcing with ds2 that he still can’t drink? Sure, but I’d prefer to not even open that door. And ds1 is a sweetheart of a kid who understands my rules and doesn’t feel compelled to challenge them.</p>
<p>Agree w/PG about it just being tacky. Like I said above, if they can’t possible sleep apart for two nights, I would think that would be an indication that they’re still kind of immature.</p>
<p>I think there is also a difference between two college age kids who each live in dorms and two college kids who have already moved out and live together in off-campus housing. In my mind, when we have this discussion, I picture the former - Bob lives in this dorm, Susie lives in that dorm, they’re going away to Susie’s parents’ house for the weekend. If Bob and Susie already live together in an apartment off-campus (sharing the same bed), then that feels qualitatively different to me.</p>
<p>dbwes… my younger sons are 8 and 10 years younger… with the middle one we had already had discussions about sex etc…and ok i admit i used the standard lines… “you dont want to engage in sexual activity until you are in a committed relationship ie MARRIED” and then ooops… well your brother isnt married but its ok??</p>
<p>In my house, my sister is 17 and she is still a reason why my fiance is not allowed on the sleeping floor. My mom feels (and I agree) that my sister has the right to get up to go to the bathroom at night in her parents house without worrying about bumping into an unrelated male in her pajamas. My fiance is no stranger to her but she would generally prefer to be wearing a bra when she sees him and maybe have her hair brushed. It’s a privacy issue. </p>
<p>And to clarify, I am not some sort of uber-conservative. My fiance lives at my dorm half the time, he stays three or four nights a week. But what we do in the privacy of our own dwellings, in my view, is not necessarily appropriate for other peoples homes. And what I do living as an adult on my own is not necessarily what I feel the need to do under my parents roof. If we were married it would be a different story. This is just how I was brought up. <em>shrug</em> When something just ISN’T DONE it becomes sort of ingrained. It’s not like I think people who would condone it are immoral, or like I would flatly refuse to share a room with him if that were the most sensible option (for example we have no guest room here!), it’s just not something I’d feel comfortable doing.</p>
<p>Yes, yds, I see your point. It has to do with who you are willing to take responsibility for in your own home, too. That is, college age D can have a glass of wine with me over break but I am not going to take on the responsibility of serving her friends – partly, it’s liability but partly, I do not know their history drinking, their parents’ stance, etc.
So in a way, too, with the sleeping over thing (especially for those in college but under 21), I would feel like I don’t really know what the SO is ready for and what his or her parents expect under my roof. Yes, kids should be treated with respect, they make more and more of their own decisions, but parents need to be on each other’s team, too, and respect each other’s wishes.
I had no problems hosting, with supervision, co-ed get togethers for high school seniors at my lake home but I spoke to each parent to make sure they knew who was going. One of D’s friends wanted to come on the sly, and while I thought many of the restrictions her parents placed on her were unreasonable, I wasn’t going to go along with that and countermand them.</p>
<p>In my particular case, my parents (nor H’s parents) didn’t necessarily object to premarital sex in a committed relationship (it wasn’t a moral issue) but it was just a decorum / graciousness issue. You’re a guest in our house – here’s our guest room, make yourself comfortable. After night falls and the house settles – well, DADT. I imagine we will follow that same principle as well. I might be “technically” aware that one of my kids is intimate with a partner off at college and not have a problem with it, but I don’t really need to see the rumpled bed IYKWIM.</p>
A king-sized sense of entitlement.</p>