<p><a href=“http://www.be-md.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1480590/[/url]”>http://www.be-md.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1480590/</a></p>
<p>I agree with the comments by Shawbridge, Soozie, and others. And I’m totally mystified by the equating of “decorum” and “morals/conscience.”</p>
<p>Decorum is all about what others think; morals and conscience are concerned with right and wrong, which to me means how we treat others (not causing harm, striving to do good, etc). Decorum is etiquette; morals are ethics.</p>
<p>Conscience has nothing to do with what others think.</p>
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<p>My hs boyfriend’s mother (who was inappropriate on a LOT of levels, including walking around in too-revealing clothing in front of her teenage sons) always wanted me to spend the night and periodically offered to call my parents to ask if I could (to which I, of course, threw myself over the phone and begged her not to, LOL). So … how would you all react to your hs daughter’s boyfriend’s mother asking if your daughter could spend the night? (I’m not talking about part of a planned co-ed sleepover, or in an extenuating circumstance such as a blizzard. I mean as part of a typical Saturday night dinner-and-a-movie date.)</p>
<p>My two cents is that we cannot control what young adult children do, but we can and should control what we can. My decision to let my young adult children have a gf or bf in their room has to do with my comfort level alone (spouse as well), and what works for me in my house. I really no longer factor in the whole issue of what this means to them, how it will shape them, yada yada yada. The toothpaste is out of the tube by the time kids go away to school, meaning they will make their choices according to their own compass. </p>
<p>I expect discretion in my home, and consideration for the billpayers. Personally, the separate bedroom thing makes me more comfortable, unless the couple is engaged. Whether or not they sneak around is up to them, but it better not be anything obnoxious that makes the rest of us feel awkward. That is the understanding here and it seems to work well. As the provider of roof over head and food on table, I could care less what the couple thinks. We have a fun household, and they are fortunate to be included.</p>
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<p>See, I don’t think it necessarily comes across as disapproval. Hypothetically speaking, I could see both a) putting a college-bound young woman on birth control and ensuring she knows what to do, etc., b) not calling said young lady after a certain hour, and c) if she brings a boyfriend home, he stays in the guest room. It really is DADT.</p>
<p>My parents always had a rule that they never called me or my sister at college after 10 pm or before 10 am. It was sort of a “I don’t want to know” if we spent the night at our boyfriends’ dorms. To me, this is sort of the same thing. I think it’s polite fiction and I’m ok with that.</p>
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<p>In my house, my college-age daughter (hypothetically) calling me to excitedly announce that she lost her virginity last night to “Bob” does not fall under “clear and honest communication.” It falls under “isn’t really old enough to be having sex in the first place if she doesn’t understand that there are boundaries to what you discuss with your parents.” My spouse is an OB-GYN; trust me that our family can and has had conversations about birth control, sexually treated diseases and the like and they are plenty open, not judgmental conversations. But again, there is a distinction between these discussions in general, and these discussions linked to a specific situation, or “Bob” on Saturday night specifically.</p>
<p>I don’t know. This post HAS made me think.
Maybe we are the only family with all 4 bedrooms upstairs in an old house with ONE shared bathroom? No modern HGTV style on suites or separate wings in this old house!
Just logistically, is it really comfortable for all to have the visiting GF or BF bumping into the HS aged sibling in pjs or mom getting dressed for work at 5 am while navigating to the bathroom in the nite? Am I the only one who would not want a non-family young adult male who I may not know well sleeping in the adjacent room?</p>
<p>So, I guess my stance is more one on privacy…visitor is in TV room with bath downstairs. Son might visit there in the night…if so, it is a private visit for all involved.
And the rest of the family has their own space upstairs. So, I guess we are really in the ‘place the visitors stuff in the guest room’ and then let it go.</p>
<p>I came into this thread expecting to say that it is silly and prudish to not let them share a room, but after reading all the things that have been said (in the first few pages) I have to say I have changed my mind.
I think if it makes you uncomfortable then you should have the right to say no. Its only for a few days, and as a girl, I also think it is a good point the the gf may not know what he requested and could also feel awkward about that.</p>
<p>I like the guest room/DADT idea. You can present it to DS as a female privacy thing. (Although when my son’s gf came for fall break they both stayed in our guest house. I’m not sure I would have been comfortable with them sharing a room under my roof–just all a little too close/in my face.)</p>
<p>I guess I must be the only parent on CC who lives in a one-bedroom apartment, and whose son sleeps on a pull-out sofa in the living room when he’s home. If he ever brings a boyfriend home, there really won’t be anyplace else to put said boyfriend, and it wouldn’t really bother me if they shared a bed. Especially since I can’t imagine that if I were home, they would actually do anything other than sleep, given the risk of my hearing something through the wall – or, worse yet, the risk that I might wander out of my bedroom to get myself a midnight snack, a journey that requires going directly past the living room!</p>
<p>mousegray and nngmm, we have a winner. The state which has the highest incidence of subscriptions to internet porn is … Utah, which is, not coincidentally, among the most and probably the most uptight and restrictive about premarital sex. </p>
<p>nngmm, the article you provided is both very interesting and directly on target. Thanks. For those of you who didn’t peruse it, it compares the extremely high rates of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions in the US to the extremely low rates of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions in the Netherlands. Although the two countries both have fairly strict attitudes about teen sex prior to the introduction of the pill, the Netherlands had a change of philosophy. At this point, fewer than 1 in 10 US parents would be willing to let their high school kid have a sleepover with his/her gf/bf. Our defining rationale has something to do with raging, uncontrollable hormones that prevent teens from using their judgment. In contrast, in the Netherlands, 9 out of 10 parents would allow that same sleepover. The result: rampant pregnancy, STDs, and abortions? No, very few. It’s we in the US, who find it uncomfortable to talk about sex (except in the once in a blue moon birds and bees conversation) and per a number of the comments here, don’t want to know about it, who have the highest rates of teen pregnancy, STDs and abortions. </p>
<p>Preference for DADT relative to a simple statement of what is expected is, in my judgment, reflective of a set of social norms that Pizzagirl is highly tuned into, that we don’t talk about sex except in a clinical kind of way. I suspect that the decorum, the set of social norms that many of the posters here have espoused, which includes the kind of discomfort many of the posters have expressed, is indeed part of the problem. What we think of in this society as the rules for when it is acceptable to talk about or acknowlege sex and how, Pizzagirl, may well be part of the problem, not just a nice set of social rules that most of us pick up by osmosis (unless we are too young to be having sex).</p>
<p>The kind of communication I was thinking about was not a blow-by-blow description (pardon the pun) of last night’s events, but a clear statement by me to my kids of when it would and wouldn’t be acceptable for a child’s partner to sleep together in my house. It might also be a tactful inquiry to son’s gf about where she would feel most comfortable sleeping, letting her know that we would be fine with separate or together. (As I said, my wife does tact and grace better than I do, so I’d probably leave that to her). I don’t see myself as particularly permissive, but in this instance, I appear to be a lot more than most of you. </p>
<p>Time for New Year’s. We fill out a questionnaire each year reflecting on the events of last year, what we’re most proud of, what we regret, etc. and then think about what we hope to accomplish in the New Year, what we’d like to do more of and less of in the upcoming year, where we see ourselves in five years, etc. We started when the kids were very little and their answers from earlier years, which we review, are both charming and funny.</p>
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<p>shawbridge, we do something similar in our family and I agree, looking at previous years’ answers is one of my favorite things! It will be a simple family party tonight with these reminiscences and then we’ll all head off to bed just after midnight, as we are all up very early tomorrow morning to head to Pittsburgh to watch the Winter Classic between the Penguins and the Capitals! </p>
<p>p.s. Two Ds’ significant others will be sharing their rooms tonight, as they have all week. Gasp! :)</p>
<p>^^That is a neat tradition. My younger D writes out very specific goals each year. When she was home this past week, she mentioned how she had met each goal she had set for 2010, and was about to outline her long list for the coming year. I really admire the goal setting she does and then she is driven to make these things happen. I should do it myself!</p>
<p>Utah… I shoulda known. </p>
<p>I’m a social progressive (I guess), but I really like decorum, which to me is not about caring what others think of me so much as being considerate of others’ feelings, levels of comfort, etc. Discretion is highly underrated these days. I say bring back discretion in 2011! (And its partner, common sense.)</p>
<p>shawbridge,
thanks so much for sharing your tradition. I love the idea. Here’s hoping for a conversation with DS and his gf, hoping to get them to think about what they would like for the New Year.<br>
DS and gf are sharing his room for the week. Funny thing was we’re heading to L.A. together in the next couple of weeks and I had to decide if I’d get one hotel room for the 3 of us to save money - but I decided I’d be more comfortable if we had two rooms, one for me and one for DS & his gf.</p>
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<p>i’ll agree–that’s better than my definition. It still remains etiquette, not ethics. Not that I have anything against etiquette, but I don’t think that “conscience” is driven by it.</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 agree…because it’s too hard to convince a 15/16 year old who thinks he/she is madly in love with a BF/GF (and is “sure” that it’s the “real thing”), that’s it’s ok for 19 year old college sibling to spend the night in the family home with a significant other, but the 15/16 year old shouldn’t be doing the same. As adults, WE can see the difference in age/maturity, but try convincing a 15/16 year old who thinks he/she is mature and really in love. (to a 15/16 year old, getting good grades in school is being mature.)</p>
<p>I guess as the oldest D of 7 kids, I grew up being told that I had to “set an example” for the younger ones in regards to all kinds of behaviors…because whatever they saw me doing, they would follow…more likely sooner than later.</p>
<p>I have thought about everything everyone said, and my husband yesterday said “it doesn’t bother me,” and now she is here, so I am rethinking my decision. I will stick with it for this visit I think but now that I see them as a couple, somehow it does make a difference. </p>
<p>I also asked a friend at a New Year’s Eve party last night - a person who I thought was quite conservative - a catholic Sunday school teacher - and she said, sure, why night? She said that her husband had more of a problem, and had forbidden their son’s girlfriend (who lives in the same town - different question?) and he ended up sneaking his girlfriend in on several occasions after his parents went to bed.</p>
<p>Anyway, thanks for the lively discussion.</p>
<p>So much depends on age, and who else is in the home. When my son was growing up, I never had a man sleep over (obviously, I’m a single mom). I thought it would set a bad example. </p>
<p>When son was 22, he was going to have his g/f visit. I would have offered her guest bedroom, but would not have cared if she slept in son’s bedroom. There are no younger siblings. If there were, I’d think about role modeling.</p>
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<p>well, your apartment is probably worth lots more than many of our suburban houses… it just makes some choices different. We have lots of space, and have always done the “guest goes in the guest room” thing, but we realize that we are lucky to have that choice.</p>