<p>I’m with Romani. “Advanced discussion”? "A few minutes?"That’s the strangest “rule” I’ve heard of, anywhere, ever. To me it signals trust issues, insecurity and possessiveness and maybe even a marriage that’s not very strong. </p>
<p>My husband and I are two separate people. We have different friends, different interests, different hobbies, different household responsibilities. While we do a LOT together, and a LOT with our D, we also do things individually. I spent plenty of time last year alone with a male family friend who was redoing our floors. He…did the floors. We chatted. So what? H has a friend from another state who flies in about once a year. Sometimes they visit without me. So what?</p>
<p>I can’t imagine what anyone would be worried about.</p>
<p>We have 5 Ds, all of whom are adults now, and never had this type of rule when they were teens. Our house was filled with their friends for many years, and we didn’t limit accessibility to when my H and/or I were at home, except in the very early teen years. I’ve never really understood the “our house/our rules” mantra. Our home was their home, and it still is, even though none of them lives with us on a full-time basis now. Trust is earned, as it should be, and we felt that our Ds were trustworthy enough not to turn this into a huge control issue once they were of a certain age. To extend this to college aged adults, or even beyond, is bizarre, in my opinion.</p>
<p>In our county and state there is a "host " law. If underage drinking goes on on your house you can be put in jail. If a kid has too much to drink at your house and something bad happens, you are both civilly and criminally liable. Patents here HAVE been prosecuted. Judge me all you want, but if I’m legally liable, nobody is in my house without me there</p>
<p>Having a friend or two after school during HS when the kids may not be supervised is OK - having friends over at night or on weekends when parents are not home can be tricky. Every year you read about the small gathering at a HS kids house with no parents at home that got out of control - police, vandalism, drinking, etc. Often it is not the host kids fault - other kids find out about the get together and just show up (facebook is sometimes to blame). It is a lot of responsibility to place on a kid alone to not let uninvited kids in and then police others behavior. So, if you have the rule of no guests when no parent is home then everybody is safe.</p>
I get that telling you ahead of time is a way of assuring that they aren’t trying to hide something, but surely if they wanted to get cozy while you were out, telling you ahead of time wouldn’t prevent that? Unless he then has to worry that you would randomly show up early to check on the situation?</p>
<p>I don’t think there was any rule of this sort in my home, but then again, there were very few explicit rules at all. Most of the ones that did exist were of a mundane nature: turn off the lights or you’ll be fined $0.15, close cabinet doors as soon as you’re done with them. My sister and I were generally very good and trustworthy teens and children. There was simply no need to ever give us even curfews. I can honestly say that I never once abused my parents trust, and that most people I know who got into trouble were doing naughty things in parks, not bedrooms.</p>
<p>I undoubtedly had friends of the same gender over without my parents in the house. I remember my parents telling me at some point that they didn’t need to be informed before my closest friends, whose parents they knew well, came over. I had (platonic) friends of the opposite sex over without my parents there, went to houses of friends of the opposite sex without their parents there, and I know that my sister did both. My female friends would often come over by themselves, but usually guys were only there if there was a larger group. The only time there was an issue with a guy being over was when my sister had a sleepover. The guy in this instance was gay, but he just slept in an upstairs bedroom while the girls all slept together.</p>
<p>I think it was pretty common in my friend group, and in my sister’s, for children to have earned trust and to know how to keep it. Some of my friend’s parents would take nights where their children had small parties as nights to go out on their own for a bit. I mention that the parties were small because in these situations the parents knew all of the kids there, and I mention that the parents only went out for a bit to say that this meant they were always home towards the later hours when parties are more likely to get wild. I never saw a one of these parties get out of hand, and at least as long as I was there, we never touched a drug more dangerous than the caffeine in our sodas. </p>
<p>Children are going to be alone in college and I think it’s better for them to have some experience with it, so long as they can handle it. Most of the more out of control freshmen I knew had been sheltered high schoolers. Obviously, though, there are kids that can’t handle this. My cousin, a year younger than me, was rarely left alone and certainly couldn’t have friends of any gender over without being monitored.</p>
<p>Is this a fringe benefit of being attracted to people of the same sex?</p>
<p>And do the family rules change if you come out?</p>
<p>I let my daughter and a very responsible female friend be alone at my house (or the other girl’s) starting in the 5th grade. If they had turned out to be attracted to each other – which didn’t happen to be the case – they could have had LOTS of fun for many years.</p>
<p>This was our situation.
My daughter came out at the end of junior year after years of having friends over.
I guess this is where if your priority was making sure they had limited opportunities for monkey business, rules that restricted them to only having friends over when you were there to supervise came in handy.</p>
<p>Since (coming out) was the only thing that had changed, I didn’t think it was necessary to change our rules.
Which were " clean up after yourself & take the dog for a walk".</p>
<p>We operated in the same way as Oldfort. We provided the cover as crazy parents for the girls to set their own boundaries. </p>
<p>However, in teen years of D2 we got the most vicious, evil dog, who is the love of her life, so we can’t have people over without prior warning and someone to deal with the dog.</p>
<p>“cromette, wait, even in COLLEGE, your kids are not allowed guests when you’re not home? Don’t you have all daughters? So when you say girls are not allowed over, and you’ve already said no opposite sex visitors, you basically mean no one at all? For adults?
I don’t understand that. At what point do you trust them? What are you worried would happen?”</p>
<p>As I stated before, there are a few lifelong friends (girls) that are allowed in our house when we aren’t home. </p>
<p>Any visitors are welcome when we’re home and can stay as long as they like. It’s not about trusting our girls, it’s about people that are not lifelong friends, that we may not know that well, and men alone in the house with our D’s. </p>
<p>I also already said that D2 has a boyfriend that’s pretty much a fiance’ and has been around for over a year. He is somewhat of an exception. We would allow it with some advanced discussion. Just so that we weren’t surprised when we walked through the door…not for permission, per se.</p>
<p>It really hasn’t been an issue, since one or both of us is almost always home…save a trip to the grocery store or something…which wouldn’t be a show stopper now that they’re grown.</p>
<p>It’s funny to me that it’s such a big deal to some. It hasn’t even come up as an issue at our house.</p>
<p>The two girls that are still around have pretty strict rules FOR THEMSELVES concerning guys anyway…so it’s not really like we’re the enforcers or anything. It never comes up.</p>
<p>Romani - got it. I understand completely. We’re not the mainstream. Wouldn’t expect others to necessarily “get it”. We just do what works for us. :)</p>
<p>I’m not judging anyone else. As I said, we just do what works for us.</p>
<p>There are ZERO trust issues from my direction. There are indeed some insecurities because there are some personal issues there, no prior history, just personal issues…but we manage them. Part of that management is our “rules”. They’re not difficult for either one of us, and neither of us feel oppressed or anything. It’s just what keeps everyone happy.</p>
<p>Our marriage is WAY strong. Been married for a LOOOOOONG time, and are very happy, partially because we set up these kinds of things just to head off any issues we see as unnecessary.</p>
<p>A friend that bothers to fly in to visit once a year could probably be seen as a close lifelong friend. I’ve already said, that’s sort of an exception. I would imagine you KNOW about her arrival in advance. Same thing.</p>
<p>Male friend, redoing the floors - same thing. Your husband would KNOW the floors were being done PRIOR to this guy hanging out at the house. He’s a friend, you two talked while he worked. There IS no big deal.</p>
<p>We just don’t have one of those homes where guests are in and out all the time.</p>
<p>That is only one of the potential trouble areas. But we feel the same way. There are a number of things a host can be held liable for. There are even things a host could be falsely accused of that could change lives forever. It’s not taken lightly at our house either.</p>
<p>I am SO Happy that we no longer have to deal with this. I can say but this: our son still is grounded for the next 10 years. The fact that he is engaged might make this dicey…but who cares?</p>
<p>“I get that telling you ahead of time is a way of assuring that they aren’t trying to hide something, but surely if they wanted to get cozy while you were out, telling you ahead of time wouldn’t prevent that? Unless he then has to worry that you would randomly show up early to check on the situation?”</p>
<p>Nothing stops someone from cheating if that’s what they want to do. What it really prevents is one of us coming home and finding the spouse with someone that we don’t know of the opposite sex, and having that fleeting moment of concern. Unnecessary and avoidable pain. That type of insecurity is more common in one direction than the other in our home…but hey, this isn’t marriage counseling. As I said, it’s just a courtesy that we’ve decided works for us and prevents uncomfortable situations.</p>
<p>D had a lot of friends, but there was a small core group of 5 (later 4) females who were all welcome at any time. I had known them all since elementary school, we are friends of their parents and I felt that I could trust them. Turns out that was the case. D’s boyfriend was not allowed over unless H or I were there. </p>
<p>S has had a friend over for short periods of time when we were not home and we are OK with that. Most of his friends from school don’t live very close and he doesn’t tend to hang around in groups as much anyway. He would not be allowed to have a female guest unless one of us were there.</p>
<p>I was always allowed to have guests over even if my parents weren’t home, though I don’t think this even came up until I was HS age. My friends could, too. It wasn’t very typical, though, I think almost all of us had a parent who worked from home or didn’t work and would only be gone for the time it takes to run an errand.</p>
<p>The only thing my mom was very strict over was no co-ed sleepovers. Never in her house, and not outside of her house until after I graduated college. This was difficult when we were elementary school age and my best friend was a girl with a younger brother who normally played with us at their house, but wasn’t allowed to sleep over at my house. Obviously nobody was going to have sex, but my mom believes in things “on principle.”</p>
<p>Once I was 18 I could stay at someone elses house if someone else drove me, my parents didn’t give me a curfew once I finished HS, however my car had to be home by 12 until I was 23 years old, working full time, and dating my current fiance-- which in effect meant I had a 12 curfew until then. This rule was particularly irksome to me as a high schooler as my friend group consisted of one other girl and three gay men, and I was the only one who couldn’t participate in overnights.</p>
<p>That, and my mom only just recently started allowing boys upstairs. She wanted the youngest daughter in the house to be 20+ before she would allow that, and only the boyfriends-- people she knows well who are part of the family.</p>
<p>I am not sure that I would have a male friend over if my fiance wasn’t home. I wouldn’t without telling him, and out of respect for him I don’t know that it’s even something I would do. But, I am old fashioned in some ways. My fiance is always home if a repairman or something will be coming, I am not home alone for those sorts of things either.</p>
As I said, it’s just a courtesy that we’ve decided works for us and prevents uncomfortable situations.</p>