<p>I was using the universal “you”. My apologies. The universal dad and the universal You. Your own personal mileage may vary.</p>
<p>I stand by my contention, based on over two decades of experience, that anyone who thinks they have a kid who tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or a kid who isn’t interested in sex, is living in a bit of a LaLaLand.</p>
<p>That may or may not be you, BC.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>BCEagle, as I wrote, I met my husband at the beginning of my freshman year in college when I was 18 years old. He was my first serious relationship and we married when I was just 20 and are now married for over 31 years. But even when I did get married, I originally thought I would have several relationships as a young adult and likely get married around age 30. It did not work out that way but I still think ideally it would be better to have experienced a few relationships before getting married. I thought that at the time and still do. That is why I would be happy for my kids to expereince a few relationships before landing on a life partner. If they don’t, they don’t. My youngest one already has. My older one hasn’t yet. So, what I think is ideal hasn’t changed for me in the last 33 years. I may have married young and only had one eerious relationship but I still think having a few first would be best and so support that idea for my kids. I already thought that when I was their age too.</p>
<p>I’m the OP. Holy thread hijack Batman!</p>
<p>I’d like to thank everyone for their input (regardless if I agreed with the opinion or not). There is more to the story but I’m not posting it.</p>
<p>In summary I think everyone involved including the adults learned something from all this.</p>
<p>Can we close this thread and move on please? The most recent discussions deserve their own thread I think.</p>
<p>"I also fully believe that once people start getting away with cheating, they will cheat later as well as in their marriage. If you can say you care for someone and then cheat, what stops you from doing it later on in life? Especially since even your parents say its your business.</p>
<p>I know people who were very wild in their youth, and who have been faithful after getting married as mature adults.</p>
<p>I also had a close friend who was very conservative in terms of her sex life and dating, but after she got married (mid 20s), she cheated on her husband with a variety of men. Apparently, she wanted to find what she felt she had missed out on. </p>
<p>Just because someone cheats while they are young doesn’t mean they’ll continue to cheat forever.</p>
<p>Just because someone was very conservative about their romantic relationships doesn’t mean they’ll be that way for ever either.</p>
<p>I do think that if someone has fairly recently cheated, it would be a gamble to marry them or date them thinking that their behavior has changed or you can change them. </p>
<p>At the same time, though, people do change as they mature, and youthful indiscretions don’t necessarily predict what people do after they have matured.</p>
<p>“I stand by my contention, based on over two decades of experience,
that anyone who thinks they have a kid who tells the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, or a kid who isn’t interested in sex, is living
in a bit of a LaLaLand.”</p>
<p>Well, I think that you’re shifting the argument here. At any rate, if
you make an assertion, then you bear the burden of proof in proving it
for every child. That’s the hazard in making arguments with universal
quantifiers.</p>
<p>Here’s a question for you: would you give your 18-year-old kid seven
figures to manage? Full signatory access? Complete access to the family
checking account?</p>
<p>"I know people who were very wild in their youth, and who have been
faithful after getting married as mature adults.</p>
<p>I also had a close friend who was very conservative in terms of her
sex life and dating, but after she got married (mid 20s), she cheated
on her husband with a variety of men. Apparently, she wanted to find
what she felt she had missed out on.</p>
<p>Just because someone cheats while they are young doesn’t mean they’ll
continue to cheat forever.</p>
<p>Just because someone was very conservative about their romantic
relationships doesn’t mean they’ll be that way for ever either."</p>
<p>That’s a lot of anecdotal evidence. What does the research say?</p>
<p>“I do think that if someone has fairly recently cheated, it would be a
gamble to marry them or date them thinking that their behavior has
changed or you can change them.”</p>
<p>Perhaps a few blood tests would be in order too.</p>
<p>“At the same time, though, people do change as they mature, and
youthful indiscretions don’t necessarily predict what people do after
they have matured.”</p>
<p>Assuming no physical or psychological damage. The Duke Lacrosse case
provides some interesting costs of youthful indescretions, even after
the students learned their lessons.</p>
<p>Heck no. </p>
<p>But I would (and have) given him more responsibility about personal choices than you may have. He’s darn truthful, but I have still caught a couple of little lies. I look at them as developmental, not character flaws.</p>
<p>And if you have or know a kid has never told a lie and isn’t interested in sex, he is way, way off the curve. That’s OK, but it doesn’t fit with normal human development. There are always people at the far extremes, but that doesn’t in any way contradict what I am saying.</p>
<p>More anecdotal info.
One of my friends teaches writing at a highly competitive Catholic college. Her assignments include journaling, and the students often choose to write about their romantic adventures.</p>
<p>Friend told me that she has been surprised at the hook-up culture that the students’ writing has revealed. While most of the students don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend, many regularly engage in one night stands that they engage in after drinking heavily.</p>
<p>She’s convinced that particularly for the females, they do this so that they can truthfully tell their parents that they aren’t romantically involved, then their parents assume the students aren’t having sex, so back off with the anti sex lectures. Meanwhile, the students – girls in particular-- can tell themselves that they really are “good girls” since the only reason they had sex was because they were drunk, so it doesn’t count.</p>
<p>My friend, incidentally, is Catholic herself, who was a virgin when she got married, and is still in her longterm marriage.</p>
<p>“But I would (and have) given him more responsibility about personal choices than you may have.”</p>
<p>I don’t limit what he can do in terms of personal choices. He limits himself. He sees enough of what happens to other kids on campus to learn object lessons.</p>
<p>“but that doesn’t in any way contradict what I am saying.”</p>
<p>It does when you use universal quantifiers.</p>
<p>They may be in the minority but I think that they are far from rare.</p>
<p>“Friend told me that she has been surprised at the hook-up culture that the students’ writing has revealed. While most of the students don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend, many regularly engage in one night stands that they engage in after drinking heavily.”</p>
<p>Maybe there is something to finding a wife from the old country.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So your ability to know exactly what your child has done, or not done, in terms of their sex life extends to strangers as well? Fascinating, and not a little disturbing. </p>
<p>By the way, I am not calling your child a liar. I am saying that they may have chosen to keep things private, especially from a parent who so clearly ties their own identity with their adult child’s behavior. Nor am I calling you a liar. You seem to really believe the impossible thing you are claiming. </p>
<p>When my active duty spouse and I were first apart during a long deployment, I nearly drove myself crazy wanting “proof” that he was faithful. I had no reason to doubt him but I wanted to know for sure. I finally realized that I could never know for sure. I can step out on faith, as I have done for 20 years and he has done for me (correctly, I add.) But claiming to know the full truth of another person’s life is always hubris</p>
<p>“So your ability to know exactly what your child has done, or not done,
in terms of their sex life extends to strangers as well? Fascinating,
and not a little disturbing.”</p>
<p>1) Non-sequitur.
2) Strawman.</p>
<p>“By the way, I am not calling your child a liar. I am saying that they
may have chosen to keep things private, especially from a parent who
so clearly ties their own identity with their adult child’s
behavior. Nor am I calling you a liar. You seem to really believe the
impossible thing you are claiming.”</p>
<p>It’s not impossible. Perhaps in your mind it is impossible but people
are capable of a wide variation in behavior. It may not be what you
are used to but that’s not my problem.</p>
<p>“When my active duty spouse and I were first apart during a long
deployment, I nearly drove myself crazy wanting “proof” that he was
faithful. I had no reason to doubt him but I wanted to know for
sure. I finally realized that I could never know for sure. I can step
out on faith, as I have done for 20 years and he has done for me
(correctly, I add.) But claiming to know the full truth of another
person’s life is always hubris”</p>
<p>That’s your opinion and another strawman.</p>
<p>Pretty easy to prove. Read a book on logic and think about it.</p>
<p>" I don’t recall any incidences of divorce or cheating in the marriages that I’ve seen formed in this way… "</p>
<p>Perhaps not , but it isn’ necessarily a recipe for wedded bliss either…just recently in NJ , an Indian/ American killed his wife and another member of the church he stormed, looking for his arranged marriage spouse.</p>
<p>I realize this is an extreme. I also think that parents who claim to be aware of all of their kid’s sexual activities are kidding themselves. And I also don’t think that young adults who DO engage in sexual acts are void of morals, ethics and have received bad parenting as some here seem to imply.
Some kids are open about it…others just tell you what you want to hear, or nothing at all…
Young adults who cheat in their early relationships don’t necessarily become destined to cheat as mature adults either.
Jus remember, people who live in glass houses…</p>
<p>BCEagle, it’s easy to tell when you have been “owned” on a thread because you start resorting to attacks on everyone else’s style of argument. We all have flawed logic, use straw men etc.<br>
You certainly are entitled to your opinion, however flawed it is. However, you don’t have a fraction of the knowledge about teen/young adult culture that many of us on this board have. If you think, as you seem to imply, that good parenting and family values is a guarantee that one’s child won’t do some damaging things, you are simply dead wrong. I could write pages about my involvement with families of struggling teens, but I’ll just say that you truly don’t have a clue. Just count your blessings.</p>
<p>I don’t think that the behavior of someone dating at age 18 is necessarily indicative of how they will behave in a married relationship. I do not condone cheating. I don’t know how committed the relationships are as teenagers and they start seeing someone else and then drop the last person they were dating. It is a common aspect of development in learning how to manage and behave in relationships. I don’t think, for example, that the fact that the young man in the OP who moved onto a new social life in college as is VERY common and once he did so, he realized he did not wish to maintain a GF back home is so immoral that he won’t behave appropriately with his wife some day. I think he is still learning. He likely had no interest in breaking up with the GF back home when he began college and it only came up once he found himself in new social situations at college and so when he next saw his GF in person, he told her so. He should not have slept with anyone until he told her but I do believe he is in the early stages of learning about dating behaviors and consequences. It doesn’t make him immoral or bad marriage material or a cheater in a committed relationship. It was pretty typical of kids that age and it does not make it right but it is a learning opportunity. It is common as young people move from relationship to relationship until they land on more monogamous committed ones. But teenage relationships are not indicators of how one will behave in a marriage. It is a developmental phase.</p>
<p>"The OP described his son as feeling trapped by the GF’s parental illness. Though I don’t condone it at all, I can certainly see that having a fling that the gf could find out about would be a way to to get her to do the breaking up. "</p>
<p>I’ve read that it’s more difficult for males to break up a relationship than it is for females. That may be because males are less likely to be able to talk things out, and many males will do anything to avoid being around a woman who’s crying.</p>
<p>As a result, the male way of breaking up often is to treat a woman badly in hopes that she’ll then break off the relationship.</p>
<p>One of the most alarming things is that many families with struggling teens are in no way immoral, dysfunctional, bad parents, etc. It is not always an indictment on a family when they have a troubled kid, nor do parents with terrific and unflawed kids deserving of some sort of a medal for Parent of the Year. I have seen great parents with messed up kids and terrible parents with fabulous kids. </p>
<p>But the truths remain about kids, lies, sex, etc. Not all kids who lie or have sex are awful kids…really truly, BC. And OP. Also, I would worry a bit with an 18 year old who confided all of his personal life to his parents, and asked for advice on each and every decision. It really is developmentally appropriate for children to separate from their parents, even if they remain very close. The separation is for complete development of identity, which cannot happen if there is no autonomy in decision making. Sometimes the decisions are good, sometimes not so good, but with strong parenting, good education, encouragement, etc., most kids even get through traumatic teen years intact. I have seen messes beyond words—crashed cars, cutters, runaways, etc. Some have graduated from college, some have wonderful and fulfilling lives. All had parents who cared deeply and were not at “fault” for their children’s indiscretions. But they also were honest. That made a difference.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the boy was putting off the inevitable. He likely was gonna have trouble facing her and hurting her. He was not in the same location to meet with her face to face. It was compounded by the fact that he was sensitive to her bad family news. He had moved on and once he realized it, he needed to act and let this girl know to be fair to her. He likely did not know how to do it and he was thinking of himself a bit here. He prolonged telling her which wasn’t nice but he also was likely conflicted himself since he had the intentions of continuing their relationship long distance (not too realistic…thus the term, “turkey drop”) and then didn’t want to upset her when she was struggling with a family issue. So, he procrastinated and thus hurt her by doing so. THe OP also says there was more to the story and we don’t know all of it and it really is their business. Since it came to light that they broke up, a parent could have a chat about how one should wait to begin a new relationship after breaking up with the old one. This kid was treading new territory and it was part of his own development. Lots of kids go through this and lots of pain happens along the way. It isn’t pretty but it is common and part of learning how to manage relationships. They are still learning.</p>
<p>Allmusic, I agree that once in college, it would be unusual for a young adult to confide every detail of personal things to a parent. My kids are close with me and tell me a lot. But I also think they are gaining independence and if i don’t know every gory detail of their relationships or sex lives, that seems appropriate. It doesn’t mean I don’t talk to them about these things or that I can’t guide them but they are making decisions now and I certainly am not going to get angry at them for their relationship decisions or sexual decisions at this point. I would be more inclined to be involved in high school, however. But at some point, it is time to let go. Advise them but let them have some autonomy.</p>
<p>" He had moved on and once he realized it, he needed to act and let this girl know to be fair to her. "</p>
<p>The problem may have been that since her father was ill, he didn’t want to tell her until he could tell her in person. In the meantime, his relationship took off with the new person.</p>