<p>I hope it’s ok to discuss this topic. I am referring to the girl who wants to go on vacation w/ boyfriend’s family.</p>
<p>I will never forget the day my dad uttered those lines…I had been seeing a guy for well over a year and if I remember correctly was probably a soph in college, maybe a junior because my memory has faded. We were going to go to the mountains for a night or two. I don’t remember if it was just us, or another couple. Point is I was well over 18 and my dad objected. He had no good reason and actually said the “what would the neighbors think?” line. I was thinking, really, how are the neighbors going to know and why would they care!? We ended up not going. Boyfriend was not willing to totally defy my old man!</p>
<p>We took S1’s girlfriend and S2’s buddy on our last trip to Myrtle Beach. S1 was probably going into his soph year of college( or maybe just finished soph) and had dated her since senior year of HS. We were pretty sure the “horse had left the barn” already and he didn’t really hang out with any friends that we liked enough to take with us for a week. We knew her better than her parents knew S1, but we’d met her parents several times. They were a practicing Catholic family but didn’t express too many concerns to us about anything. We let them share a room that had 2 beds, but had them leave the door open. That was our attempt at not quite condoning it, but it came pretty close.</p>
<p>I felt that once the kids graduate HS they are considered old enough to make their own decisions. If they had gone away to school they’d have had the chances to do what they want as far as sleeping arrangements. I felt we had to respect that they were growing up.</p>
<p>We had a great vacation. All the kids got along great and I wish for those days back again. </p>
<p>I still can’t believe my dad said that about the neighbors. I don’t even think he meant it, he was looking for excuses. My parents were not the type to care about what other people thought (because mine were always right!)</p>
<p>OP, things were different then. Our parents grew up at a time when young girls who had sex before marriage were considered to be “ruined.” When I was in college, I was also irritated by what I considered to be my parents’ Victorianism, but I understand now that it was their way of caring about me and my future.</p>
<p>You said you believe that once your kids graduate from HS, they’re old enough to make their own decisions. Just curious – why didn’t you put your son and his girlfriend in a room with a double bed and let them close the door?</p>
<p>I knew I couldn’t stop what I figured already happened, but I still wanted to send a message that I wasn’t saying I approved of it. I could pretend that just maybe nothing was going on. I think I also did it because S2 and his buddy were 3 years younger and I didn’t want it to be like “hey it’s fine to have premarital sex, see we’re letting them!” This way it was like, yes they are sharing a room but not a bed. Actually, both beds were usually used, so I think they SLEPT separately…not sure what visitations may have happened though. Also, I figured her parent’s would appreciate it. </p>
<p>It’s a tough line between saying it’s ok and not stopping it. I have this ability to rationalize anything to myself!</p>
<p>As far as I’m concerned, if neighbors have anything to say about this…especially negative things…then the Chinese saying about how “They’re really bored because their belly’s full and they don’t have anything to do.” really applies here. </p>
<p>Funny hearing about asking parents for permission for taking trips with other students. I went on several road trips to visit HS classmates at other undergrad campuses…sometimes for a week without ever even thinking about asking my parents. If I had wanted to spend enough time & emotional energy to get into a “relationship” during undergrad, the first my parents would hear of it is only after the fact. </p>
<p>They still don’t know about some of the road trips and what my friends and I did…why give them something to worry about…especially when it is long in the past by now?</p>
<p>OP, then you should be able to understand your father’s reaction. Like him, you know that certain activities are going on between them. Like him, you don’t want to fully, openly acknowledge it. </p>
<p>I’m the same way. I know that my D and her boyfriend are intimate with each other, and when they’re at school I’m sure they sleep together most of the time. But under our roof, the rule is that male guests stay in the guest room and D stays in her own room. It may well be that after DH and I are asleep, she slips into the guest room. I don’t care what the neighbors think; I just dont want to be smacked in the face with my daughter’s sexuality in my own house. </p>
<p>I’m having a hard time with the fact that I feel this way, BTW. I realize it’s inconsistent and hypocritical in view of my own activities and attitudes when I was her age. What can I say, things are just different when you’re the parent in the situation. :)</p>
<p>I think we put boundaries in place in order to avoid those “awkward” moments. We may know and acknowledge that activities are going on in other settings but, in our own home, we don’t want to be put into awkward situations such as having to knock on a closed door, etc. I don’t think it’s hypocritical, I think it’s about respecting the feelings of the people who live in the house.</p>
<p>Reading this thread as we prepare for a trip to our cottage with plans to take S’s GF of over 2 years. Guess we planned it well by having a cottage that is fairly “open” in terms of rooms and most sleeping options are pull-out smaller couches or twin beds. :)</p>
<p>LOL. My stay at home husband is a real Gladys Kravitz. Knows everybody’s business.</p>
<p>About a month ago, he called to tell me that our neighbor and his son were having this really long standoff in the front yard (turned out to be over a slightly wrecked car.) He kept wanting to give me a minute by minute account.</p>
<p>Our kids are 21, 19 and 16 and before H and family, I was married and divorce before that, living in the same house. I told H that lord knows what our neighbors have observed going on at our house!</p>
<p>Well I have lived next door to drag queens, clergy, schizophrenics, doctors, teachers,musicians and actors. What would the neighbors say?..oh, any number of things.</p>
<p>But you know what?? Lots of people did it anyway.</p>
<p>My mother raised me to “save myself” for marriage. (I did not.) When her sister, my maiden aunt, died at age 74 (I was ~30), I genuinely expressed to my mother that it was sad she “had died a virgin.” My mother’s comment: “Oh good grief, don’t be ridiculous.”</p>
<p>njfootballmom -
I had to laugh at the “twin beds with the door open” thing. At my first job out of college, more years ago than I care to remember, I had a friend whose boyfriend’s mother let them do that when they visited. We considered that permissive! When we were engaged, my husband slept in my dad’s home office in the basement and never came upstairs until I was fully dressed.</p>
<p>Tomorrow I’m going up north with my family, boyfriend, friend, and dog for a long weekend getaway. The house is three bedrooms and my boyfriend and I will naturally share a room with a full bed. We leave the door open because my dog likes to wander in the night and bed hop. If we close the door, she’ll headbutt it until we wake up and let her in. I think someone once said something to my dad about letting my boyfriend and I share a room. His response was that he gave up control of me when I was 15 and he realized that I was smarter than him. His words, not mine. My parents and I have always had a wonderful, non controlling relationship based on respect and understanding. They knew I wouldn’t do anything with them there. My sister is a different story lol. It wouldn’t work for most 15 year olds but the Gypsies always said I was an olds soul lol.</p>
<p>And they paid for it, too. If a girl turned up pregnant, she was expected to marry the guy post-haste. If he could not or would not comply, she was sent away to “visit relatives” or some such thing, until she could enter a maternity home, have the baby in secret, give it up for adoption, then go home and pretend nothing happened. And everybody pretended - girls dropped out of sight all the time in those days and everybody knew what was going on but no one ever mentioned it. I’m an adoptee and a product of that whole system. And all of this happened because people were mainly concerned with “What will the neighbors say?”</p>
<p>Ha! My grandparents eloped rather than deal with what their parents had to say, never mind neighbors. So it’s been a few generations since any “Victorian” attitudes showed up in my family.</p>
<p>Oh, definitely. But they were not open about it and, in addition to the consequences which footballmom104 notes, a girl’s chances of marrying a “nice boy” were gone if it became known that she had engaged in sex. As my mother said, why should he buy the cow if he can get the milk for free? Nice girls weren’t supposed to allow more than a kiss until marriage. Pre-marital sex was something to be ashamed of, at least for girls. (As has been the case since the beginning of time, it was OK for guys.)</p>
<p>“Those days” weren’t even all that long ago. I graduated in the early 80’s. At our 20th re-union, a woman showed up with her 20+ year old daughter. I hadn’t known she had a daughter, but a friend said, “yeah, she kind of ‘disappeared’ at the end of senior year.” She wasn’t a close friend, so I hadn’t noticed that she didn’t walk with the rest of us. </p>
<p>In high school, I knew that kids were having sex. But I never knew a girl who would admit it. Times really have changed.</p>
<p>I agree that things are different when you are the one that is the parent. When i was younger i always thought that i would be very liberal about my daughter having a boyfriend and letting him sleep over…That all changed and i am more like my parents than i realized.</p>
<p>My dad had a rule about boyfriends coming to visit. My parents moved to work in the Bahamas when us kids were all teen to twenties. There were three girls and everyone wanted to be able to visit their house. It was big with a lot of space, extra rooms and pull out couches. Friends of the same sex were allowed to come with us on a visit but not boyfriends.</p>
<p>the only way a boyfriend was allowed to go and stay was if they had gotten married. Not even visit and stay in separate rooms. My older sister lived with her boyfriend for maybe 10 years before they got married. We had all been to their home for parties and dinners but my dad still would not let him go for a visit until they got married. It is pretty funny.</p>
<p>When I was in college, I did not make any particular effort to hide the fact that I was having sex with my long-term boyfriend. When said boyfriend and I decided to get married (after having been an established couple for four years), my father’s comment was, “Well, it’s a good thing that he’s going to marry you because nobody else would want you, since you’re not a virgin.”</p>
<p>This was in 1976, although I think my father’s head was stuck in a time a few decades earlier.</p>