<p>My son (2 yrs post college) and his girlfriend (recent grad but still on family support) were talking about doing something … I forget what but it might have been an overnight trip to her family. She asked him, in front of me, if he has asked if he could, and his reply was “I don’t have to ask anymore. I am a real person now.”</p>
<p>@Nrdsb4 - at least she was able to keep her child. Back in the day, you relinquished, or else. Birth Certificates were stamped “illegitimate” in some states and unwed mothers and their children were openly judged and ridiculed. I agree that it wasn’t so long ago that these things happened, either. I had a sorority sister who didn’t return to school after Christmas break because she decided to transfer schools. The next fall, though, she was back as if nothing ever happened and I’ve always wondered …</p>
<p>When I came home for a weekend with my then boyfriend back in '82 my conservative mother decided to be the big liberal and put us up in the same bedroom. Thing was, we weren’t sleeping together! So I slept on the pullout in my dad’s home office.</p>
<p>My daughter sleeps in her boyfriend’s room when she visits his house, but he sleeps up in the living room. He never comes here 'cause his house is much closer to the college.
We had planned camping together with the two “kids” before my husband lost his job, and had reserved adjacent campsites so that he could have his own tent. </p>
<p>We are very liberal socially and theologically, but for some reason our family is very conservative about premarital sex.</p>
<p>I engaged in premarital sex (oh! the horror!!) and completely expect (and know) that my sons do also. </p>
<p>But there’s a difference between knowing it, and endorsing or enabling or encouraging it. And I think that’s what some of us are still uncomfortable with.</p>
<p>You hit the nail on the head. I recently had lunch with a high school friend who told me she sends her sons condoms in care packages, but I just can’t be that casual about it.</p>
<p>I think that mom is the one who has it straight. If we know that our kids are sexually active, why not make sure that they have what they need to protect themselves from consequences?</p>
<p>^^^ Because anyone can buy condoms on their own. </p>
<p>I don’t send my sons toothpaste; why send them condoms??</p>
<p>My husband’s more willing to face it than I am. He can get condoms free through his job and he’s brought them home and told our sons “We’re a Catholic, military family and we don’t abort our missions.” I once saw one in my older son’s wallet and I thought there’s only one thing worse than a son with a condom in his wallet and that’s a son who doesn’t have a condom in his wallet.</p>
<p>The neighbor’s what?</p>
<p>^^ :D. I was wondering the same thing.</p>
<p>Lol!!!^</p>
<p>My mom always lived in fear of judgments of neighbors about our large family. I decided I would not use those words or concept with my kiddos. They never asked and I never told them much about my excursions with folks in college or law school. Strange as it was and is, even though I had steady boyfriends from age 16 and onward and even had pre-marital counseling with one of them, we were never intimate. We did a lot of camping, even overnights, and trips, shared rooms, sometimes even a bed, lots of cuddling and kisses.</p>
<p>I have no idea what either of my kids are doing in any relationships they have but believe they make good and careful choices, as they have all their lives. I think each person and family has to make choices that work for them and allows them to sleep at night. ;)</p>
<p>My mom worried too, mainly because we were the only Catholics and the only drinkers in our Bible Belt neighborhood. She would sometimes hide booze bottles when putting out the trash so as not to spark gossip.</p>
<p>I live in the middle of 100 acres so I don’t worry too much about what the neighbor’s say. I do, unfortunately, live slightly set back on a state highway outside a very small town where other people know when we have to use the bathroom before we know it. Gets old.</p>