If your kids are under age drinking (particularly at a location that is driven to)…as a parent, you need a serious wake up call.
If your kids are having sex with people they barely know…as a parent, you need a serious wake up call.
If your kid does not have the sense to realize people who are intoxicated cannot consent and that to have sex with a person in that condition is playing Russian roulette with a rape charge…as a parent, you need a serious wake up call.
As a parent, it is your responsibility to make a firm stand on these issues and communicate the seriousness of the situation.
Did this girl go home that night or sleep at a friend’s? If she went home, the parents may well know she was drunk. I would want to know if this were my kid, but lots of parents either know and turn a blind eye, or won’t believe that their child really did this. Many kids feel like they can’t talk to their own parents and certainly not to parents of friends. It is not always easy to choose the best path, but if this is an ongoing thing with this girl, I would find a way to tell the parents, even if they didn’t believe me.
I don’t think bringing the police in, especially with hearsay after the fact, serves anyone. If the kids were at a house where the parents weren’t home and those parents were friends of mine, I would tell them what went on.
Yes, although we have had a friend of one of our oldest son’s turn to us for help. We’ve heard from all of our kids that their friends respect our opinions and we have had some rather lively conversations over the years with our sons and with their friends…I really like talking to young people and will miss that as the years go by. I’ll take respect of our opinions anytime from young people. It’s not about agreeing with kids and it’s not about being judgemental… it’s about open dialogue. It’s never easy and many kids will make good and bad decisions on the way to adulthood and your own children may make decisions that upset you, as a parent and are contrary to what you would like them to do and what you thought you had instilled in them. I do agree that many kids don’t feel like they can have open dialogue with their parents. Most of our older son’s friends are starting to marry but I’ve still got one in college so it’s not over quite yet. Raising teens was the most stressful and the most joyful and favorite time of child-rearing for me and despite all the drama and trauma, the good and the bad, I’m loving seeing them grow into fine young men and women, the first batch in their late twenties now…
The thing that struck me most about the original post is it is a prime opportunity for the OP to listen and talk to her D. I don’t believe in my heart at the outset of that story her D was asking her to “do something”…her D wanted to talk. And maybe somewhere down the line of the conversation the OP could say “do you want me to intervene?” Anytime a kid whether it’s your own or one of your kids’ friends “tells you a story about a friend or about a situation”…they are inviting you to listen…and talk… and for you to ask the kid their opinion and what their perceptions are.
In general we all agree rape is serious, sex assaults are serious, underage drinking is serious. But to be specific to this posting in particular, how can MaryGJ decide for herself this is rape( post 32) given what we are told? We were told the girl got drunk and had sex. There is no hint that she was unknowingly intoxicated, no hint she was incapacitated, no hint of force or coercion, and no clue about the age of consent where it occurred. Intoxicated is not the same as incapacitated, of course. Drunk drivers are convicted all the time, merely being drunk does not excuse them from their own decisions.
I’d have to think exactly the opposite of Mary; without additional facts presented otherwise, I’d call this consensual.
It is still serious by all means, but we are not told anything to indicate it was rape.
Not to offend anyone but it scares me that my child will end up in school with some of these parents’ kids. OP find a way to tell the parents, even if Anonymously. I watched Audrie & Daisy this weekend and it was so sad seeing the parents of Audrie go to her grave. Also the whole Title IX premise is about being our brothers/sisters keeper. Do it anonymously if you must. You could be saving that child a world of grief. I am a parent and if another parent observes my kid in danger PLEASE LET ME KNOW, this generation of kids can be very good at secrecy and double lives especially when away from home. No one knows their kid 100%. My child and I have a good relationship, but still it takes a village. OP please watch the movie Audrie & Daisy on netflix, you will see the benefit of you sharing what you know.
If you are that fearful I might suggest finding campuses that have a lower drinking profile…there are plenty of threads about those colleges. There is a hugely strong correlation with young people drinking and sex and plenty of studies to google if you are interested. I never disagreed with the OP talking to the parents of the kids at the party and to the young lady’s parents in more specificity only if the OP knows that (parent) well but I think it’s a huge mistake to presume third-party that the sex was not consensual. The bigger issue is that the kids were (probably) drinking underage and that is absolutely reckless and that could potentially put whomever’s house the party at with great legal liability and those parents definitely need to know especially if they weren’t home. Whenever we left the teens home alone we made a point of telling the neighbors to call us immediately if there were a bunch of cars in the area or they heard loud music or anything that would point to an illegal party occurring and the kids certainly knew that we made a point of doing so.
We only got one call and that was from our son…a spurned girlfriend of my son called in to the police and told them he was having a party because he told her he didn’t want to do something with her that night and she was mad after doing a driveby and seeing cars in the driveway. He wasn’t having a party and my son called us from his phone around 11 o’clock when the police knocked on the door so we could hear the conversation he was having with them and of course they left when they figured out no party was occurring…only movie watching by 4 teenage boys on a Saturday night. I called the girl’s mother when we got home and told her what her D had done and asked her very nicely to talk to her D. I’m sure she was mortified and I hated to tell her but I did. I told my son to let me know if he was being harassed anymore because I found out when we got home this behavior…driving by and excessive texting had been going on for awhile (I did not tell the mom about that – only about the night the police came because there was public record of that).
I share these things because I think it adds context to my commenting and why I have the beliefs I have - they are shaped from experiences raising 3 boys and being a female (and young once upon a time).
Unfortunately I don’t think education is going to change these kid’s behavior. Kids know the risks and they choose to take them anyway because they believe they will fall into the %age of kids that don’t experience the bad outcome. I’ve talked to my kids about each of these behaviors, particularly when a new “scandal” comes to light in our area. Recently we’ve talked about why kids nowadays still text naked pictures of themselves to others when invariably those pictures end up getting shared and negatively impacting their lives in a significant way. There are enough of these stories that you’d think it would prevent any new examples of this behavior and yet they just keep happening. My kids believe that the kids who do this always think it won’t happen to them.
Speaking to the parent or finding someone who is close to the parent to speak to them about their child’s behavior is probably the best course of action as the parent may be able to enact boundaries that help keep the child safe (take the phone away if sexting is a concern, ground the child to keep them away from drinking parties). I have heard stories about poor decision making on the part of many kids. Twice I’ve approached friends who wer closer friends than I with the parent of a kid who I heard was taking drugs. I asked my friend if they thought the parent would already be aware of this behavior. One time the friend said yes the parents were aware and were trying to address the issues. The other time the friend said she wasn’t sure but that she had enough heard similar stories that she felt she should now share it with the parent. When she did raise it,the parent was already aware of the issues and again trying to address them.
So it’s quite possible that the parents of the girl in OPs story are already aware of her risky behavior and are trying to help her. It’s also possible the parents are aware and feel that this is typical teenage behavior and there’s nothing you can do to stop it so why bother (not a position I agree with by the way). My daughter told me the story of a girl who got so incapacitated on the first day of a two-day musical festival that she was taken away in an ambulance. Her parents let her go back for the second day.
But I second the commentary that this type of concern should be voiced by someone closer to the parent who may already be able to speak to whether the parents are aware of these issues.
I see lots of people talking about letting the girl’s parents know—what about the boy’s parents? Don’t you think that they might like to know that their S is apparently running afoul of consent laws/norms before he finds himself charged with rape or assault?
You have GOT to be kidding me! Throw two families she doesn’t know into the meat grinder of a sexual assault investigation when she doesn’t even know exactly what happened?
You seem to think, from your subsequent posts, that Officer Friendly is just going to come by and have a stern chat with those involved. I think those days are gone.
My feeling is that the OP would be justified in telling the parents at whose house this party was given that some underage kids were apparently drinking and or drunk there. (Assuming that the D confirms this, the girl in question could easily have pregamed.). I think that she would be justified in telling the parents of the boy that he had engaged in sexual activity with a drunk girl at the party and her friends had warned him off, saying it would be assault because she was so drunk. I think she would be justified in telling the parents of the girl that their D got very drunk at the party. (I think I would refrain from telling them about the sex. I think the real issue with her is her drinking. ) I think this would address the core issues with all 3 parties: 1) Kids are drinking in your house, 2) Your son is in danger of falling afoul of sexual assault laws, whether he realizes it or not, and 3) Your daughter is drinking to excess at parties, which is not safe.
If this could be done in a manner that is not self-righteous, so much the better.
And tell your D to call you to pick her up when she is at a party and the booze comes out.
Ostensibly he called me to talk about my son and ask me if we had talked about what was going on in the school. Had nothing to do with FERPA. The police had already been to the school and already took the kids that were there that night one by one for interrogation about the evening. The police never called a single parent of a kid that was there nor did the police talk to our kids at home or at the station…they went to the school and took the student and the GC one by one for the interrogation. The school administration was between a rock and a hard place and their primary concern and only concern was the turmoil and name calling that was happening among the kids and I honestly think they were looking for allies within the student body to help curb the name calling. I have no idea if he called any other parents nor do I care. I felt sorry for the principal. That’s why I thought the OP probably should not have called the school…there’s not much a school can do about a party that occurred in the community totally unrelated to the school.
While I commend the thought, my experience is that most of these parents know that there is alcohol being consumed and either turn a blind eye or in some cases even manage the party to attempt to keep everyone safe by taking keys, etc.
I would like to be wrong and hope that in the majority of cases these parents do NOT know what is going on but the skeptic in me tends to believe I am correct.
Quite possibly, but they might find it sobering if they know that other parents disapprove or that a sexual assault was either averted or occurred. Or they might have banned alcohol and then kids slipped in flasks or whatever. I remember a poster here giving a graduation party at which they found hard alcohol had been stashed outside the basement in advance!
Actually I’m guessing one if not all of my males have had sex with women who have been drinking especially once they were in college…and all of them know the risks involved if they don’t use a condom and all of them know the risks of regret sex. But again, I would be amused with a parent I don’t know well tattling to me 3rd hand about one of my son’s sex lives. Alittle too mother superior for my taste…a close friend yes, someone I don’t know…not so much. I don’t know about “most moms” but I certainly knew when all 3 of my boys started having sex or starting hoping to have sex. I’m not sure how a 3rd party mom thinks I would respond or what they think I would do with the info…my response would probably be “well I hope she’s on the pill and they used a condom.” Then I’d hang up and tell that particular son for the umpteeth millionth time to use a condom and don’t have sex with a girl he doesn’t know well who could be too drunk to know what she’s doing and ask him if he’d been drinking and ask just how drunk she was and go from there. If the unfamiliar mom suggested rape in any way shape or form, I’d do the same thing with the son…and then call our lawyer and make my son send the lawyer a written summary of that evening hopefully just for the file.
As another mother of (grown) sons, I wondered about this and agree completely. I always thought teaching my boys correct behavior was my responsibility. Girls pursued them. They knew I expected them to deal with it like decent human beings. The girls behaving inappropriately never excused my boys’ misbehavior in my mind.
I never told them not to have sex, but we talked a whole lot about respect, and being sure neither party was significantly more emotionally invested in the relationship than the other, and caring about your partner’s feelings just as much as your own. I never even hinted girls might try to entrap them somehow because, honestly, the thought never occurred to me.
These days, I might discuss consent in more detail.
momof3boys, we are talking about a 17 yr old HS girl here. We are talking about a situation in which the girl’s friends had to warn him off, saying it would be assault.
We’re not talking about college students.
In any case, the parents could do with it what they wished. What they might do is talk to their son about consent and drinking before he gets into big trouble. (If he hasn’t already.) which is exactly what you say you would do.
I did say the news should not be delivered self-righteously, and I would add should not be in a manner that was accusatory.
Another thing I did, when my boys began HS, was to get pamphlets from the local university health center about STDs and safe sex… and insisted they read them. I told them not only was safe sex their responsibility, but that birth control was as well… according to Mom. I told them birth control became a different conversation in a long term, monogamous relationship, but I thought their partner had the right not to have to use birth control if she so chose. And that condoms had no side effects, so far as I was aware.
Consolation, I’m not sure of your point, but I don’t see anything wrong with her friends intervening if they thought their friend was so incapacitated she didn’t know what she was doing. Alot easier to tell the sober guy to back off, than to tell a drinking friend as we’ve seen come up in cases where the friends warned the women and she later ditched them and returned to the guy she later accuses. Actually isn’t that what we tell women and guys to do - to watch out for each other?