Ok here is my question....
I am 19, i have always been very independant. As soon as i turned 18, i have been going to school and working. I also live alone and 2 hours away and pay all my bills. I recently went on a trip with my boyfriend(we have been together for a year). i called my parents and told them what i was doing for the weekend. My mom told me that it was very disrespectful of me to spend the night in a hotel with my boyfriend. She told me that her and my dad have taught me better than that. Help me understand!! (She also said, it was a matter of respect for your family, When am I old enough do this without upseting my family?)

I think when you are married is probably what some of the older generations will tell you. I would hope that the younger ones will say, when you feel comfortable enough.

The way I read this, age isn't the issue...marital status is.

Quote:

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When am I old enough do this without upseting my family?

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If you're lucky, in your mothers eyes, maybe 40 In your father's eyes, probably never.

When I married my first husband (20 years old) we moved back to our home town. The house we had rented turned out not to be ready when we arrived so my mother-in-law offered us their home to stay in (since my mom's was under rennovation as well). She put us in seperate bedrooms MARRIED!

Sometimes you have to face it, parents don't like to think of their children sleeping with others (it's not the sleeping that bothers them by the way). You have a choice, fight it and suffer strife that really isn't necessary, or do what you can to avoid the conversation. For instance, you're going out of town with a friend If they don't want to know it's a guy, they won't ask Believe me parents don't normally want to know LOL

At my age (42), I'm not sure my mother know's I'm not pure as the driven snow and I'm 8 months pregnant. This denial makes her feel better I love my mother so I let this slide.

As a 19 year old that has been on her own, own apartment, paying all your own bills, not counting on Mom and Dad for financial support, I would say you are entitled to go and do what you want. I am sure your boyfriend has spent the night with you at your place, how do Mom and Dad feel about that???

Ok, reality check, I am really a 43 year old mom of an 11 year old girl. If she called me and told me she was going away for a weekend with her boyfriend at 19, I would tell her I dis-approve. Even if she was "on her own". And I guess that's the moral upbringing in me talking. I think two folks should be married before sleeping together.

Hows that for a wishy washy answer!!!!!!

I agree with you but I dont want to get married and if i did i think my parents would say i was too young.

it's ok to stay in the same room as long as you get the two queen size beds instead of the one king.

I'm 26, and married for 4 and half years, just so you know where I'm coming from. Before I met my wife I did a little fooling around with one girl and have basically regretted it ever since. Mostly because I am unable to do some of the enjoyable things I was able to in the past because my current (only, and permanent) partner thinks very differently about the matter and is a little timid. So there are things I am interested in trying again that simply won't happen, or at least won't for quite some time to come.

I'm not assuming you are active with your boyfriend, and that's not the point. Heck assuming you aren't, what if you fall for and marry someone else that enjoys sleeping in his own bed? Could be annoying if you're used to, and rather enjoy, sleeping with your significant other. Could happen, there's some odd differences between me and my spouse!

yeah, it was a joke. so no blast taken.

Some parents are never ready to think about their kids doing certain things. Before my husband and I were married, we went to his hometown so I could meet the family. We got separate bedrooms. I was 30 and he was 35. That's okay; it's their home and their rules.

You can't live your life in fear of offending your family, especially if you're already out and on your own. The only thing you can do is to not rub it in their faces - which I don't think you were trying to do. I don't think you should lie, but I'd be highly selective about what I told them from now on. And really, you're independent; it isn't any of their business anyway.

Signed,
Another Anon

I'm not advocating actively lying to your parents but in my experience I found that a little white lie every now and then (yes Mom, we have separate hotel rooms) allowed my mom to maintain her sanity. Also, she may have asked but I KNOW she didn't really want to know!

I dont know if its just because I'm a guy, but my mom handled those kinds of things a bit different. She understood what goes on and that she wasnt going to stop it so she just did something that she could do - example:
When I first started going out and drinking, instead of telling me not to so that I would have to lie about it, she said to just stay the night wherever I went and not drive back until the morning when I'm sober. And if I were to be in this situation she would probably say to make sure that I was careful and used protection.
The result of all this is that I can talk to her about pretty much anything.

It's different because you're a guy unfair of course, but there are always double standards for daughters. I got the same drinking story, but again, mom still thinks I sleep in a twin bed

I think most parents don't have an issue with this until it involves their own children...

Amen to that Happy! I'm buying a really big gun and practicing cleaning it so it will look like I know what I'm doing by the time my daughter starts dating. The intimidation factor - just sitting there cleaning my gun when the guys so up for a date.

I hate to tell all parents this but your children will do things that you don't approve of whether you would like them to or not. Just by telling them that they shouldn't be doing certain things or that they are morally wrong for doing so does not help the problem but probably makes it worse.
My parents and I always had very open communication. That is what I am trying to have with my son now too as he gets older.
For example, my college roommate had a very strict and religious upbringing. She was not supposed to drink ever or have sex until she was married. She got to college and was the biggest partier and had premarital sex. I feel like because her parents were so strict it made her want to live life on her own even more.

I am not trying to offend anyone, but I thought I would throw another opinion in.

Anon, I think I went to college with you...

Children will make their own decisions about life - it's called growing up and taking responsibility for their own lives. Parents have a responsibility for laying the moral/ethical groundwork for living and for helping them make decisions while they are at home. If there is open and honest communication between the children and parents during and after the child leaves home, then the parent should be free to tell the adult child s/he is disappointed in the choices the adult child made. It shouldn't come as a surprise to the adult child - after all the parents have been living with their moral/ethical convictions for longer than the child has been alive. The adult child has a responsibility to respect the position of his/her parents and not expect them to change their minds on strongly held beliefs just to make the child's life easier. A parent can respect that fact that you are an adult and now make your own decisions - that doesn't mean they have to approve of your decisions and that your decisions don't hurt them because they think you're hurting yourself. Open and honest communication does not mean "agreement". Communication is a two-way street and the other person is not always going to say what you want them to say. Sounds like this is what happened to our first anon.

As an adult child of two parents who were very strict, I always understood what they expected of me and what they would or would not approve of. My sister has spent most of her life trying to change our parents - trying to get them to approve of her lifestyle choices. Waste of time. They're not going to change. I love my parents and I listen to them express their point of view on various choices we have to make, then I make up my own mind. They had their say, I live my life, we love each other, so we move on.

Want a really different spin on this? My parents (in their late 60's) recently got divorced after 45 years of marriage. It has been 2 years now and my Dad has started dating again. My Dad lives out of town and knows he is always welcome to come and stay with me, however, I have a young daughter at home, he also respects that if he brings a friend with him, either seperate bedrooms for them or he gets a hotel room. That is a very wierd role reversal feeling!!

My mom took the same view. I couldn’t understand why living together was so much of a concern – anything she considered to be immoral behavior could have happened anywhere – we didn’t need to share a home to facilitate that, were we so inclined.

Why was falling asleep under the same roof cause for so much more concern than riding in a car together unsupervised? Or being unsupervised and going to the park together? Or meeting each other for lunch and not being chaperoned?

Ultimately, it boiled down to “appearances.” Couples have an unsupervised date or visit? No problem there in her mind, because once the date is over, it’s past tense, it’s an “event,” whereas living together is a “status.”

We didn’t agree, but I did come to understand her perspective.

She would not, however, come to see my point of view that it is equally immoral for a couple to get married as a solution to their lack of “impulse control.”

I am the parent of a 25, 23 & 22 year old. All three have been on their own for a few years. If any of them were in a relationship for a year and brought their companion to stay the weekend, I would assume they would share the same room. Neither my husband or I would have a problem with it.

Your mom will learn to deal with it. She doesn't have to approve but it occurs much more frequently than people realize.

BTW: My MIL always believed my SIL and her boyfriend shared seperate beds in a shared motel room. I always wanted to ask my MIL why the SIL was on birth control pills??? Go figure!

I apologize first because I'm not a parent but am more than old enough to be one... lol. I can relate to your dilemna. I was raised in a strict household. My bottom line advice for this is your mother is going to have to deal within herself the decisions you choose - bad or good. You are obviously responsible enough at your age to keep a job and pay your bills. You know what consequences are. If you lie, then you are trading one moral issue for another and she may not believe anything you tell her again if she catches you in this lie. Maybe she shouldn't ask if she REALLY doesn't want to know... *smile*
My peace... i'm out.