We have been there done that with this one.
On the one hand, because we live in an isolated village, if people want to come for dinner (especially schoolfriends who don't live in the village) we needed to accomodate them, so it had to be planned ahead of time because no way was I happy with last-minute guests, unless it was an emergency ("the car broke down/I missed the last boat out of town"). We did have a couple of incidents where a boyfriend dropped in "on spec" and was shwon the door. In one case it was sister in law (well before easy child even left home to move in with him) who with his mates, drove for THREE HOURS from his country city through Sydney to where we live, arriving at 2 am! They drove here just for the fun of it and to have a chance to see some of the wildlife our town is known for. And while they were in the area, they decided to drop in on us. On a school night!
I was NOT happy, but still nicer to deal with on this than husband would have been.
sister in law never did it again.
But on the other hand - we often had BFs staying over (and various GFs, where difficult child 1 was concerned). We have a really good spare room, it's a sleepout in fact, where we put up any guests. But try to prevent the kids from sneaking out to sleep with their love interest - a nightmare. Policing it was our problem. And knowing about it, proving it. easy child 2/difficult child 2 was the sneakiest, she would wait until husband & I were in bed and asleep, then sneak out to the boyfriend. And it didn't matter how much we scared the boyfriend - easy child 2/difficult child 2 has "round heels" according to husband. Not that she's promiscuous, but she's always been very sensual, we knew her first serious boyfriend would be hit for six, would be a total pushover for her. She was always the instigator, there was no chance a boyfriend would coerce her. She coerced him.
But she would sneak out, then in the morning would sneak back in. Or she would say, "I came out to wake him up, I've only been here five minutes, we haven't done anything, what sort of mind do you ahve to think we would have?"
husband & I even took turns lying awake on watch, or even sitting up in the room next to the back door (which she had to pass to go out to be with him).
So how do you police it?
What we ended up doing, since that girl was going to find a way to have sex with the guy, we couldn't keep her on a leash every minute of the day - we simply acted as if she already was sleeping with him (since we were sure she was) and had her to the doctor for the "sexual responsibility" talk. I took her shopping for condoms, I sat them BOTH down (her and boyfriend) to explain about sexually transmitted diseases and what I would do to both of them if either contracted anything fomr anyone, or if a pregnancy happened. We got her on the Pill and I also explained about emotional responsibility.
The only other option would have been to ban her having a boyfriend, or from ever seeing him. And we knew that wouldn't have worked, she would have snuck out somehow.
A suggestion - if my daughter had, at any stage, said that her father had said it was OK to have her friend overnight, I would have got on the phone to him at work immediately to confirm this. And my daughter knew I would. She would have argued that she had misunderstood (which I'm sure your daughter will try). You have to be SO carefulas a parent, to avoid ANY ambiguity in instructions because kids like ours will use every bit of leverage they can. Your daughter is likely to rage and claim outrage and 'honest indignation' at husband apparently going back on his word. Trust me, the level of outrage is directly proportional to her own guilty conscience at knowingly bending the rules and interpreting her father's words to support her own selfish desires.
It is very hard to physically prevent kids from sleeping with whoever they want to, if they are determined to do so. If you insist on "not under my roof," then they will go elsewhere, maybe somewhere not so safe. As parents we can take the high moral ground and say, "I'm the parent, I will insist," but actually policing it, is the problem. We did cop flak from people at church (whose kids were just a couple of years younger than ours) because we finally compromised and let the partners sleep over, knowing that if we did so at least the kids were under a safe roof and not in a parked car somewhere. It also left the kids available to us to lecture and to educate. It meant that when the first symptoms of Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) appeared in the girls, we were on the spot to get fast medical intervention. Interestingly, the critics form church notab ly were silent on these topics when their own daughters grew a few years older, old enough to give their parents the same headaches our kids had given us.
What I suggest you do - apply the same rules for your daughter that you would if she were NOT gay. The reason we have these rules, is NOT just physical health issues but mental health/emotional health issues, and these are the same for someone who's gay or straight. To be too 'loose' sexually, even serial monogamy, especially when still in mid-teens, is to risk doing too much damage emotionally to OTHER kids. As we found with easy child 2/difficult child 2, we had no concerns for her mental welfare, but we knew her first boyfriend wouldn't cope emotionally if she was too rough with his feelings. Once she slept with him, he was bound to her emotionally, bound so tightly that the relationship became suffocating. When you have sex with someone you forge an emotional link. This means you need to be prepared for the social/emotional consequences of forging thta link.
Sex shouldn't be trivialised. Kids these days seem to think they have a monopoly on sex, especially casual sex. They act like they own it (forgetting all about the era of free love in the late 60s/early 70s that a lot of us were around for). We KNOW about these mistakes because we saw them for ourselves. Casual sex was championed back then, but there was fallout and many of us have seen it. And with the concern about teen pregnancy out of the equation, it is too easy for a budding lesbian to have a too-casual attitude to sex. But even if SHE is OK with multiple partners, even if SHE feels safe about switching as often as she wants for casual reasons, what about the partners? Where are they at, in terms of coming to grips with their budding sexuality? Are thay as secure in their orientation as she is? And how sure is she of them? How can she be? She can't simply accept what they tell her at face value - if they want to have sex with her, or want her to like them, they will tell her what they want her to hear. Does she have the social sophistication she needs, to really 'know' them and what they can handle?
The fallout form being too casual about sex can be devastating. If you're the callous one, the one who can love 'em and leave 'em, there is still fallout from having a series of jilted lovers in your wake. It's unhealthy to do this Occupational Therapist (OT) other people. And to experience it - really nasty.
Gay or straight - makes no difference. But I suggest - a teen lesbian (either your daughter, or her prospective partners) are perhaps more vulnerable, because they have more problems to deal with including difficulties with their own self-acceptance. Any rejection (such as a break-up) can be mentally misinterpreted as personal rejection on a much deeper level.
She really needs to understand this, if she is to not only understand herself but also to truly love her 'romantic interests' without doing them a lot of harm in the process.
Good luck with this one. She sounds a real handful on this issue.
Marg
