Am I old fashioned?

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flutterbee

Guest
easy child was in a mood last night. He was deliberately trying to get my goat. Repeatedly. Just looking to be contrary. He does this every once in a while. I ignored him.

Later, he comes down from his room and asks me what I would say if he asked to have a girl spend the night. Without missing a beat, I said No. He then acts shocked and says I don't trust him, yada, yada, yada. I told him that it wasn't appropriate and it was an adult responsibility and he's not an adult. I also told him that he was not going to change my mind and I was not going to discuss it. The answer is No and it's staying No.

Thing is...he doesn't even have a girlfriend. This was all hypothetical. Just really annoying. He was being a brat. But, what prompted the question was a conversation he had with a female friend of his who's mother told her that her boyfriend could stay the night. He also has another friend (male) who stayed overnight at his girlfriend's house at the age of 15!!! The girls parents and his parents were ok with this!!! (Yes, I do know it's true...not just a fabrication.)

What is up with parents today? Why would anyone think this is ok? Am I just becoming a fuddy-duddy or are these parents out of their minds?

Of course, easy child then goes on about how he doesn't have any privileges, blah, blah, blah. The kid has always had more privileges than most of his friends. I wanted to smack him. He's so annoying when he gets in that mood.

I know compared to difficult child, it's nothing. I'm just so sick and tired of being the one and only target for both of my kids. I'm sick of them telling me how horrible I am ALL the time. Makes me want to quit. Can I quit? Maybe I can make them fire me. :devil:
 

Martie

Moderator
Dear WG,

I know exactly how you feel.....I wanted to "resign" so many times....I don't know if they wanted to fire me, but if complaining were counted, they SHOULD have fired me.

Ironically, it is my easy child (who has her difficult child moments--but nothing big time) who did a lot of the bi*ching and moaning. I am the "strictest, most old fashioned mom on the planet" so you may tell your easy child that the title is already taken :smile:

I can answer your question from the perspective of a very "entitled" suburb: I am old fashioned and would never allow overnights....that made me a distinct minority. It seems to be OK with a lot of parents many of whom think sex in their house is safer than sex in a car....OK but I did not want my kids having sex in high school. Call me old fashioned...

Martie
 

hearts and roses

Mind Reader
Well, if you're old fashioned, get in line, because I am too!

My easy child's boyfriend stayed over three times - twice because we all fell asleep and he did too. When he woke up at our house, he was petrified and we all had a nice long chat. The one time I allowed it was after difficult child's Sweet 16th birthday party (easy child was 18 by then also and they didn't sleep together). It was a late late night and our area was suffering some of the worst torrential rains I had ever seen. We wound up with 5 kids sleeping over that night all over the living room floor - even difficult child's boyfriend was there. I got up early the next morning and made mounds of pancakes for everyone, which amounted to 12 people total after all the family arrived from the hotel, hungry.

Otherwise, boyfriend's sleeping over is not something that is done at our house.
 
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flutterbee

Guest
HaHa, Martie. The thing is, I'm not strict.

Here's what really ticks me off.

easy child pulls this typical teen :censored2:, but he's a good kid. He's a good person. He's compassionate (more so to others than me), responsible, dependable and honest. I know when he tells me something that I'm getting the truth. Even if it's going to get him in trouble.

His father is always the one that treats him like he's a juvenile delinquent in the making. He questions everything easy child says...openly. It really bothers easy child. He spends months talking about it after every visit. His dad can't be trusted so he doesn't think anyone else can be. You know how it goes. His dad wouldn't let him stay home alone until he was 14. When easy child was visiting his dad over the summer, he wasn't allowed to go to a friend's house (male) when friend's parents weren't home. His dad bought easy child's stepsister (easy child's dad stepdaughter) a car for her 16th birthday. He gave easy child $100. I could go on and on. easy child is treated like a second class citizen at his dad's.

Yet he tells me that *I* don't trust him and that his dad would probably let him have a girl stay over. I asked easy child if he had lost his mind.

Besides, this has NOTHING to do with trust. I just think it's inappropriate. I really don't care what the other parents are doing. I'm the mom. What I say goes. Tough cookies.

So his dad treats him like dirt and I'm the mean one.

I understand the psychology of it. He doesn't have the kind of relationship with his dad where he can air these things, so I bear the brunt of it, blah, blah, blah. Just sick of being the target.
 
My teen is 19 and lives with her boyfriend (at his dad's house).

If they wanted to spend the night here, they would have to sleep separately. Copper in Tink's room and her stupid leprechaun boyfriend on the couch or something. In the tub maybe.

Stupid chasing his lucky charms little leprechaun.
 
F

flutterbee

Guest
Well, gee, BBK. Why don't you tell us how you really feel about Copper's boyfriend. :wink: :rofl:
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Wow. He's lucky he doesn't live here. I can really be sarcastic. (I probably would have started a fight, though. :smile: )

"Sure, no problem. We can all curl up in bed in our jammies and eat popcorn and watch the Disney Channel together."

Then I'd turn my back and read my magazine.
 

hearts and roses

Mind Reader
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Big Bad Kitty</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Stupid chasing his lucky charms little leprechaun. </div></div>

Bwaaahaaaahaaa~ I love it! :rofl:

We have gotten to calling difficult child's newest love interest "Monkey Boy". Seriously, he looks like a little monkey...so much so that I am expecting a tail when and IF we ever meet him.

I was musing aloud to easy child one day and told her that we could invite Monkey Boy to dinner and he could eat it by hanging by his tail from the kitchen lamp. easy child spit fluids out her nose...you may have had to be there for this to be funny. lol.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Jo - It is funny to read. I love it, MONKEY BOY EATS DINNER FROM THE CHANDELIER!

As for the boy-girl sleepover, NO WAY!!!! A friend of mine let her then 13 yo son go to a co-ed sleepover at his girlfriend's house. girlfriend's parents were consulted, and said that they would be up all night supervising. HA, they went to a party somewhere else.

We found out about it because the girlfriend's little sister was home and asked why one of the boys was sleeping on top of another girl!! She said mommy and daddy were gone so they could have used their bed, they didn't have to sleep on top of each other and wiggle so much!!! Nasty phone calls and STD testing were very unpleasant for her son. He was embarrassed his mom was't "down" with that.

My kids would not even ask,I don't think. I had a guy sleep over 1 time, when he came to visit from another state. He slept on my parents sofabed, and I slept in my room.

I was in college.

This is not OK, no matter what other parents do.

by the way, one of the most moving interviews with an HIV positive person included this message: "They told me not to get pregnant. They told me not to use drugs. They told me not to drink. All of these things would ruin my future, or so I was told. But they never told me not to get AIDS."

Just something to think about as these issues arise.

Susie
 

totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
I am SO kidding... I would have said Yes bring her on over... and then ridiculed him!!! I need to meet her before "We have this sleepover" ha ha ... no way... Much like Terry, lets all cuddle up in our jammies...

K asks me if her friend I, can spend the night, I say flat out NO, and they are 6... they want to just as friends... but sheesh...never!!!


You are scaring me really bad Heather... I have 2 daughters, I can't think about this kind of stuff, or of them dating little leprachauns... I CAN'T... thanks for visual BBK.
 
F

flutterbee

Guest
He's been fully educated on all the issues...STD's, pregnancy, etc.

When he was going into the 8th grade he and his friends were chatting online in a private chat room. He was chatting on AIM via trillian so the chats were logged and I could see what they had been chatting about. One little girl was propositioning all the boys. She was 13 years old and was bragging about having lost her virginity to her 18 year old boyfriend and smoking pot. She then was asking the boys to meet her on the first day in school at a certain bathroom at a certain time. easy child really handled it well. He avoided the direct questions from this girl and tried to shift the conversation while the other boys (for the most part) were jumping all over it.

First day of school, I called the guidance counselor. She tried to tell me there was nothing they could do. I told her that when I send my kid to their school it is their responsibility to protect him while he is there; that unless I am with him all day I cannot do that. I also told her that I couldn't believe that they would ignore the problems a 13 year old girl was going through. I told her that it takes a community to raise a child. About an hour later, she called me back and said she couldn't stop thinking about it and asked me to send the chat log and she called the parents and the girl in to talk about it. While I'm glad that the parents were informed so they could try to help their daughter, it bothered me that NONE of the boys were talked to about their role in accepting the girl's offer.

I spent time after that - without letting easy child know what I had done - talking to easy child about being responsible and how it's more than just using protection. I talked to him about how some girls - boys, too, but seems to be more girls - that don't feel good about themselves or are desperate for attention might try to get their needs filled by having sex and how he should never take advantage of a girl that way just because it's easy. We talked about the seriousness of intimacy and that it's more than just 5 minutes of a good time.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I have talked to each of my kids in ways appropriate for their ages. But that statement that "No on told me not to get AIDS" really hit me. We teach our kids about these things, we tell them not to do so many other things (Like don't color the cat's tummy with a marker, or put your baseball card in the icemaker, or jump off the swingset onto another kid or pick your nose) but I realized that simply teaching my children about the things that are out there wasn't enough. I had to specifically tell them not to get AIDS, and I had never thought of it. Our kids don't always process info the way we do, so coming out with a cut and dried statement could make things a bit clearer.

Not sure that made sense, but hey, at least I was thinking!!

Susie
 
Old fashioned or not, I agree with you 100%. It won't stop 'em from having sex if they're determined, but it does send the message that it is not condoned and it does make it more difficult (especially if the other parents are "old-fashioned" too).
 

meowbunny

New Member
My daughter has had sleepovers with both sexes present. When it wasn't all girls, guess who slept right in front of the fire because it was too cold upstairs? Yup, good ole mom! If a sleepover was at someone else's home, it had to be an all-girl thing or parents as weird as I was.

When she was 19, she had a boyfriend who didn't drive, lived 20 miles away and I frequently couldn't take him home and, yes, they had had sex together. I did let him spend the night -- on the couch. If my daughter was down there, no blankets on top of them. She could dress in all the layers she needed to stay warm. He was not allowed in her room at any time for any reason. He and I had a "talk." I told him that if he planned to have sex with my daughter, it would be just that -- PLANNED. He would have condoms and use them. He would have a decent motel room. It would not be at my home, in the back seat of a car, in a room with a bunch of other kids. She deserved better than that. He agreed and actually respected my rules.

So, occasionally liberal but only on my terms. Your terms are not unreasonable.
 

hearts and roses

Mind Reader
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Big Bad Kitty</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Jo.

If monkey boy comes for dinner again, I double dog dare you and easy child to serve bananas foster for dessert with a straight face. </div></div>

H and I were laughing that when he finally makes his debut, he or I would ask difficult child if her 'friend' would like a banana!!! :rofl:

difficult child would be so :grrr:.....hahahaha~
 

busywend

Well-Known Member
Not old fashioned.

Smart.

Not afraid for your kids to dislike your decisions.

When they move out they can do whatever they like.

Not until then.
 
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