I had heard that her parents let her friend down the street spend the night. I thought it was odd and wrote it off as some sort of understanding between the families since *Fred and *Anne had been playing together since they were two years old. It didn’t sound right to me but who am I to question this type of behavior.
Then I find out that *Anne’s parents not only let her friends spend the night (which is not unusual at all) but they let her boyfriends spend the night too! I don’t know about you guys but I am totally and completely and utterly disgusted by this!
What’s even more difficult is trying to get young people to see why this isn’t the correct way to behave? How can we teach them the right way to behave when other kid’s parents are too busy being their friends instead of their parents.
Would you let your 15 year old’s boyfriend spend the night? I sure as heck would NOT and I won’t allow my kids to do any such thing OR to spend time with people who’s parents don’t care about what their kids are doing.
I only get to have my daughter in my life under my guidance for a short amount of time before she goes out into the world and I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if I’m going to let her spend time with kids like that.
What would you do?
Long engagements are a good idea. Make sure you get lots and lots of premarital counseling before you get married. Good Luck.
Thank you.
I second the motion for long engagements. Mrs. Dude and I went from first meeting to proposal in something like two months (look, I’m a guy, you expect me to remember actual dates?) and then took a year before getting married, which included marriage encounter sessions. Given that we’ve been married twenty-five plus years, apparently we’ve done something right. Or she’s certifiably insane for putting up with me that long. Hopefully the former!