to think they were wrong to have sex?

[happychick2010]

i recently went away with OH and kids and some friends of ours with their 10 year old daughter. We stayed in a travelodge which are quite big rooms. Anyway whilst we were away our friends were celebrating their wedding anniversary and had sex whilst their daughter slept in the same room.

I dont know if its me been old fashioned but i could never have sex with my children in the same room at the age they are now.

AIBU?

I recall being about 10 and waking up to the sound of my parents having sex on the other side of a very thin wall, that was traumatising enough. Being in the same room would have just been hideous

And not because sex is shameful, or because I thought it was tantamount to child abuse, or because I thought it would be scarred for life, but because I thought my parents should bloody control themselves enough to do it in complete privacy.

You can be as as you like Fallen

I didn't inadvertently walk in on my parents. I had to lie there in the next bed for the duration and listen to the whole thing. I cried myself to sleep afterwards, and when they were finally asleep, I got up and threw up in the bathroom.

So you can be as sceptical as you like, but it took me a long time to get over it. How nice for you that that wasn't your experience...

Please come back and tell us how you know they had sex. Were they noisy? Or did the tell you over breakfast. I see their flagrancy as more offensive than if, say they'd just got on with it quietly and kept it to themselves.

I heard a couple having noisy sex in a Travel Lodge once.I immediately assumed that they were having rampant sordid affair sex!

But surely separate bedrooms for adults in all but the richest of households must be a relatively recent thing. So noone had sex in the same room as their children in the last 2000 years.

because it can be extremely disturbing to a child, it just should be avoided.
if your on holiday, why can't you just pop into the bathroom and keep shtum?

I personally found it hilarious walking in on my mum and SD around aged 8, but my sister was quite disturbed for some time and wouldn't speak to SD for weeks.
I also wouldn't have sex in a room with other people, love making is private, sensual and should be between the willing partners/people, the child shouldn't be subjected to it, its not fair.

Quavers I cried too. I didn't throw up but I did get out of the bed-I just couldn't stay in it. Trouble was that since the sofa and holiday incidents I would almost listen out for it at nighttime, terrified that it would happen again. Anytime the bed creaked I thought 'here we go again' and feel physically sick with dread.

I'm sorry you are traumatised by it. It isn't a necessary consequence. And unless your parents knowingly subjected you to it, and you say they were horrified, I think child abuse is going too far. But I am sorry you have had a bad experience.

I'm sorry for the posters who found it such a traumatic experience, but as TFM says, that isn't necessarily always the case. I wonder if there was something else distressing going on that made what is, after all, a normal part of life, so upsetting.

they did knowingly subject her to it though, you have to acknowledge the possibiltiy that a child may wake up during the act, so you are actually putting your child in that situation, when really you have no right.

If you feel so comfortable with it, would you masterbate in the same room?

Its the same with being naked, or going to the toilet, etc, there should be a mark of age/point where family members, including children have privacy and space away so they don't have to be put in awkward situations like having to see, listen to their parents have sex.
It is wrong.

I don't have sex when my children are in the room. It's quite a long way from saying it isn't something I'd do to calling it child abuse though.

ciforjif
"Mind you I found them at it on the sofa one afternoon when I came back earlier than I was expected. My mum trying to shoo me out of the room and my dad carrying on."

You poor thing!!

That really is a bit

portofino - so because this has happened over eons when we were less educated, wealthy and developed as a society, that means it's fine to continue and won't cause any harm?

ciforjif - I'm so sorry you felt this way too. It did the same to me, I also became terrified of hearing/knowing that my parents were having sex. That's what trauma does to you I suppose, it makes you unable to cope and shouldn't evoke that reaction.

Fallen - as I said, abused is the way I felt, and the level of trauma I felt made me feel filthy and disturbed. I felt a part of the act, as I had witnessed (for about half an hour) such graphically adult behaviour at such close quarters. I defy any 10/11 year old to view this as a rational and loving part of a normal adult relationship between two people. You just don't have the capacity to understand this kind of a relationship at that age when it manifests itself physically in front of you - although I appreciate that if I'd just inadvertently walked in, it probably wouldn't have had this effect on me. Just because my parents didn't do it knowingly, at 11 years old, I felt violated at the time. Nevertheless. I'm glad, for you, that you don't understand properly.

I'm just relieved some people here actually see how unfair and damaging this can be, and as a consequence wouldn't risk their child being party to sex between them and their OH.

i wouldn't, but i guess they know their child.

MAQ: But there are plenty of people who inadvertently walked in on their parents having sex, who are not so distressed by the experience. And, unless parents restrict their sexual activity to a few nights a year when they are not with their DC (ie DC spending the night elsewhere with babysitters) there is always the risk that DC may wake and walk in on the parents.

If you genuinely think that your child is not going to wake up then it's not abusive to sneak a quick shag in, it's not like you are wanting the child to witness what's going on (which would be hideously inappropriate). For a child to find accidental witnessing of parental sex quite this traumatic does suggest that the child had already been given some unhealthy ideas about sex (ie the parents said it was a bit disgusting and shouldn't be discussed, so for them to be engaging in it would be a lot scarier than if they had always given the DC the impression that it's a nice, enjoyable thing that grown ups do together or the parents' relationship with each other was not a good one and the sex may have been coercive).

solidgoldbrass you're missing the point because you haven't read my posts properly.

I did not walk in inadvertently on my parents, having woken up.

I was lying in the next bed, and woke up to strange fumbling and vocal noises, to find my parents undergoing foreplay, a lot of which they whilst did not under the covers. I then continued to lie there with my fingers in my ears, feeling sick and frightened for the next 20 minutes or so whilst they had sex in various positions, until they finally finished, quite obviously. Every time I heard them move or change position, I thought they were stopping and getting up, because they knew I was awake and distressed. Does this sound like a good experience for an 11 year old, lying 4 feet away?

My mum had always told me that for a mummy and daddy to make love was wonderful and normal, and a nice part of an adult relationship. Opening your eyes to find your mother giving your father head does is in no way wonderful. It feels horrifying.
Children are not capable of having the same perspective on sex as adults, no matter how those adults might carefully and considerately explain it to them.

Let's not forget that the title of this thread refers to whethe the OP is unreasonable in thinking her friends shouldn't have had sex whilst their DC was in the same room.

Not the same as just walking in and quickly seeing something you shouldn't.

MaQ: that does sound pretty grim - the fact that they went on for a long time and either didn't notice that you were awake and distressed or didn't care, and that they were not being particularly discreet about what they were doing.
I wonder if your parents were drunk or something as it really sounds unusually uninhibited. Most people in that sort of situation would stay under the covers and be as quiet as possible. Sorry you had such an upsetting experience.

SGB - they didn't notice at all, they were too engrossed, I think. They have never been drinkers either, so they weren't drunk. Who knows? Just normal sex for them, obviously.

Despite being generally caring and loving parents, they have always been a selfish couple of twats though - their needs have always dictated events without too much thought for me and my sister. Quite literally in this case!

there was a thread recently where a husband had done something sexual (wasn't clear what exactly but he had cum according to the OP) with their 5 year old in the bedroom. DC was definitely awake but apparently not looking. It wasn't clear if it was under the covers or not.

There were many people posting on that thread that it is illegal to expose a child to seeing a sexual act. It's interesting how this thread seems mostly weighted in the other direction. Is this because there is no possibility of it having been non-consensual or because the parents think the child is asleep?

It's one thing to walk in on your parents doing it as you can turn straight around and go back but to have to put up with a session such as MAD did sounds grim. Clearly in previous times (and now in some countries with poor living conditions) children had to put up with this but then I suppose it was a common experience which perhaps made it less traumatic.

YANBU. If they were in a hotel with connecting rooms, and DC was next door, that's ok, but same room feels a bit iffy imo.

Never had to witness my parents at it while I was small, but I did walk in on my Mum giving my Dad a bj when I was about 21 and I remember being frozen to the spot in shock. Not traumatised in any way, just depressed because my parents were at it more regularly than I was at the time.

Once I got over it, I was pretty pleased for them really, considering my Dad had only just had a hip replacement.

My Great Aunt was the eldest of 13 children and when I asked her how they managed to have so many children she winked and said 'Sunday School'.

I now know what a service I am doing my children, by being so discinclined to have sex with my DH.

I don't think it's morally wrong for parents to have sex if their sleeping child nearby (although it's not something I can do - but, then, I seek excuses), but I think you DO need to make sure the children are actually genuinely asleep and then exercise a bit of restraint in the noises and moves department. I also remember realising my parents were having sex and I felt a bit sickened and confused.

I do wonder, however, if the experience would have been less traumatic if our attitudes to sex were less prurient in the first place. If sex is never discussed and if you have no idea that your parents have (and are entitled to) a sex life and that it can be part of a loving relationship, then of course it's going to be a massive shock.

When I was 10 or 11 I walked past my parents bedroom door and thought "oh, that's nice, Mum and Dad are tickling each other". I was particularly pleased because they had been arguing a lot, so it was nice to see them being nice and having a laugh.

I continued to believe this for more years than you would have thought possible.

love this line from thread -

They weren't in a primitive tribe, they were in a Travelodge.

YABU - unless they were asking said child to pass "props".

"They weren't in a primitive trive, they were in a Travelodge" - some might argue that it amounts to the same thing!