Thoughts on 18yo daughter having her boyfriend stay over in our house regularly

[hafflesnaffle]

She says he can stay in spare room and nothing will go on. He lives some distance away. Im wary though and worried neighbours and relatives will gossip and this lad will be getting his ‘feet under the table’. And also having to police that nothing is going on! Daughter reckons i need to come into the 21st century! How have others dealt with it?

Well, congratulation on driving your young adult children’s sexuality underground, I guess?

Where do you want them to go, OP?
Boyfriend's house or outdoor areas/car?

As a boy mum, I'd be fine with an established girlfriend, once DS is 17, and more than fine if I knew they were not allowed to stay at girlfriend's house. I'd rather they weren't doing it in public.

But surely if she is a young 18 that’s more reason to ensure she is having sex somewhere safe? Do you want her in a car, or against a wall somewhere?

She’s said they will sleep apart. Why don’t you trust her?

Thanks.

Have you never had sex whilst your kids were in the house then? Or did you do it “respectfully”?

I assume this is a windup. If not I wonder whether the OP is very religious? It's not just old fashioned, it's an attitude that dates from before the 1960s.

She is an adult. Why don't you let him stay over and in her room if that's what she wants?
Why do you feel you have to police anything?

I think you’ll find you do magically become an adult when you turn 18. Just because you are her mother doesn’t give you the right to decide when she ‘becomes’ an adult. Legally, she is now an adult.

@hafflesnaffle if your 18 yo DD wants to have sex she is.
But in a car or a field or somewhere less safe.
And will much less likely to come to you with problems or concerns if it is a taboo topic.

Will she be off to Uni next year?
In my DC Uni experiences the most sheltered children are the ones who go wild with the freedom.

Are you doing it because she is young in herself or because you don't want her having sex?

I'd let them share a room at age 18 if they want to.

Perhaps. But OP can decide who enters her house.

You’re asking on people’s thoughts but are rude to people who disagree with you. If you wanted people who agreed with you to reply then you should have said so.

Mine have been allowed to have sex in their room but it has to be when everyone else is out or quiet enough that nobody hears.

I go to bed early and wake up early because of my work so the couple being noisy in the kitchen or whatever at night is a bigger concern but luckily my kids understand and are considerate.

Having sex in their room is better than sex in their car, outdoors or other place you don’t know about.

I wouldn't knowingly let my 18 year old have a partner stay over for sex. Yes they can visit and no doubt have a sneaky session on an afternoon I am out.

I think allowing this goes beyond the 'sex'. It says they don't have to face up to adult life and what that entails. Partner might get comfortable and think he or she can move in and not have to be a responsible adult.

Getting a home is a sign they are mature and ready to cope with adult life. The good and the bad.

As usual on Mumsnet posters are taking very extreme positions on this issue (no pun intended) 😆

There is a middle way between not particularly wanting your teenage and young adult dc bringing bfs and gfs in to a family home to sleep over and teenagers shagging in car parks!

I am close to my DDs and I know they certainly did not do the latter! It’s not mandatory you know. They possibly took advantage of our absences occasionally, which is not exactly a surprise.

We weren’t very comfortable with our DDs bringing young men in to the family home, staying in their bedrooms, because we think that behaviour is more appropriate at university, and we have younger siblings to consider and tbh dh and I didnt feel we were particularly harmed by our parents who had the same rules. In fact, on the contrary, on one or two occasions I was grateful that home was a safe space. Mainly though it just felt rather awkward, especially when we didn’t know some of these young men very well!

We did however invite their friends of both sexes to stay over regularly. But never exclusively and not in the same bedrooms.
We were lucky enough to be able to accommodate them separately in our home if they needed to stay the night because of distances or we included one or two bfs we had got to know better on family holidays but at the same time we didn’t exactly encourage staying in our DD’s bedrooms either.

Things are a bit different of course once they move on to have stable long-term relationships and we feel we know the bfs enough to be comfortable around them and we are sure that they treat our DDs well.

Also, selfish though this may sound. another factor is that dh and I are older, we have both work and caring responsibilities, and we have limited time and energy to invest in hosting a bf who an adult dc is only going to be seeing for a couple of months.

Where would you prefer her to do her shenanigans
@hafflesnaffle ?

do you have a local beauty spot for these types of things maybe? I think you could find out
more about these sites on a different kind of forum…

This seems a good and sensible compromise. Sadly I don't have enough room for separate stays.

Very well put. It’s about responsibility too.

Spare room and blind eye in this house.

Don’t want young couples “playing house”

You are being ridiculous and will damage your relationship with your daughter.
Adults have sex. She's in a long term relationship and she's an adult.
It is NOT disrespectful to have sex (quietly in the privacy of your own bedroom if there are oither people in the house.) It's normal human nature.
You have some very wierd ideas. All that will happen here is your daughter will not want to be at home and she will drift away from you.

Why can’t they have sex? It’s very normal you know! What is there to gossip about?

An IKEA pull out sofa can be helpful at this stage of life for friends of both sexes not just bfs or gfs 👍

I don't even understand why you're asking this when you've obviously already made up your mind 🤔

Of course there is nothing wrong about having sex but it’s about context. Even dh and I wait until our dc are out of the house nowadays!

She’s 18, not 8.

She’s having sex whether you like it or not and if you don’t allow her to spend time in your house she’s just going to end up doing it somewhere less than ideal.

Set ground rules about noise and respect etc and leave her be.

YABVVU