At 16 were you allowed to shag at home?

[coventgarden]

I wasn't allowed boyfriends staying over at 16 through to 19 when I left home (it is complicated.) I am a bit and surprised how many people think it is okay to allow their 16 year old child to have sex in their house and it is making me think what I will/should do when mine are that age. I am also wondering why I wasn't allowed and can only assume they didn't like my boyfriend (well I know they didn't) and were worried I would get pregnant.

I left a note to stay I was staying at his house that night as I couldn't ask/tell them.

All very strange and complicated.

An alternative view is: the law says it can happen but does that necessarily mean I think it should? There are lots of things your children "can" legally do, which as a parent you think they are not quite ready for yet.

Why do people get so hung up on being guided by an arbitrary age of consent - which varies according to country anyway? The law is not always your children's moral compass. You are.

Out of interest, are children legally governed by the age of consent law in the country they are from, or the one in the country they happen to be in at the time?... The age of consent is 13 in Spain, which has always worried me a bit...

Still absolutely impossible in my parents' house; and DH and I have now been together for 25 years

I wasn't allowed until DH and I got engaged.
I also wasn't allowed to smoke in the house at 16 which was perfectly legal also.

Did't bother me much, personally I enjoy the outdoors and always made a point of dating lads with cars!

For what it's worth most of my friends who were allowed to have lads to sleep over still did it elsewhere anyway - only so much experimenting you can do and noise you can make with parents down the corridor. There was 1 pregnancy in my year at school and that girl was allowed her much older boyfriend to sleep over from the age of 14 (16 when she got pregnant) although that's just an example and doesn't mean to say girls who are allowed to sleep with their boyfriends at home are more likely to get pregnant.

OK, will probably be flamed, but I find the concept of a 16yr old in a serious relationship laughable tbh.

Remembering just how little I actually knew at 16... I tend to agree.

Not allowed boys to stay over at all while at school age.

I was second year Uni aged 19 when I asked if my boyfriend could stay the night (I slept in a downstairs/games room away from the other bedrooms). Dad did say yes after some thinking.

Then about two weeks later boyfriend ended up staying the night, but I hadn't asked about that specific night as I thought it was OK. Dad came in in the morning to ask me something and found us both asleep. Looked v stoney faced and later on told me had reconsidered his decision. Under his roof etc etc etc.

I was allowed to stay one night per week at boyfriends house I think his mum was quite chilled about it, actually.

We have 2 DD's so heaven only knows what will happen when they are old enough to be asking. Certainly not while school age, perhaps once they have left school???

I am one of three daughters - we were all allowed to have 'long term' boyfriends stay over when we started college (about 16.5) - i was pregnant at 17.

Personally i think 'young adults' should be having sex in parks etc because that's what teenagers do ..... they need to go against what their parents want.

I have a 19 yr old (yes i kept the baby) he has been allowed to have long term GF stay over since he was 17 - i didnt really have a set age in mind .... but when he asked if she could stay it felt right.
He knows that if he came home from a club with some random girl i would not be happy..... he can shag her in a alley - not in my house

Boyfriends, yes as long as we promised to use protection and weren't noisy

One night stands, no way. My mum didn't like strangers tramping through her flat- it was her home, not a knocking shop.

The boy I dated as a teenager had a really strict mum who wouldn't leave us alone together in her house "just in case". She went apeshit when she twigged we were at it like bunnies on viagra at mine

unquiet you are quite right and I have had several conversations with my DCs about morality and what I think is right etc. And also that my DDs must respect their bodies and do as they wish, not as somebody else wants them too.

The sad fact is, they know the law and they know that "technically" if I told them they could not do it, there is nothing I can actually do. Short of locking them up.

So I would rather be honest and open with them, tell them I would rather they didnt have a sex life at 16 but that if they wish to, they should talk to me.

I don't want them thinking, mum said no but I am going to do it anyway and the only place is Joe's car.

Thankfully my 16 year old doesnt want a sexual relationship just yet. Well so she tells me.

But when she does I would like to think she will talk to me about it and if appropriate her BF can stay over.

No no no. I didn't have my first boyfriend until I was 19 and he wasn't even allowed upstairs with me. If we were ever in the same bedroom during the day the door was left open even in the front sitting room one or other of my parents would pop their heads around the door to keep an eye on us if we were watching a DVD/ video.
Absoloutly no way we shared a room never mind bed. Even when my DH and I were engaged and had been living together 3 years we weren't allowed share.
My youngest sister is not married and her and her partner (who live together) are still put in seperate rooms. There was a change in that this Christmas when my mother had myself, DH and 2 kids in 1 room, my other sister, her DH and DS in another room and my sister and her partner in a room each. After I pointed out a ludicrious it was she relented and let him have a camp bed in my sisters room and we at least got one of the kids out of our room!
My parents are not at all religious and not that old (both under 60) but just not comfortable with the thought of shagging under their roof.
i won't have a problem with it with my kids although I suspect DH might.

heck no

diddl I think mine and dh's relationship was pretty serious when I was 16, given that it's lasted 14 years and still going strong...

Yes there will be exceptions-but a lot of 16yr olds think that they are in love etc, but aren´t.

Yes and so is my son. (Only with same regular long term girlfriend though) Wouldn't allow a string of casual shags, though that hasn't needed to be broached yet.

There appear to be two threads about this kind of thing... This one, of the two, seems closer to Planet Reasonable.

Nope. But my bro and sis both had their OHs living at my parents for a while when they were over 18 - I'm not entirely sure my parents 100% approved of the situation but they were trying to help out.

NO WAY!!!!

UD - it was inspired but the other one where the mum wasn't happy that her son might have been shagging his girlfriend.

I was not allowed boys to stay over and wouldn't have dared do it in the house, just wondered if my stand in parents were doing what other parents did.

Dh and I were in our 20s (in fact, he was nearly 30) and living together - unmarried - in our own house, and STILL got put in separate bedrooms when we went to stay with my parents . My dad would have sat all night on the landing with a shotgun if he could.

Yes, I know they are linked.

My parents would have laughed the idea out of their house, and I'd not have felt confident enough to stand up to them. And why should I? University was only two years away, with all the freedom I could want...