TW: grooming. If you were a parent to teens in the 90s/00s...

[backtothe90s1]

Anyone is welcome to give me their views on this, but I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who were parents to teens in the 90s or early 2000s or earlier. People today including myself would have a 2020s view of this situation, but I know things were seen differently in the past.

When I was 15 I met a man who groomed me for a year and then started dating me when I was 16. He was 24. He sort of wore me down until I said yes. Sadly I was so desperate for love in any form at 16 I just went along with it.

My parents were aware of this and encouraged the relationship, even encouraging me to stay with him when I wanted to leave him after a few months. He coerced me into sex with him before I was ready amongst other things. I stayed together with him for a few years, and we bought a flat when I was 18. I finally left him aged 19 and my parents let me walk away with £0 equity from the flat (this was the point in time when the house prices started to skyrocket).

I'm now in my late thirties with a young daughter. I would never let her at 16 date a 24 year old, and I'd be very open as to the reasons why. I would also not let my daughter be taken advantage of financially in this way with anyone she got together with at whatever age. As a parent by today's standards I can't imagine acting like how my parents did.

I asked my husband, when you were 24 would you date a 16 year old? And his response was absolutely not and he would take a very dim view and not want to associate with a guy in his twenties who was pursuing a teenager.

I suppose what I am asking - particularly to the more mature in age mumsnetters - is, is this a case of all this would have all been fine by the standards of the 90s, or did my parents let me down badly?

I think I already know the answer but I'm really interested to hear others views.

Thanks

15 in '95. My history teacher twice my age. My parents sued him. Judge let him free as i'd 'obviously wanted it'. It wasn't in this country. My parents were great, all other adults were disgusting.
I am angry now. My daughter is 15. I think about that time a lot.

My best friend at 16 in the late 90's started seeing a guy who was 36. Moved in with him rather quickly and had a baby with him at 17. By 19 she was in her own. Her parents actively encouraged it as he had a good job and a nice house and "she'd be set for life." I told her it was creepy........

90’s, met a man who was 27 when I was 15. Moved in with him straight away, parents were fine with it. Led to a lot of drug taking and getting my friends involved with his friends and him involving me in his criminal lifestyle.I was a very quiet good girl before I met him. Looking back it was classic grooming. Can’t believe my parents were ok with it. Took me a long time to get over it all.

I’m from the 80s and teenage girls who dated men raised eyebrows and parents mostly disapproved. I think the difference to teenage girls today was that we stayed children for longer. Teenage pregnancy resulted in a stay in a young mothers home not a key to your own flat.
Grooming was there but quite hidden, we have the internet and mobile phones to thank for the increase in the 90s.
When I started seeing my DH in my twenties and we regularly socialised I do remember an odd couple, late teens girl with a fifty year old bloke. They made everyone uncomfortable and the grooming/control was very obvious. With younger men, late twenties they were often the tall gangly variety who were socially awkward and had missed out on the normal rights of passage of most teenage boys. Less grooming more inexperience and lacking maturity.
I would have been suspicious of a late 20s attractive socialite with a young teen.

@RonCarlos

There were girls 14/15 on my school having a relationship with 23/24 year old men. Most of us thought this was really odd not cool. But attitudes were different. We had PE teachers snogging sixth formers in clubs. I can understand you feeling horrified by this now.

Always the PE teachers! 🤦🏻

I wasn’t a parent then, I was a teenager. My friend was groomed by her dad’s friend. The parents did not approve but didn't do much to stop it either. The dad acted violently to the man, but the man was able to come over and groom her in the home, touching her under blankets. And I think how would your 15 year old daughter even be under the same blanket as a 35 year old man? They ended up together too and he coerced my other friend in our group to become a prostitute, and tried to do the same to me. He also slept with her, so did his dad who was 65, and he tried to sleep with me too. I woke up one morning after staying at his to supposedly take cocaine, which wasn't cocaine, and something clicked this year that it could have been a sedative but I never imagined he did anything to me while I spent the night because I never felt anything ‘down there’ and I assumed I would have.

Secondly, a group of men lived in the flat two doors down from me. Me and my friends went there, they bought us CDs, a kitten, which I hid from my dad, and touched us and told us we were beautiful etc. My dad was two doors away the whole time (mum wasn’t a parent to me) and I wonder how this lack of parenting could ever have happened.

With the first guy I knew that was creepy from the get go, but yes I did agree to take cocaine with him as I enjoyed cocaine back then around age 16 – 18. The second group I think I was much younger as I remember knowing they were creepy but also kind of didn't really care because of the gifts. They never did anything else with me, that I remember.

Crazy times. But I'm sorry to say there are still people with these attitudes. Most people should not be parents. I couldn't imagine being so laid back with my own child.

Absolutely commonplace in the late 80s early 90s. Lots of us had boyfriends in early 20s when we were 16. I did. I had several. So did my friends. Yes it was actually a bit creepy even then. But you could also go to the pub and be served at 15. There was no real shame in hitting on school girls. My boyfriend was 3 years older but his older brother who was 5 years older than him, so 8 years older than me had a girlfriend who was 15...he was 27 at the time. Everyone knew. He actually lived at her parents house. I know it took her a long time to get rid of him. She stayed with him for a good ten years.
Times have changed a lot. For the better.

Times have changed a lot. For the better.

Yes, we were supposed to be cool with it but if we made a fuss we were slut shamed. Shit times.

I was a teenager in the 80s and my friend when we were 16 went out a few times with a man who was 21. Her parents found out and banned her from seeing him. We thought her parents were outrageous, how dare they, etc. Looking back now I think, bloody hell, lucky escape. Her family were quite middle class / conservative, if that makes a difference.

Sorry your parents didn't look out for you or protect you better.