Okay. I’m a pretty hip mom I think. Young people confide in me. Even the friends of my teenage daughter trust me with their problems. Typically, I don’t judge and I don’t tell. Besides, I should, by all rights, be dead or in jail considering the s*#t I pulled as a teenager. I really get where they ’re coming from.  That said, this surprisingly common practice of letting your teenage son or daughter’s girlfriend or boyfriend sleep over at your house  seems totally unnecessary and just kinda dumb. Here’s what I think you need to ask yourself:

1. Why is the sleepover necessary?
2. How old is your teenager and how long has he/she been going out with this person?
3. Are they having sex? How easy do you want to make it for them to have sex?
4. What do the boyfriend or girlfriend’s parents think of this arrangement? Do they even know?
5. Are you setting a precedent you may regret?
6. How late do you want to stay up to keep an eye on them?
7. How well do you know this boy/girl?
8. Where will he/she sleep?
9. How comfortable will others in the house be with this arrangement?
10. How do YOU, as a parent, really feel about this?

We have just had to ask ourselves all of these questions and more as my step-daughter hit her dad with this request and the predictably accompanying whine of “It’s fine. Everybody does it”.

Wow, do they? Why don’t more parents question the strange and often inappropriate social “norms” of their kids? Anybody got an opposing view on this one?

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