Meeting Their Date
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Meeting Their Date
| Fri, 07-28-2006 - 4:06pm |
I was just wondering what other parents do about meeting the person their son or daughter, especially daughter, is going on a date with. My 17 yo DD has only had one real boyfriend that lasted almost a year. A guy from school called her today and asked her to "hang out" with him, and I told her we would like to meet him first. She got all freaked out over it and thought it was weird to ask him to meet us. I told her to just ask him to hang out at our house and not say to meet mom and dad. She said she wants to get to know him or at least go on a date once and then have him over so she won't give him the wrong idea and make him think she likes him when she doesn't know him that well. He doesn't have his license yet so we wouldn't get the chance to meet him when he picked her up because she would be the one picking him up, which I'm not real crazy about. Just wondering what other people do...do you expect to meet the person or do you just let them go without meeting them?
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You know, the thing is...you could meet a guy, he could appear to be really polite and great and friendly and then STILL go to a party, get drunk and do something stupid. No guarantees in life at all just by meeting someone.
All I'm saying is that there is such a thing as casual dating and just going out with someone and if you have a daughter or son who is almost 18, probably getting ready to leave home, working, driving a car, doing well in school and you still cannot trust their judgement about who they go out with -- oh my gosh good luck sleeping at nights when they are away at college.
For me, IMO, it isn't only a matter of safety, it's a matter of respect & consideration towards the parents, the family as a whole. If a person can't come inside to just say hello, what does that say about his/her character? Maybe I'm old fashioned in that way, but my kids don't seem to mind all that much - they know it's just the way it is. And not one friend has ever felt wierd or uncomfortable about it.
In the case of my 18dd, who is headed to college this October, I have virtually no worries. I will sleep soundly, thank you. She is very practical and level headed, responsible and she realizes that she must do very well in school in order to ensure her presence year after year. Yes, she will drink and she will likely date...but she drinks responsibly and doesn't really like it. And she hates losers and skeevy guys, so I'm relatively certain she can be counted on not to land in a relationship with any losers.
However, in the case of my 16dd, I haven't slept well in years because of her...lol. She will NOT be attending a 4-year college or university following HS graduation for the mere fact that she is NOT responsible and is a risk taker, impulsive and makes poor choices. We will fund for her classes at a local community college and if she does well, we'll help her transition to a larger school.
I do not micromanage my daughter's lives, but I do like to know who they are with and what they are doing as long as I'm responsible for them. In fact, I've spent a better part of the last 18 years of parenting my girls to grow into independent confident young women and so far, I think I've done a darned good job - they're awesome and I know all of thier friends and they all hang at my house all the time. In fact, just last night one of my dd's friends called me to just catch up and tell me all about his college stuff. He's coming over this weekend to hang out and visit and dd won't even be here.
I have three boys and I have found this thread interesting!
Perhaps there is a feeling of protectiveness I have never experienced and I know some on the board have gone through some troubling experiences with their dds which HAVE to color their reactions, but it is troubling to me that my sons are seen as potential predators based on the simple fact they were given a set of XY chromosomes!
Dont these girls have cell phones? If you want to check on them, cant you simply give them a call? That's what I do with my sons and it's been effective. And, yes, there were consequences for refusing to answer the phone or return a message in a timely manner.
Sorry, I understand I have not walked in these shoes but I think this is over the top, especially for a girl who is old enough to drive and has already been dating awhile!
Wind, you cracked me up! All boys as predators? I only have dd's but I don't think in those terms. I know full well that girls are just as bad or can be worse or more offensive than any boys. Unlike the way my mother was with me (boys were always suspects), I am interested in meeting and getting to know ALL of my dds' friends, male or female. In fact, there have been a few girls over the years that I was more wary of in terms of my dds' safety, spending time with them overnight, etc.
As a mom of only girls, I will tell you that I do not view all boys as sexual predators, and I AM one of those mom's whose family has been affected by sexually predatory behavior, followed by assault.
We have a Project Choice kid from the inner city who has become a part of our family - we love him and accept him into our home and he stays with us for weeks at a time. We trust him.
We've always given a person the benefit of the doubt before making any judgements on his/her character. I think perhaps that a show of concern or desire to meet a prospective date may come across as a distrust of the entire gender of males, but that's not my intent. I want to meet the friend regardless of gender. Sorry if that message was lost in there somewhere - didn't mean to offend any mom's of boys out there! Quite the contrary - we're all in this together.
It only takes one night of sitting up PAST CURFEW, waiting for your child to come home from a date where you have no clue as to who they're with or where they are. I really hurt my mom when I did that many, many years ago.
DH and I have gone through dating life with 4 of our kids so far, ages now ranging from 21-31 and we insisted on meeting their dates as teenagers. If they were sneaking off with others, we don't know. But there were enough people regularly coming in to greet us that it probably didn't happen often. We didn't believe in horn honking, waiting outside or getting picked up at a friend's house, either. We met the kids, kept it light and pleasant, but found out enough info about them that if anything bad were to happen, we wouldn't be caught saying we had no idea who they were with. Even though it wasn't such an issue by the time they got to be about 20, our kids kept bringing their dates in, up until they moved out of our house in their early 20's. My 14 y.o. DSS is a kid magnet wherever we go (no, he's not dating), but he still brings girls and boys around for me to meet when he meets them. I do appreciate that a lot. I hope my 11 y.o. DD has been taking good notes!
Well, Im glad I had you chuckling and you werent offended ;)
Perhaps we are just looser with our kids than many on the board.
I dont recall meeting the parents of the boys I dated until things were past the intial dating stages. The boy drove, he came to the door to get me, and we went out to a movie or dinner. We didnt go to the boys home on that first date 'just' to meet his parents while we were out and about. If we were dating several times, that inevitably seemed to occur.
So, I guess I am subconciously following that model.
Also, the whole "I have to check him out' thing lends itself to the concept of someone not being good enough for dear son or daughter, KWIM?
I know DS2 dated M briefly-top varsity cheerleader, top honor roll-they did so behind M's parents back because, yep, DS2 wasn't quite what they had in mind. I found out about it after it was over so didnt have to decide whether to intervene or not and Im not sure I would have
Maybe thats why this gives me such a knee jerk reaction(and boys parents could do it too, of course-not thin enough, not high achieving enough)
This has brought up an interesting topic that I hadn't thought of since our 2 oldest are girls and not really dating yet. I understand about wanting to know who your kids are hanging around with and esp. if they are going to be sleeping over someone's house.
But since we are talking about making the boy come to the house prior to the first date to meet the parents (like when I was in high school) is there actually any family who has a son who would make him bring the girl to the house before the first date so the fam. can check her out? I doubt it. Yes, I know that girls have to take the risk of being raped, but wouldn't boys' parents want to know if maybe the girl he is dating drinks or takes drugs and might be a bad influence that way? And if it's "date rape" we are trying to prevent, meeting the kid isn't going to do that. We have probably all heard stories about girls going out with guys they liked who later on turned out to be not so nice. I guess the only think I could do about that is tell my DD not to drink (which she doesn't anyway).
I'm not disagreeing with parents who want to meet the kids cause I think that's a good idea to know your kids' friends. I have met most of my DD's friends over the years, esp. when they were too young to drive. I know the kind of kids she hangs out with, which is why I'm not so worried about her judgment. She tends to go for someone who is pretty clean cut, athletic, good student, not a drinker or smoker. And as far as getting the boy's number, my DD has her own cell phone, so there would be none of that waiting up after curfew. In MA, kids under 18 can't drive past midnight, so the one night she was home really late, I just called and said "get home right now". Plus she has her own car, so she might go to the movies w/ one boy (as friends) or a group and she is the driver.
my oldest is a boy. While he never did the traditional dating thing, I always met whoever he was dating. If not the first day, then the next time. He would always find a reason to swing back by the house (usually because he "forgot" something) and we'd get to meet her briefly. The 1 time that wasn't true, he lied in the first place about who he was meeting and where. He told me it was a boy from school named Steve. Turned out to be a girl he'd met online named Stephanie. Believe me, when we found out, I went off on both of them. Oh, and Stephanie lied too, about her age. Turns out, she was younger than he thought and he had told her he was younger and he was older! This is the one girl that I got to know her mother really, really well. And she turned out to be a great deal of trouble. Can you imagine how much I freaked out that my 16 year old went and met someone in a private home that he'd only chatted with on the internet? Even worse, that this very young girl invited this "boy" over to her empty house, knowing mom was at work all day? They each could have totally been something different than they had portrayed online. Scary crap. So yea, I meet my boys dates and friends within the first 2 times of them getting together. I will be more careful with my dd (I am more careful with my dd) insisting on meeting boys and friends the first time they go out. I think girls really do need to be more careful, and parents need to be aware fo who friends are. Being able to put a face with a name helps a ton if a kid goes missing. Even better to be able to contact the other kids parents in the same case. Accidents do happen, and I'd much rather be able to say my kid was with this other kid in this certain car and was supposed to be going to this specific place. It's better to have info to start with.
So yes, parents of boys DO check out the dates!
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