Overprotective - Again
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| Thu, 05-03-2007 - 5:13pm |
This board has been so helpful the last few weeks. DD14 has a bad case of full blown "teen-hood". I've realized I'm a pretty controlling parent, tried to stick by the rules we created when she turned 13 and have found (from being here) we can change the rules as we go along.
So my question -
At what age did your kids start meeting the opposite sex at the movies?
Tomorrow night DD and her girlfriend are going to the movies. DD's bf will be meeting her there and her friend has another friend meeting them there too. At 14 does this seem age appropriate? DD will be 15 in a month, her friend has already turned 15.
For some reason I'm feeling very apprehensive about this. I've spoken to the other mom, she's going to be taking the girls and picking them up. And she seems ok with it. I'm not sure if my feelings are coming from not wanting to let go, feeling like she's too young for this sort of thing or just being controlling. She's never given me a reason not to trust her.
DD's a nice girl. This is her first boyfriend, who is her "soul-mate" and tells me they are going to get married when she turns 20. I smile and say, that's great dear, knowing the chances of this happening are probably slim. We like this young man, our main concern with him is the difference in age. He's 17.
I'd appreciate comments and thoughts from some of you who have already been down this road. Oy, I think I need someone to hold my hand for the next 4 years!

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With courtship you don't lock into a relationship until you are ready in your own life to make a commitment to a relationship. Essentially seeking each other out for the purpose of finding a spouse. It is a process where the relationship is developed and the two people learn to grow to honor, love and respect one another. In addition you never put yourself in a situation where you are alone with the person you are courting.
Dating as it stands is more of a recreational thing. No one has to be ready to make a committment and relationships come and go, with some dating more than one person at a time. With much dating occuring, intentionally for the short term, rather than being a process of seeking out someone to share your life with.
While my husband and I can't force courtship on our son, we will encourage him to seek it out for himself.
stacy
Just adding my two cents to everything here - I read once that boys, on average, mature two years behind girls. So, if a girl is 17, her 17-year-old guy friend will be at an "age" of 15.
This may be why high school romances so rarely work out. :)
It is different, however (although possibly not actually illegal), when an 18-year-old goes out with (and yes, is sleeping with) a 30-year-old. Biiiiiiig maturity difference there. This girl continues to appall me.
When I was 15, I went to the cinema with only girls, simply because I didn't have any guy friends. My first outing with a boy, alone, was at 16. However, I was what I suppose you would call a "late bloomer". I was an ugly duckling in middle school, so it was no wonder I didn't have a boyfriend - I didn't even love myself! But I digress.
@ Stacy: I've never been courted or dated, and it's disappointing. I could have been, but he was Pentecostal, and I'm Catholic, and his parents wouldn't have that. So, we "had" to break up. I still do wonder how that could have gone.
I have had two boyfriends and only one date, and the rest have been through group outings, and even outings with my family. I actually like having my friends around my family - it means I can share something that's special to me. Unfortunately, one of them couldn't respect that, and this relationship culminated in him telling my mother she was a "pathetic cow". This boy is now 18 and still lacking a certain sangfroid.
My new "more-than-guy-friend" is not the courting type, although he is very - and I do mean very - good to me. He and I have both been somewhat damaged by past forays into romance, and we're taking it slow. Very slow. Glacially, in fact.
Somehow, I don't think I'm going to marry any of these guys.
Telling your mother that she's a "pathetic cow"????? It sounds like he's rather pathetic himself, with absolutely no clue about respect for anyone!! He wouldn't have lasted long around here, that's for sure.
I suspect it's because she's got 3 older brothers, and our extended family is mostly male, but my DD has always had more friends that are guys than she's had girlfriends. And most of the time, she's thought that guys her own age were stupid, clueless and immature, most of her guy friends have been a year or two older. In fact, her current b/f is just 8 months older than she is, and is the closest to her age of any of the guys she's liked. She's always tended to compare her guy friends to her brothers, and of course a 12 y/o guy isn't going to compare favorably to her 15 or 18 y/o brother and their friends. Even now, at almost 16, there are times that she compares her 16 y/o b/f with her now 19 & 22 y/o brothers and wonders why the b/f is sometimes sooo immature! He really isn't, he's just a 16 y/o guy! But because of this "friend structure" DD has been meeting boys at the movies ever since we started allowing her to go to the movies without us at about 12 or 13 (small theater in a small town), and it wasn't unusual for her to have a secret crush on one or the other of the guys, but we didn't always know that at the time.
When I talk to my friends who have mostly daughters, or only their daughters are teens, and the sons are younger, I've sometimes gotten the impression that they think that teen boys have a one track mind, and they're all out to get what they can, physically speaking, from their daughters. While there are probably some guys out there that are like that, after having guided 3 guys through the teen years, and watching them and their friends, I really think that most teen guys aren't a whole lot different than the girls when it comes to relationship stuff - they don't have a clue, and they're just stumbling through too. They get their hearts broken as easily as the girls do, and their heartbreaks can be just as intense as the girls. Though truthfully, most of them aren't as relationship focused as girls are - it's only been the last couple of years that 2 of my 3 DSs have focused on relationships, and the other one has other issues going on that has had him heavily focused on "finding the perfect girl" way younger than the other two, or most of their friends.
Rose
Dear Ma2connor:
I don't want to sound judgmental here. I certainly agree w/ loving, honoring and respecting all people and I think that at a certain age, just dating and not looking for a commitment gets pretty tiring. But then, I think that would mean that there would be no dating or opp. sex friendships until at least the age of 25! Maybe a little exaggeration, since I got married right after I turned 27 and I met my 1st DH when I was just about 25. Before that I was always in school full time and wouldn't have had time or effort to put into a relationship and wasn't ready to get married, but that didn't mean that I never wanted to go out on a date either. I don't get never being alone either. It actually is possible for men & women to date alone and not have anything sexual happen. That's what respecting yourself & your partner are about--respecting each other's boundaries, too.
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Just because someone doesn't date, does not mean that they are not able to have friendships of the opposite sex. There is a difference between being friends with someone and wanting to dedicate your life to that person. One does not have to go on a date in order to have a social life. Nor do you need to go on a date with someone of the opposite sex in order to enjoy that person's company.
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I get that. The idea of not being alone has much to do with removing tempatations from the equation. The relationship at this level becomes all about getting to know the other person and making an emotional connection.
It's the disposable mentality of relationships in conjunction with dating that I really don't like.
I met my husband in college. He courted me for 3 years. We were betrothed for 2 years and will celebrate 15 years of marriage in July. We don't regret how we did things. Nor do we wish we had "dated". In fact I was quite taken by my DH’s statement that he didn't "date".
stacy
I do agree that people can have opp. sex friendships w/o dating. My DD has a lot of friends who are boys that she has no romantic interest in and sometimes they even go out together but they don't consider it a date. Most of the time, they do go out in groups. I think that when you are in high school or college, it's a lot easier to make friendships w/ people of the opp. sex, go out in groups and get to know each other so that you might have an idea that you already know & like someone before you decide that you want to have a relationship w/ that person. When you get older, it's a little different though. I never met anyone at work that I would have wanted to date even though I'm in a male dominated profession.
I did meet my 1st DH in a funny way though. I had just graduated from law school and found out that one of my roommates was moving so I put an ad in the paper to look for a new roommate and he answered the ad. He came over and seemed nice enough (he gave his mother for a reference) but I said that I didn't feel comfortable having a male roommate. So he said ok, then can I ask you on a date? Then 2 yrs. later we got married.
"It's the disposable mentality of relationships in conjunction with dating that I really don't like." I do agree w/ you on this one. I don't have any objection to dating per se and I realize that a lot of relationships won't work out because I think that's how you are getting to know each other, but I do think that a lot of people don't treat each other respectfully. Wow, this is really off the original topic, whatever that was.
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