Our 19-year-old granddaughter Mindy is a college sophomore. She contacted my husband and me to ask if she could stay with us for a weekend while she attends a wedding in our city in a few months. We adore Mindy, and we’ve always had a wonderful relationship with her. We would love to have her stay with us, but we anticipate a problem.
Mindy changes boyfriends a lot. When she brings her latest boyfriend home to her parents’ house (our daughter is her mother), she and the boyfriend stay together in her bedroom. Apparently, this has happened several times, all with different guys. Her parents allow that arrangement because they say that’s what they have to do or Mindy won’t come home. Mindy says it would be hypocritical of her to sleep with a guy at school and then pretend they’re not sleeping together when she comes home with him.
My husband and I do not want Mindy and her au courant boyfriend sharing our guest bedroom. If she wants to bring a boyfriend we want Mindy to have our guest bedroom and for the boyfriend to stay on a hideaway couch in our finished basement. Our daughter (Mindy’s mother) says we’re being old fashioned – that Mindy lives in a hook-up culture and casual sex is their way of life, and we should just let Mindy and her boyfriend stay together in our guest bedroom, if that’s what Mindy wants. Are we just being old fashioned?
I think the situation you’re describing here is more complicated than being a simple matter of being old fashioned – a term that connotes being out of date, obsolete. A woman would be considered old-fashioned if she showed up in the office on a daily basis wearing a hoop skirt with a bustle, or a man wearing a top hat to work every day. The point is that it is quite easy to deem a fashion out of date, but it is not so easy to make similar decrees when it comes to someone’s personal morals and values.
When your daughter says Mindy won’t come home if she, Mindy, can’t share her bedroom raises an interesting dynamic between this mother and her daughter. In fact, it might be an example of what psychotherapist Susan Forward, Ph.D., calls emotional blackmail. Emotional blackmail is about people controlling others in relationships using fear, obligation, or guilt to their own benefit. As long as your daughter feels she has no choice in this matter, Mindy will continue to call the shots about sleeping arrangements and your daughter will acquiesce. Then again, your daughter may be perfectly comfortable with Mindy sharing her bedroom with various boyfriends. Neither possibility is really your concern or issue.
The point is that you and your husband are not accepting of Mindy and a boyfriend sharing a room in your home, so you should not be cajoled, manipulated, or in any way pressured into going along with it. For your own clarity, you may want to give some thought to this question: Are there any circumstances under which you would be willing for Mindy and a boyfriend to share a bedroom in your home?
If the answer is, “Only if she were married,” then so be it. This is how you feel about it, so in your home, those are your rules. If you answered that you would be comfortable if Mindy and her fiancé shared a bedroom in your home, well, then, you have clearly defined a different comfort zone.
If Mindy wants to come and stay with you and asks if she can bring a guy friend and together they share your guest room, you can let her know exactly what is acceptable and unacceptable to you and your husband. If she says she won’t stay with you unless she and a boyfriend can share your guest room – we’re back to attempted emotional blackmail – you can simply tell her you’re not comfortable with that. You don’t have to apologize for how you feel, you don’t have to try and explain. That’s the way it is. Period. No discussion.
On the other hand, what’s good for the goose, et cetera, et cetera . . . if you and your husband were to ask to stay with Mindy in her college accommodations (I am pretty sure you never would, but let me go with this to make a point), you would do so knowing she would be free to sleep with whomever in her place, in her space: her rules would prevail. I mention this to underscore that respecting differences in core values is a two-way street.
I will close by saying that I hope you are feeling prepared to deal with the situation you raise, but I hope it never comes to pass. I have found that many grandchildren hold their grandparents in a very special place in their hearts, and they would never test them and/or cause them the grief they can cause their parents.
Mindy may intuitively know it would be uncomfortable for you and your husband for her to share a bedroom with a boyfriend in your home, and she would never even consider raising the issue. Hassling or testing parents is one thing, and for many grandchildren, hassling grandparents is always off limits.
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