Dear Dr. Wes and Kelly:
My daughter just turned 20, but I hope you’ll still answer this because it’s also a problem for parents with teens, and I know you’ve written about it from the child’s perspective before. She’s coming home for Christmas break and wants to bring her boyfriend. She goes to a distant college, so she’s only home once a year. She went with him for Thanksgiving, and she usually goes with friends on spring break. She may not even come home for the summer because she has a local job and doesn’t want to leave because of the economy. We feel like this is our only chance to see her and we want to focus our time on family. We don’t dislike her boyfriend, we just feel kind of invaded — and we’re worried about having a big drama over sleeping arrangements. Is it too much to expect for her to reserve some time for us once a year?
Wes: This is one of those perennial problems that has at least “two hands,” one in which you stick by your guns to preserve family tradition and the other where you flex to meet changes in your daughter’s life. I’d suggest that you consider the risks and benefits of each before deciding.
By my calculation, your daughter is spending less than 10 percent of her time in her family home at this point. That’s probably about average or a little less for her age. So the time you have together is increasingly limited. It’s understandable that you would miss her and want to cherish the opportunities you do have for family time. Given that she has the other 90 percent of her time to spend in her world of school, friends and romance, I would agree that it isn’t too much to ask to give you a good portion of her Christmas break. A reasonable compromise might be to offer to host the boyfriend for a full week in late December and/or early January. Maybe even pay his flight out and back if that’s affordable. In exchange, she’ll give you the Christmas week for family time. If you provide enough enthusiasm for his visit, she may see your side of things.
I’m always a big advocate for families understanding the developmental milestones of their late teens and helping them leave home successfully. There’s no higher calling in a family than to help launch children toward a life of independence. But I also encourage teens to have some empathy for their families as they work their way through that same process. Likewise, after their mid-20s, many folks look back with regret on how little time they spent with family.
Your daughter seems to be doing just fine on her own and you should be proud of her. Now is a good time for her to begin considering her independent self in a larger, interdependent context. Part of that is negotiating something that meets your needs as well as hers. Likewise, it’s reasonable for you to ask her not to sleep with her boyfriend while visiting your home, but be cautious how many other rules you put in place beyond that. At this age one should pick their battles wisely to avoid unnecessary conflict — especially if you want the holidays to be one of family harmony.
Kelly: Home for the holidays can be stressful enough with last-minute gift wrapping and cooking big family dinners, let alone the added stress of your daughter’s boyfriend coming along. You’ve raised your daughter after all these years, helped her along the way and now you rarely see her. You may feel cheated. However, your daughter is in a different stage in her life. She is establishing herself as an adult and slowly migrating away from you. However you handle this situation will give her the ultimate option of deciding where she wants to go for the holidays.
If you choose to allow the boyfriend to come to your home, make sure you enforce your rules. If you don’t feel comfortable with them sleeping in the same room and see it as a sign of disrespect, then by all means sleeping arrangements should be made. They should respect this decision — after all, this is your house.
Be careful how you handle this. Don’t make it seem as though you are being hostile. If you’re worried you won’t have any time with your daughter, make time. Perhaps your husband can take the boyfriend off your hands while you and your daughter go shopping or make dinner together. Then you and your husband can switch roles so that way both of you can spend time with your daughter. Also during this time, it would give you an opportunity to learn more about her boyfriend.
If you don’t allow your daughter to bring her boyfriend home, then be prepared to bear the consequences. Look at it from her perspective. She went to the boyfriend’s parents’ house for Thanksgiving. And now she wants to bring him home for Christmas. To her your refusal may seem unfair and she may perceive you as being hostile.
I know you are worried that your daughter is drifting away, but that is a fact of life. She is an adult now and can choose not to come home at all. Would you want a Christmas where you and your husband will be alone? Think it through before you make your decision.
— Dr. Wes Crenshaw is a board-certified family psychologist and director of the Family Therapy Institute Midwest. Kelly Kelin is a senior at Free State High School. Opinions and advice given here are not meant as a substitute for psychological evaluation or therapy services. Send your questions about adolescent issues (limited to 200 words) to doubletake@ljworld.com. All correspondence is strictly confidential.
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canyon_wren (anonymous) says…
Good, sound advice from Dr. Wes and Kelly, both!
justthefacts (anonymous) says…
The whole job of a parent is to raise an adult capable of living without parental help. And although he is only a boyfriend now, he may become a spouse; in which case the daughter's first priority will (or should be) him. A parent who insists otherwise does their child no favors.If the "child" who has left the nest does not want to come back home often, and freely, giving ultimatums and being hostile is not going to make them more likely to change. Both Wes and Kelly gave great advice and insight. Hope the parents take it to heart. They may also want to consider (a) volunteering to go to the daughter's new residence for the holidays (allowing HER to be the adult and host the festivities) or (b) starting new traditions of their own. I know from personal experience how stressful it can be to try to keep TWO (or more) sets of in-laws happy with all the holiday arrangements.
Escapee (anonymous) says…
What to do? My 23 yr. old daughter just moved into a house with her 24 yr. old boyfriend whom she's dated for about 2 1/2 years (met in college). They are both gainfully employed and highly responsible -- great 'kids'. When she asked our feelings about moving in together...we said it's your decision but talked over the pros and cons. Pros being easy -- it's cheaper, and they were spending many nights together anyway. Cons being that things get ugly if a breakup should occur, this would be a difficult thing, and the obvious -- this 'first' only occurs once and it will change the way you may look at marriage. My 19 yr old twins were highly opposed to their sister's plans to move in with the boyfriend. But...this was not their decision either.So -- we didn't condemn this move entirely, and we are confident that it will grow toward marriage, but I'm unsure how to handle the visits home. It seems silly to deny their sleeping arrangements since we helped them set up their new home...with one bedroom. But I think it would definitely make my younger daughters uncomfortable not to mention angry with their sister if we allow them to bed together. I guess maybe I've answered my own question.... But it does seem a bit hypocritical on my part. I guess the difference is 'her house' vs. 'our house'.???