“Anna, when r u free to talk about this weekend?” my text read. Our 28-year-old middle child was bringing her boyfriend and four other friends home from New York City for the July 4th weekend, and I needed to make plans for meals, beds, snacks, drinks and transportation. I was excited to have a houseful of fun young adults, and had no idea that a simple telephone conversation with my daughter was about to turn into an argument.
“I was thinking,” I said to Anna who called while walking to the subway, “we can cook out on Saturday, depending on your plans, and I’ll make a batch of chicken enchiladas, for Sunday, just in case.” I scribbled excitedly on my notepad, “corn, burgers, bratwurst, watermelon …”
Now that all three of our kids are young, single adults with careers, my Navy-retired husband and I live for their visits home. And when they bring friends, we love every minute of hosting — the messy breakfasts; the noisy chatter; the beach towels on our porch rails; the pile of shoes inside the front door.
With this visit falling on the 250th anniversary celebrations, I was going all out. My “To Do” list was long, and included putting fresh sheets on every bed, vacuuming up tumbleweeds of dog hair, dragging out the corn hole set, and adorning our house with red-white-and-blue swags.
But when the sleeping arrangements came up, my buzz was instantly killed.
“If you didn’t have this ridiculous rule that Conlon and I can’t sleep in the same bed, we wouldn’t have any problems fitting everyone in,” Anna suddenly snipped.
When I met my husband Francis in 1992, I was Anna’s age and Francis was a Lieutenant Junior Grade in the Navy. We had a long-distance relationship, taking turns driving to each other on weekends, he in Northern Virginia, and I in Pittsburgh.
When we visited our parents together, we never considered requesting to sleep in the same bed. We knew sleeping together at our parents houses before marriage wasn’t right, and we never asked why. Our parents were aware that we slept with each other in Virginia and Pittsburgh. That didn’t matter. When we were at their houses, it would be disrespectful to hop in the sack together. It was an unspoken rule.
Three decades later, has everything changed? Is that unspoken rule now obsolete? Are Francis and I being “ridiculous” requiring our daughter and her boyfriend to sleep in separate rooms in our house?
If you ask Anna, the answer is a resounding yes, but her Gen Z opinion assumes that, 30 years ago, we lived by archaic morals, religious tenants and strict family values that are no longer necessary in our modern world. Logic dictates that two adults in a sexually active relationship should be permitted to sleep in one bed if they so wish, regardless of location.
As a lawyer, I admire logic. However, there are human emotions and behaviors that are difficult to explain logically. The idea of our adult daughter sleeping with her boyfriend in our house makes Francis and I uncomfortable. This discomfort is not born of religious ideals, old-fashioned morals or strict family values. It comes from something deeper in our psyches as human animals with an innate drive to protect our offspring. Paternal and maternal instincts are not archaic. They are ancient intuitions that have ensured the survival of the human race for 300,000 years.
Anna and Conlon have been dating for over three years and are planning to move in together. While we respect and encourage our children’s independence, we’ll always feel the need to protect them regardless of age. We expect that, one day, when Anna is either engaged or married, our parental instinct will ease up, because we’ll know that she’s found a mate willing to commit to protect her for life.
Until then, Conlon will sleep in our son’s old room, alone.
In the end, we celebrated our nation’s independence by letting freedom ring — just not in the bedrooms — with full hearts and newfound respect for the boundaries that unite both family and friends.
