by Sailor Barsoom on Sat Nov 15, 2008 5:05 pm
If one of those awful Americans can get a word in...
First, I respect that it is indeed your house, and thus indeed your rules. So if I tell you that you should rat on the friend and ground your kids until they move out, or if I tell you you should host teenaged skinny dipping pool parties every week, well, you can consider it, but I at least know that you don't have to do either.
Still, you did ask us for our opinions, and guess what, I've got one. All jokes about what else everybody's got will be ignored. So, here's what I think you should do, and you take it for what it is or is not worth.
The first thing you need to do is to ignore those who are simply trolling. You seem to be doing that already. The next is to ignore those who say that you should or should not let the kids walk around the house nude. The kids aren't doing that, they're skinny dipping. Unless they start walking around the house nude (which is unlikely), you don't have to deal with it.
Finally, you need to get together with your son and daughter, and the friend too, if possible. Now, as soon as you call this meeting, they will know what it is about (if you think your daughter didn't tell her brother and friend about "mom's prudish rant," you're fooling yourself), and will come into the meeting united against you. You can defuse this in a very simple way: apologize for overreacting.
At this point somebody is going to jump up and say that you can't do that, because that would be showing weakness. But you aren't a bull ape trying to take over the tribe of Kerchak, and you aren't an ally cat defending your garbage can. You are a mom dealing with kids who are damn near adults, and who will reject being treated like toddlers. So apologize for overreacting and suddenly, you've killed the whole "united front against unreasonable prude" attitude. Tell them that you were caught off guard, you were surprised, you were confused and, well, you said some silly things.* Then ask them to explain it to you. Tell them that you don't want to assume or guess what this is all about. You need them to tell you. If they don't want to talk about it, then go on with what your understanding is. If they tell you at some point that you've got it all wrong, then ask them to set you straight.
Of course, what you do will vary based on what they tell you. A big difference between "A month ago she came over, she forgot her swimsuit, so we decided the hell with swimsuits and we've been skinny dipping ever since. It's no big deal," and "the dating game is such crap that we've formed our own little triad. We're having threesomes every chance we get. I never knew incest could be such fun!"
If they give you anything like the latter, note the tone. Sarcasm is not a dead art.
So, if it's just skinny dipping, should you tell them "have at it" or "this has to stop, and I'll have the pool drained if I have to?" Well that's your decision, of course. Me? If it's just swimming sans clothing, I'd let them. You can still set some limits, of course: not when Grandma is visiting; don't walk around the house nude; that sort of thing.
* Not that you need to give examples, but the thing about your son was probably embarrassed certainly qualifies. If he was embarrassed, he could simply refuse. But hey, if I had a dime for every time I said something silly in a moment of confusion, fear, or anger, I'd be running my own space program.
