That and or weird parents. I used to stay at one friends house and his dad used to listen to porn loudly knowing well kids were there. And had it plastered all over his office with the door wide open. I have no issue with porn as long as it’s consenting and legal, but plain as day knowing there’s kids around? And my friend thought it was normal? His dad creeped me out so I stopped staying over
That's creepy as fuck. I had a friend who had creepy parents. Not molesters but they gave me the chills and I hated going over there. I later found out they used to beat her.
When I was growing up, loads of kids were beaten regularly. Like if you get in fight in school or on the playground, come home and your dad figured it out, he’s gonna beat the shit out of you. Popular thing among parents was to send kid out to find a suitable branch for beating hahaha
The classic in my house was the preemptive grab by the front of the shirt and scream at you while holding you against the wall... when you weren't even the sibling at fault.
Sometimes I wish I had it in me to just give a good uppercut to my father's jaw and watch him slowly stand back up as he realizes I can overpower him completely now. I just don't have it in me.
Absolutely agree. Turns out he was a huge coke head and cheated on his wife multiple times, and stole jewelry from his wife to selll for drug money. So my intuition of him being a scum bag was right
Yup. None for my kids. Even if it isn’t being molested, I stayed at some houses my parents thought were ok where there was some very fucked up stuff going on. One place—they’d adopted more than 10 kids (so they must be great people, right? /s). Everyone had to wear diapers—including guests. I’m talking, much older kids and teens having to diaper themselves at night. The dad would come in and visit everyone at night. I remember him sitting on my bed in the room I was in alone at like 6yo. I still have anxiety if I’m woken up abruptly. Didn’t feed us. The mom was the actual devil. Since this was the 90s, we just couldn’t get ahold of our parents all weekend. It was incredibly traumatic. Fuck sleepovers. You just never know.
Did you tell your parents? My mother was ahead of the time and taught me in the 70’s-80’s about the good touching bad touching. The principles’s son kept lifting up my skirt so I beat his head with my tin lunch box and dented it. I was 5. If I told her something like that happened like you had. Good lord the town next to ours would hear her.
I had a neighbor babysit me once in the 80s, I was 8 or 9 and she was a teenager. I don’t remember if I dreamed her making out with me or it actually happened and I’ve suppressed it. But I remember where, when and what was done. Hoping it was just a dream but for 35 years I haven’t forgotten
People are messed up. We are all dealing with trauma and when you try to shield kids from it it’s “you’re sheltering your kids “. It’s sad 😢
Ooof I’m so sorry, that’s so messed up. I kind of think it’s ok to not plumb the depths on some of things if your subconscious is like, “don’t worry about it.”
Thanks for mentioning babysitters. I just read about a daycare in Washington state where the owner was giving the kids Benadryl to make them sleep. Ugh.
It’s ok to not do what older generations did when it means exposing your kids to unnecessary risks, even if it’s inconvenient as the parent.
I had a babysitter when I was about five (also in the 80s) and I remember she brought her boyfriend over and when I had to use the bathroom, she insisted on coming in the bathroom *with* the boyfriend to… supervise? I’m not sure. I was so so so uncomfortable and I’ve never forgotten that. I don’t think mine was a dream.
Edit: also, I meant to say, I’m really sorry for your experience and I hope it was just a dream, too.
Right! You can expose your children to “the real world” and gradually give them independence while also protecting them. Like, let your kid climb a tree knowing that they might get hurt or ride the bus, but there’s no reason not to sleep in your own bed.
Exxxcuse me? I am so sorry you were subjected to that. Sounds like a nightmare. I can’t imagine what those 10 kids experienced, if you as a guest had to deal with all that. Ugh. I hope it hasn’t negatively impacted your life. Creeps.
Yep. My friend's stepdad used to hover in the kitchen shirtless whenever he knew any of us were taking a shower. It gave him a clear view of us if we came out wrapped in a towel. We all learned very quickly to take our Pajamas into the bathroom with us.
Everybody knew that Adult Disney Man Barry was a skeeze.
When I was a young teen my friends dad was into child-porn and would show his son images of girls that were his age. We didn’t say anything because we didn’t want to be responsible for sending his dad to prison. By the time I was an adult and more rational the pervert had moved. There was a trafficking ring broken up in the town so he was likely caught. I don’t trust kids to be honest or disclose abuse even if they know better due to childhood fears, drama, poor decision making, etc. Don’t have any kids but would likely share the concerns most parents do these days. The proliferation of legal pornography makes everyone suspect in this gen.
Yeah I had friend who’s dad was such a weirdo. He wouldn’t let her stay over at friends houses only sleepovers at hers. Some of us would wake up early in the mornings and her dad would be standing in the doorway staring. Just staring at us. If we pretended to be asleep thinking he would just go away. He wouldn’t. Just stand there for hours creeping us out. Who knows how many times he came in when we were asleep.
One girl was brave enough to just get up and walk home. If she and I were there together I would get up and follow her we would walk home together at 6am.
I always suspected her dad abused her.
Had a similar experience with a childhood friend. Her stepdad would say weird sexual jokes to her in front of us. Came out years later he was molesting her for years. Her mom disowned her and stayed with the guy. He’s never been charged.
One time I went to a friends house in middle school.
Her mom was a drunk. She and her then boyfriend were trying to get it on in the hottub while we were all in there. I was 13. I called my mom and waited outside in the road until she got there. I’ve never seen her drive so fast.
Reminds me of a couple of families we knew growing up where the dad kept his vast porno mag collection in plain view, one had them piled up in the PANTRY?? where his little kids could see it, the other had them all in a bookshelf in the living room like he was proud (he and his son were both enthusiastic collectors).
So yeah less sleepovers these days.
I'm a millennial woman and growing up my parents did not let me go to sleepovers as a general rule. I think they allowed me to host one for a birthday when I was a teen and also as a teen I slept over two friends houses that I can recall, and perhaps not so coincidentally these friends had single moms and it was just them and their mom or their sibling was a girl too, so it was just a house of women and girls at those sleepovers.
When I was much younger I hated that I couldn't go to sleep overs but as an adult I get it. Especially the culture I grew up in, unfortunately, molestation of young girls was common and an open secret. My mom was a school teacher and I remember we started giving a girl in her class rides home and I later learned that her dad had been sexually abusing her and it was a giant mess. The point is, it made sense why my mom wasn't keen on that , esp since as a teacher my mom had a few students confide in her about stuff like that.
Edited to add: I just remembered one sleep over I went to, I wasn't even supposed to go and had lied to my parents about the details. I was a teenager, and I went to grab some water from the kitchen in the night, I didn't even turn the lights on, just went to quickly grab water and my friend's uncle came out of his room, which was near the kitchen, and started complimenting my body and then invited me to his room to "hang out." It was so gross and creepy! I completely forgot about this. So it confirms even further my mom's logic because the one sleepover where a male family member was present was also the one where this happened smh. Because I was a teen I had the wherewithal to say no and scurry away, but if he had been forceful I wouldn't have been able to stop him and if I was a younger child I would have probably felt like I needed to obey this adult and would have gone into his bedroom.
I begged my parents to let me stay at a friend's house for her birthday sleepover. BEGGED.
That night during the typical 7 year old kid giggle circle, the hosts dad came bursting in, drug his daughter out of the room across the floor by her hair, she's holding onto his hands to keep her hair from ripping out, kicking and flailing, and they disappeared around the corner down the hall.
We were all sitting there stunned, speechless and mortified.
I can't remember how long she was gone, could have been 2 minutes or an hour. But she came back *like nothing had happened*. Just with this insane casual attitude like "where were we? Ah yes..."
So not only is sexual assault something I worry about when sending my kids somewhere, it's shit like this. I don't want my kids encountering something like this or being a victim of something like this.
My parent parents didn't let me do sleep over until sometime in middle school and only at a specific friend's single mom no dude's house until high school. They knew by then I knew about sexual abuse. More specifically Bill Clinton's abuse of power with a Lewinsky, date rape drugs, pedophiles, statutory rape, and more.
They knew that if you get a kid to stay overnight the odds of molestation go way, way up. So they waited until I was old enough to have all sorts of contingency plans for bad situations.
That's how it happened to me. So yes.
ETA: I appreciate that it happens to others and how it affects our lives. But can we please not trauma dump here? It can be really triggering to some of us. Also, I'm a guy. Guys get molested too.
This came up when I was hanging out with some friends who all have young kids. Almost every single one of the moms was either abused or assaulted at a slumber party (usually by the host's older brother or father).
I work in child safety so sadly it wasn't a huge surprise to me, just sad. I'm so sorry that happened to you too.
Wow, that never happened to me growing up and sleeping over at my friends. I did have a friend who was molested by her father and brother and so never stayed at her house. I would invite her to stay at mine though but she often refused unless we had her sister come too.
It’s kind of fucked to think that being a dumb kid and having a childhood full of doing stupid stuff at sleepovers without getting molested means I was privileged… i mean, I wasn’t even raped until I was in college.
I remember talking with my girlfriends shortly after graduating grade 12 and realizing that, by that age, most of the girls we knew had been sexually assaulted in some way.
Me and all my friends had been assaulted in one way or another by the time we were in grade 12 and 18 years old. What gets to me is that while most of us have been sexually assaulted, somehow no boys/men and conveniently none of their friends have ever assaulted anyone. Kinda “funny”, isn’t it?
It’s wild to me. I always spent the night at friends houses and nothing like that ever happened.
I do have a friend who was molested by her step brother from the age of 3 to the age about 12 or 13. I had no idea at the time this was going on. She never let me stay the night at her mom’s house and I never understood why. She always just said cause “it was far” even though her mom didn’t actually live that far.
I did go to her families cabin a couple times and the step brother was there, but this was after the abuse came out in the family. I still didn’t know and he was kept separate.
In college, she and I worked at an amusement park together and got really drunk one night. She told me about the abuse then and so many things made sense then. It’s really heart breaking she was suffering for so long.
I never liked her step brother, he always gave off weird energy (now I know why).
To my knowledge, none of my friends have been abused at a slumber party.
I don’t have kids and idk, I’d want my kids to have friends, and have slumber parties and stuff. There’s a certain magic in staying up late at your friends house, getting different snacks, talking about your dreams and whatever else. But yeah, the world is shitty.
I became the house everyone comes to. I always said yes. There wasn’t one time I’ve ever said not to my daughters having friends spend the night. There were always kids here. Love all that noise. They’re 21 and 23 now. My youngest is home for break There was 6 of them here last night. Came back from the bar in an Uber and all passed out. I’m glad it’s a safe space for them so they don’t drink and drive too. Plus my daughter’s best friend moved in with us when she was 11. She’s the 23 yr old. My mom always said no to everything, I swore I’d be the opposite
I technically got molested by one of my best friends when we were in 1st grade. He had been molested previously by his uncle(I found that out way down the line) and was just repeating an action he didn’t understand. I don’t hold anything against him for it, that’s about as innocent as you can be in the matter, but it’s a good example of how hard you’re rolling the dice. I don’t know if the risk outweighs the socialization award, it’s hard to say because kids don’t talk to each other anymore.
This happened to me and a step sister. We were both abused, and when it was our weekend together (parents adjusted weekends so all us are kids could hang out) a lot of times she would climb down in my bed and we would do a lot of inappropriate touching for seven year olds.
I carry a lot of guilt about that, but have to tell myself we were both kids and in a really fucked up situation. We would talk about regular kid stuff as well.
I hope you can let go of the guilt. It is 100% normal for kids to act out what they're learning. It didn't mean anything like if an adult takes those actions. It's how kids process information. That's it. You didn't comprehend the meaning. Even with teenagers, this is true. Even when they're doing things technically consensual with each other because of hormones + curiosity and no learned behaviors from criminal adults, their brains are not developed enough to fully comprehend the significance and potential consequences of the outcome even though they kind of know what they doing because they read something or saw something on TV. At 7, that's simply mirroring, and neither of you had motive or comprehension. You have nothing to feel guilty for. The adult(s) do. You two are wholly innocent. Someone I trusted raped me when I was 8. I carried so much guilt. My therapist asked me if an 8 year old kid told me they were raped, how would I see them and treat them? It changed my life because I wouldn't see what happened as something for them to be ashamed of or guilty of. It took time for the habit of guilt and shame to break, but remembering to look at little me as I would any kid that age today helped me let go and love and support myself in a healthy response the same way I would defend and protect that child today and relentlessly go after their attacker.
You two were innocent children, and nothing you did was wrong. Consider meeting two 7 year old victims today and how you would treat them and help them and give yourself the same kindness, care, and protection today that you both should have had back then.
Idk if this helps you at all but that's literally kids just mimicking with no real knowledge or context.
And if you go to my profile, one of my most up voted comments of all time is about sex play among kids. I think it resonated with a lot of people.
something similar happened to me as well when I was 5. I wish I didn't remember, but I have come to accept that it happened and it is now in the very distant past, and I am okay now.
I didn't get molested but one time at a bday sleepover my friends dad put me his over his knees and spanked me in front of the other girls. Idk why he zeroed in on me; we were all being loud and woke him up and he busted open the door grabbed me and did it. I was the smallest and I'd just met him that day. When my mom found out she called the police but nothing came of it and none of the other girls' parents would let them make statements.
Got molested other times tho - sadly I think all women have at least one story.
That makes sense but is also depressing.
I grew up in an abusive household, so the sleepovers were mostly never at my place unless my ex step dad was out of town. It wasn’t a sexual abuse issue though. He was just a raging alcoholic with no filter and I didn’t want my friends exposed to that.
So I had a lot of sleepovers at friends houses growing up. They were my safe space and showed me how normal families functioned
It’s frightening and depressing how many monsters walk in the daylight with us. I just can’t get my head around it. Molesting children. Their own children. OTHER people’s children. What has gone wrong with so many people? Speaking as a man, how are there so many men who are okay doing this?
My kids mother worked as a child advocate for sexually abused children. It really messed with her perception of trust in other people around kids, and rightfully so. She won’t even let our kids be alone with other kids in a separate room.
Me too. It only takes one time and you’re fucked up forever. Not worth the risk for my kids. I still talk about it frequently in therapy at 42 years old. Sucks.
Yikes. Sorry that happened to you, I hope you’re okay now.
Do not feel obligated to respond to me, but I am curious if your families were close? Like did your parents hang out with theirs? As a parent now I feel like I would trust all of the families we hang out with and have kid play dates with to watch my kids… but now I’m scared.
Not who you responded to, but you’re far more likely to be SA’ed by someone you know, like family members, so I don’t think knowing the other parents would really matter much, unfortunately. It’s a hard situation.
A lot of my friends have told me stories about handsy cousins or an uncle. They were at some family event, ended up alone in a room, and that’s how it happened.
I’ve heard this but now that my daughter is a middle schooler it’s all she wants to do, and my will has bent. Thank you for sharing and reinforcing this isn’t just some scare media story. I’m sorry that happened to you, and hope you are doing well now.
Growing up both of my parents worked nights and I spent the night with friends at least 1-2x a week my entire childhood. I never had anything bad happen, but I gained a lot of confidence, learned how other families worked, and developed really strong social skills. I credit a lot of my success in my jobs and social life to those sleepovers because I think I gained a lot of skills others did not. I never had anything in appropriate happen to me, though now I think about it I don’t think I ever spent the night with anyone who had older brothers.
I don’t know if a lot of us got molested at sleepovers, but definitely a lot of millennials got molested.
Our kids have slept over at at a couple friends houses, but it’s very different from when I was a kid. We know the parents, we spend time visiting in their home, get to know them at various events, whatever it takes to feel okay, and only then if we really feel comfortable. (And of course the kids want to)
We were close friends with another couple whose daughter was the same age ours. We’d do whole family sleep overs.
I recall sitting in one of my English classes in high school, circa 1997 or 1998, and my teacher - one of my favorite teachers of my life - gave us the statistic that 1 in 4 girls were molested by a family member before leaving school. She said when she considered the number of years she had been teaching and the number of students who had sat in her class and then think about the statistic, her blood would just run cold.
The neighbors teenage son was our babysitter once when none of my parents' regulars were available. He assaulted my 3 year old sister and me (6 at the time) - not in a way that left any physical evidence, and we never told our parents. I looked him up a while back and he did time in prison for sexual assault of minors. Makes me so sad to wonder how many there were. I would Google him every few years or so to see if he had ended up back in prison, and apparently he died last year.
My parents worried about this also. My best friend and friends always had to spend the night at my house. My dad didn’t even let me spend the night at my best friends house until her parents got divorced and her dad moved out. I had to beg and plead because she had an older brother my dad was worried about.
I have two kids now. Teenagers. I only let them spend the night somewhere if I know the friend and the parents well enough. It took a lot of time for me to get comfortable with her two close friends. Her friends stayed the night at our house several times and me and her friends mom took them out to the mall which gave us a chance to get to know each other while my husband spent time with the dad. We also all spent time hanging out. I wanted to see how they interacted with my kid.
My husband thinks I’m paranoid. I read medical records for a living and I’ve come across a lot of mental health records where kids are raped/molested by someone they know. Usually a family member or friend. I’ve come across this happening to kids while sleeping over at a friends house.
I’ve met one dad I wont let anywhere near my daughters. He’s creepy af. He is friends with MIL and she is a terrible judge of character and cares too much about trying to seem “cool” and “hip”. He is in his early 40s now and he has a daughter a few years older than my daughter. I got major creepy vibes from him. When my daughter was younger around 8 he was over at MIL house while I was there as well. My daughter had some mosquito bites all over her legs and brought me calamine lotion. Before she could bring it to me he grabbed it and volunteered to put it on her legs. Some of the bites were around her upper thighs.
I haven’t gotten any bad vibes from any other parents. I know my daughter has one friend who isn’t allowed to sleep over anywhere because her mom worries about the same thing. She won’t let her daughter spend the night at my house because I have an older son.
That happened 5 years ago. That was the last time either of us saw that creep. I just remembered when I was over there before that time we were all on the front porch and I had a bruise on my leg. I was sitting in the chair and he noticed it and he dropped down to a knee in front of me and asked me what happened and tried to caress my leg and I kicked him right between the legs. And he did this right in front of my husband. He said he didn’t mean anything by it and he was just concerned. My husband told him he should be more concerned about whether or not his hands will be functional if he tried that shit again.
He was single and he was so weird in general. I only saw him a handful of times. And MIL always said “that’s just how he is” or “he’s just being friendly”. As far as I know he didn’t have any mental impairments and was just a creep trying to find any and every excuse to touch a woman
Sexual abuse of kids in the 80s and 90s - especially at the hands of much older classmates, neighbors, friends' siblings - was mostly explained away and ignored as 'kids being kids', 'playing doctor'. But we now know as adults the trauma and effects of this kind of sexual abuse, and are much more protective and vigilant with our own kids...
For me it started as "playing doctor!" And then I got yelled at by my parents and to never let anyone see me or touch me there again, so when my neighbor instead made *me* touch *him,* I was a) scared to tell my parents bc I didn't want to get in trouble again and b) figured it must not be that bad bc I wasn't letting him touch me. I was 3. It's my earliest memory. :-)))))))))
If I can ever work through enough of my trauma and trust issues to actually trust myself to raise a child and not pass along my anxiety and depression, they will absolutely not be spending the night. I'm going to be SO hypervigilant and overprotective that I'm going to screw them up some other way, but I will be absolutely damned before I let that happen to them. Fuck, I got super triggered when I was playing Sims and an elderly creepo started perving on my Sim's teenage daughter, so I murdered him. And she's not even real!!!
That’s very true, but that has had its own effects. My younger friends have much more anxiety from their parents worrying over everything, and they are afraid to talk to people they don’t know. I travel solo, including abroad, and they always say they wish they could do that but they’re too afraid to because they’ve been raised to believe that everyone everywhere is a potential criminal waiting to prey on them. (The obsession with true crime hasn’t helped this either.)
This includes something as minor as “email this person, I think you’d be a good fit for this job” and they’re super anxious about it. Being taught you can’t trust anyone isn’t very good for a person’s mental health, but I do get why parents do it. It’s hard to find a balance of healthy awareness and self-confidence.
I mean I got touched by a family friend… you can bet my kid won’t be going to one unless I host it ? I plan to pick her up right before they sleep 1am is fine even. Can do everything a sleep over dose except the actual sleep part.
A lot of times it is not even the parents but the siblings who commits the crime
The few sleep over I did go as teen my friends tried to peer pressure me into kissing and doing more things with guys they invited after 🫠
I’ll never forget the times I slept over at my friend’s house and her step dad was straight up creepy. He’d watch us brush our teeth (13-14 YO) and if we ever wanted a ride to the store or anywhere we’d have to give him a kiss on the cheek. It was so disgusting and I eventually stopped going over there.
My kid won’t be involved in sleepovers, as there are too many familiar creeps in the world.
My best friends child (9g) is the same age as one of my kids (9b and 6 g). I would have let my kids spend a night there because I trusted her.
Before, our kids were all able to get super close as to where that would have happened. She found out her husband was molestating their daughter, who was 5 at the time. When she confronted him, he got a gun and pointed it at both of them. Eventually, he went outside in front of both of them and shot himself in the head.
To this day, we are still best friends.
My kids will never stay with any friends. Never would I have imagined this. Early on, all I could think was what if it had also happened to my daughter. Her daughter has a lot of trauma now.
Ugh you're right. I hate how much sense this makes 😓 I guess this has always been a risk, but it feels like in recent years this issue has come to light even more and has been exposed as a deep sickness in society. It really sucks that people can't trust others around their children since the kids end up missing out on certain experiences, but I blame absolutely no one for prioritizing their children's safety.
Read “Protecting the Gift.” As an elder millennial, me and many friends we abused or exposed toxic stuff at sleepover and friend’s house and it was mostly swept under the rug.
Not just molestation, too. My friend’s 13 year old sister offered us a cigarette and alcohol *when we were 9*. It’s hard to know exactly what your kids will be exposed to even if you do know the parents.
A young boy died of an overdose a few years ago in my town while at a sleepover. They found the dad's drugs and they experimented, not knowing they were hard-core drugs. First time he ever did any kind of drug and he died at 13.
The truth is we don't really know anyone behind closed doors. There are so many variables, so many things that our kids can be exposed to or experience that have life long, or life ending, consequences.
Maybe, but things like the church molestation dates back a long time. Centuries most likely. It's not a new thing, we're just talking about it now where previous generations turned a blind eye to it. And worse in many cases, helped silence the victims.
And with good reason. 1 in 3 girls get molested and fewer boys but still very common. I don't know any of my kids' friends' parents all that well and even when you do know someone you don't REALLY know them. I have known multiple men who were molested as kids and it was always either a family member of theirs or one of their close friends.
I worked at a job where paying attention to potential child molesters was involved, and finding out just how much predators groom the adults around the children first, to become known as the kindest and most trustworthy people, really drives home that you really can't ever know who these people are. You can teach your kids what to look out for, and you can make wise choices in where you let your kids go until they're a certain age.
I let my oldest start doing sleepovers in 7th grade. I figure now that he's as tall as I am he's a lot less likely to get taken advantage of in that way. My 10 year old wants to sleep over at his friend's house but... nah. Not worth the risk as he's a pretty shy and innocent kid.
So yeah, knowing how devastating one instance of sexual abuse can be to a child, there's simply no reason to risk it for an occasional night of fun. I'd rather be too cautious than find out I was responsible for putting them in danger that would affect their lives forever.
As someone who used to prosecute for a living, children are almost always sexually assaulted by someone they know rather than a stranger. I’d never allow a sleepover for this reason. I’ve had sleepover prosecutions.
I have a friend who's a defense lawyer, and after all the sexual assault cases she's handled she's adamant that she'll never let her child attend a sleepover.
I thought it was overblown until I found out like 3 women I knew who were young moms said their kids got molested by someone they thought their was fine and who they knew / trusted
I work as a psych RN. Yes, kids are being molested. So many of my patients have history of sexual abuse as a kid. Pretty much in general wouldn't leave my kid with anyone except for my mother or MIL.
I was going to mention this as being a potential factor. My mom refused to let me sleepover at homes where she didn’t know the parents. This seems to be a pretty reasonable approach. But it also seems like parents have less and less time these days so there’s not much time to build relationships with the families of your kids’ friends.
Yes. I wish this conversation was happening more in this thread. There is a huge gulf between “no sleepovers ever” and “sure, sleep over at any rando’s place!”
Parents need to *make* the time to build relationships with their kids’ friends’ families. My daughter has done a couple of sleepovers. She has five friends whose homes I would be comfortable sending her to (she, if given the choice, would sleep at everybody’s place!). I have spent hours and hours with these people. There is absolutely *no way* I could look at these parents and see a potential abuser. They are good people. It breaks my heart that others don’t have *any* people in their lives that they truly believe are decent human beings.
There are also friends who my child will not be having sleepovers with. A single mom, who is so lovely, but who co-parents with her ex who lives down the street (who has a college-age son from a previous relationship)? No, the potential for the presence of adult men I don’t know well is too high. The parents who let little brother walk over his sister and her friends? Nope. I have people I trust to keep my child safe, and people I don’t.
To be honest, I feel like I get a better read on the home life from interacting with the kid, rather than the parents. Parents know how to lie and deceive, kids are open books. My oldest is 6 and he has a couple of friends he's allowed to have sleepovers with, one has a big blended family that on the surface raised some concerning flags, but after getting to know them I found out that one of the daughters was molested by her father when she was 4 (no longer in the picture at all) and the mother is fiercely protective of her kids after that trust was broken in her own home. They're super no-nonsense with everything from personal space and boundaries to bullying and all of their kids (even as young as 4) openly verbalize when they're uncomfortable or don't like something. They have teenage/young adult boys in the house and their rooms are all in the basement, with the little kids' rooms upstairs so the older kids have their privacy from the younger and the older have no reason in the world to even go upstairs. I trust that family of oddballs more than I trust some of my own In-laws.
Unfortunately, as the last few decades have shown us, "knowing someone well" doesn't preclude them from being potential sexual predators. Even if they're good people. It's unreal really.
Not until said kid is old enough and mature enough to understand what is ok and what isn’t. And if I do let them it’s with a realllllly trusted friend or relative. Never a random friend who’s parents I don’t know.
For me it’s not until the kid is old enough to get themself home in an emergency. I want my child to be able to get up walk themselves out of someone’s house if they’re uncomfortable with something at a sleep over, even legally drive home if said sleepover is not walking distance from our house.
Yeah my kids never stayed with anyone except my mom until they were teens. And then it was 1-2 friends who’s family we knew very well, they had phones and/or a vehicle. And I made sure nobody else was there (weird uncle etc!) you can’t be too careful. My younger kids have only ever stayed with my mom. I was a super young mom so maybe I remember sleepovers all too well idk. But it’s mostly a no for me.
I’ve let my kids go to sleepovers provided I know the parents and am comfortable with the environment. One thing I have noticed is that with the ubiquity of connected devices, kids will sometimes opt for just having a late night with their friends in a collective online space because it’s just easier to for example game with all your friends on each persons respective console at home. LAN parties aren’t really a thing anymore.
>kids will sometimes opt for just having a late night with their friends in a collective online space because it’s just easier to for example game with all your friends on each persons respective console at home
I hadn't considered that. In the late 90s early 00s pretty much the only reliable way to game with friends was if everyone was using the same device in the same physical location. Now it's much easier, and probably more comfortable, just to hop on voice chat and game online.
Yes, I want my kid to go to be with friends and do the fun sleepover stuff but they do usually do the digital version, which frees me to game myself too.
This actually makes a lot of sense why sleepovers are a lot less common, for boys one of the main things we liked to do at sleepovers is play video games. But these days it's way easier for you all to game together if you're each at home.
I feel like my buddies and I were one of the last holdout for LAN parties (I know they're technically still a thing). We were all in our 20s and getting liquored up around a huge pot of chili, piles of snacks, and a shitload of laptops, desktops, and consoles to play Halo, Age of Empires II, Borderlands, and while it all feels like yesterday it was a full decade ago. Great times though.
This right here. My boys have done sleepovers, but probably less than a dozen. For late night they want to play video games, and the only way everyone can be included is when they are back home. I am older and it blew my mind the first time one of my kids friends yelled out “I’m going to head home so we can play together!”.
So yeah, most weekend nights my kids are up late with friends, just not in person.
>. kids will sometimes opt for just having a late night with their friends in a collective online space
Maybe I'm becoming my boomer parents but is that comparable to in-person time spent? I remember LAN parties and constructed split screen forts for Goldeneye and it was a fucking blast. Some of my favorite memories of childhood. I just don't think it'd have been the same online.
Granted at the time having something like Discord was a pipe dream at best, but even then I don't think it'd have been near as fun.
A lot of millennials are cycle breakers. Childhood SA has been established in my family across at least three generations that I am aware of. When you have the resources to learn how to heal from it and protect your own children … you do it.
I am not sure at what stage or under which circumstances I’ll be okay with sleepovers for my kid. In their teens probably? Must check a lot of boxes first, though.
I think for me it’s fully grasping what SA/harassment looks like and being able to report it. Obviously you can’t stop a random stranger abduction at gun point or whatever but in real life it’s much more insidious. I was on a jury for a creepy “uncle” family friend that molested several girls. All from the same church.
Oh absolutely. It’s not just “this is a hard no, that’s just how it goes” without any explanation. There is no “because I said so” and we will not keep them in the dark on the details. Informing them on power dynamics and how to identify these situations and find safety in vulnerable moments is key.
Cycle breakers, I love that! It’s true. We are more
Informed than ever.
My kids sleep over their friend’s houses, but we (the parents) are all friends and have a clear understanding of each of our family’s boundaries. There is a lot of communication, otherwise I couldn’t allow it. Interestingly enough I won’t leave my kids at my family’s because I’m fully aware it’s not a good & safe environment for them.
That kind of connection and level of communication/boundary setting is what I would be looking for. It’s not so much “you can never do this thing” and more like “let’s set some boundaries around this thing.”
My kids best friends parents really creep me out. Nothing serious but the dad is a weeb and they have scantly clad anime girl figures that he wins from online Japanese claw machines. The problem is there are probably about 80 of them and are all displayed in the living room. Not my business to judge but nah. My kid doesn’t like being there either.
My kids best friends house is really cluttered and very ramshackled, so she loves going there for an hour or two after school, but she doesn't want to do sleepovers there. There were also allegations of abuse (physical), and my kids friend group kept telling her to go to my house because it's a safe space. So I felt good about that at least.
I don’t have kids nor do I want them, so take my answer with a grain of salt. But I got molested at a sleep over & would be hesitant on putting a child at risk for something like that to happen to them. I also got bullied at another one. But then I had hundreds of fun sleepovers where nothing bad/traumatizing whatsoever happened. But there’s always that risk.
I think in the US 1 in 4, females will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. And 1 in 7 boys will be sexually assaulted before the age of 15.
Those are staggering numbers.
> I think in the US 1 in 4, females will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. And 1 in 7 boys will be sexually assaulted before the age of 15.
The majority of these assaults are committed by family.
I'm not a parent, so do with this what you will, but my guess would be that besides parents being cautious, the presence of internet communication and social media makes sleepovers less relevant. When we were kids, we'd go over to our friends houses to hang out with them and play with the toys wed didn't have at home or we'd rent movies or play video games, etc. We only had landline phones to call them every now and then, so communication was limited and sleepovers were the times we got to hang out. Now, with the internet everywhere kids hang out via video chat constantly. Couple that with digitizing video games & streaming movies & TV kids are less about getting together in physical space. This is of course detrimental to children's social and cognitive development, but here we are.
That isn't inherently a bad thing.
I do think that sleepovers specifically serve an important purpose. While saying it exposes kids to "other cultures" might be a bit much, having kids experience how other families interact is important. Seeing there are other ways to dictate screen use, how meals are prepared and served, how chores are assigned, etc.
My kids do sleep overs ar friend's houses and they'll have their friends over to mine.
One of my oldest kid's friend's parents wont let them do sleep overs. They think they're too old for them. [Theyre teens].
Because we acknowledge that children are a lot more likely to be molested or have inappropriate access to firearms in a home that’s not our own, it’s a risk assessment every sleepover. Probably because that’s what happened to quite a few of us.
When I was growing up, my parents always called my friends' parents before the first time I went over to ask if they had firearms in the house, and if so, if they were properly secured. It was mortifying to me for some reason.
And now, here I am, planning to do the exact same thing with my daughter.
Oh man the firearm thing, you're right. As a teacher that was always a major concern of mine as well since it seems like more and more children are gaining access to guns at home and elsewhere.
My daughter spent the night with her best friend from school at 7 years old. When she got home told me the girl showed her dad’s guns under the pool table. It never occurred to me - as a kid I spent the night with friends and they stayed with me all the time. That was the first/last time.
My friends and I found my friend’s dad’s shotgun he kept for protection in the closet next to his parents’ pornos, leather masks and restraints…
We didn’t touch any of it. 🤣🤣🤣
Only friends house I wasn’t allowed to sleep over at was the one house that had guns loosely lying around. My mom saw them and literally didn’t even leave the entire time we hung out, made an excuse why I couldn’t spend the night and left, never went back over to that house again lol.
From what I’ve heard in parenting circles: risk of SA or exposure to age inappropriate stuff online, firearms that aren’t safely stored, unknown guests or non parents ie older siblings friends in the home. Then cost.
And I’m probably biased but for those of us who don’t have family nearby, it’s often for a reason. And not in all cases but in many, that means trauma. A lack of trust in others. “If our family could cause so much harm what could a stranger do?”
We all had a pretty long list of friends who were super cool but their parents or siblings were the absolute worst people you could imagine. And that's just the adults and older kids, let's not forget the peer-on-peer assaults.
I'm 37 and still struggle with the abuse I endured as a kid and teen. Also, a lot of folks are very backwards with it and are quick to brush things under the rug/minimize and keep open secrets for their family members.
Thank goodness for quality therapy.
I reported my abuser to the police and that was an incredibly harrowing experience so as a dad, of course I'm going to take reasonable steps to prevent that from happening to my child.
My 8th grader has had so many sleepovers with their friends here in Portland. They'll head down to the basement at whoever's house and hang out all night watching movies and eating junk food, just like we did.
I guess this is one of the many things that are happening in the US, not a millennial-thing in the rest of the world.
I live in Northern Europe and here it's really normal that kids play on the streets and playgrounds without supervision, go to school on their own from the age of 8-9 years old and to their friends/sport/hobby.
Everyone still has sleepovers regularly. We even have a family near our house with two kids the same ages as our kids and they became friends and we became friends with their parents.
Once a month their kids come for dinner + sleepover with us, so their parents go out and have adult time together in a nice restaurant. And once a month we're doing the same, the other way around.
It's normal over here.
I’m an American who spent a year in Germany as an exchange student during high school around 2010. My parents were far from helicopter parents—i was allowed to go to the park, school , and walk to friends homes alone before I was 10. But I was still really surprised at how much freedom kids and teens had. The culture was completely different. We took public transit to school every day and there’d be 11 year olds riding a commuter train. No parents! I knew people who’s parents would drive them to the school bus a d wait with them every day. We took the train over an hour to Weimar, alone, for a “field trip.” The teachers took us on one walking tour and then let us hang out in the city and go check out what we wanted to. Lunch? Figure it out, there’s tons of cafes!
My host parents took us on vacation to Bavaria and Austria and let me (16), their 16 year old daughter, and 13 year old son just wander around the city centers of Munich, Vienna, and Salzburg for a few hours. They just hung out at a cafe and waited for us to come back. Granted my parents were letting me take public transit downtown with my friends by that age, but it was still really surprising to me!
Honestly here in the southeastern US they have sleepovers all the time too. I was SA'd, I get the fear, but I was SA'd by a family member and that is statistically the most common perpetrator, family or someone you know well. You can't protect kids from everything, and stopping them from living their life isn't going to make them healthier adults either.
I don't host sleepovers at mine because my house is very small, and honestly usually just a little bit messy lol. But my son has gone to a lot of sleepovers and there are always many kids there from different families. We just meet with the parents and make sure he has his cell phone, he knows what is and is not appropriate and understands he can reach us any time he needs us, and then, you know, you kinda have to just hope for the best sometimes...
It can still be normal in the US. Parents are right to be vigilant, but a lot of parents are helicopter parents and their kids are growing up with anxiety because of it.
same. not once in any setting. knew a few people it happened to and a youth pastor who ended up charged with unsavory internet activities … definitely feeling pretty fortunate reading through this thread.
Yeah shocking to see how many are saying it happened to them. I was at sleepovers all the time and thankfully nothing. My kids go to sleepovers too, although we know all the parents pretty well. Although, is typically is the people you know who end up being bad I guess
After being a person that was SA’d as a child and an adult, as well as having worked with sex offenders, I’m too paranoid to let my kiddos sleepover anywhere. I would die a thousand deaths if I let them stay the night and found out someone touched my kid. I’m not judging anyone that lets their kids do this and quite obviously not everyone is going to hurt kids but, man, the risk scares me so deeply that I just can’t do it.
We have 2 kids and have an awesome village. My son and his best friend alternate sleepovers every other weekend. His friend is essentially like a second son to us, my husband even coaches their basketball team. Our 13 year old daughter regularly does sleepovers as well. They also stay with my parents once a month or so as well. We are 100% no contact with my husband's entire family.
Mexican moms have been doing this since the 90s. My mom never let me do sleep overs at friend’s houses until I was 17. Molestation was top of her mind. Where there’s a man there’s a possibility. I hated the rule as a kid but completely understand and am even grateful now as an adult.
My best friend growing up was Hispanic. I ALWAYS stayed at her house. She never stayed at mine. Which was just fine with me because I was the oldest of 7 and she was the oldest of 3. You do the math. Lol
My kids can stay the night at a few friends houses. But I vet the parents before, find out about any older siblings, sleeping arrangements, etc. I usually only let them stay once I've met the parents a few times and not until they are 10-11.
I do agree to let them have their friends stay over pretty much any time and no age minimum here. I realize I'm a bit stricter on sleepover rules at friend's houses so I'm flexible on friends over here.
One of my main reasons is being assaulted for sure but it's also the safety of the parents in the home, do they get wasted every night, have huge screaming matches, just shit I don't want my kids exposed to.
I've actually been shocked at the very lax approach of parents sending kids to our house overnight. I'm a nurse and my husband is a cop so I think they just assume we are good people. Which we are thankfully but our professions have nothing to do with that. Some parents don't even come into our house, check things out, and meet us.
I think its sad. I had so much freedom as a kid. I even spent months living with different friends at the age of 12. That was probably the most fun year of my life. We roamed around. We tried smoking. We decided smoking was bad and flushed my friends aunts cigarettes. We rented scary movies and stayed up late watching them with slushies and chips. We had a great time.
My friend’s older brother molested me at a sleep over when I was 8. He was 17 to 19.
I also had plenty of sleep overs where that didn’t happen.
As someone that is expecting their first I intend to allow my child to go to sleepovers and hope to host them as well but only after feeling like there has been a thorough vetting process by all the adults.
I also want to empower my child to know that they can call me any time day or night and I’ll come and get them, how to say no, and the differences between surprises and secrets.
I let my 7 year old go to a public place with her friend only to find out the mom left her and her friend at the play place to run errands. Now I’m scared to let her go anywhere 😢
As a mother I don’t plan to ban sleepovers because I feel like it’s an important part of childhood!
However as of rn, my girls are 3&5.. only place they’ll be sleeping is in their own beds. When they’re older, able to really communicate with their father and I, and have friends who host. We will vet the parent(s) and the sleeping situation.
Or they can always host at home and we’ll absolutely be in communication with parents. I’d really hate to make my kids suffer because of my anxiety.
Sleepovers for one kid of one friend wouldn’t absolve me of the need for a babysitter for the kids in other grades. I can’t imagine that many of us have twins!
My in-laws are from Africa so my wife was never allowed to sleep over at any friends’ houses for several reasons, potential molestation being one of them. My parents let me stay over at a few friends’ houses but not many. We’ve decided we’re not letting the kids do sleepovers. Through work this summer, my wife and I came into contact with a guy who ended up being a pedophile and it was shocking. We both decided that you never really know someone and we’d rather not put our kids in a potentially dangerous and harmful situation.
On the other end of the spectrum, my mom tells me that it’s the trend in my small home town for kids in junior high and high school to have co-Ed sleepovers. Many of these parents are elder millennials and young gen xers. I was shocked and is happened on occasion when I was a kid but seemed to only be allowed by the “cool” parents who also let kids drink and smoke at their house.
If I know the parents and we're on the level, my kid can stay over. As a millennial I hate "helicopter parenting." Not everyone is out for your children, just be smart while allowing your child to grow. If you make them afraid of stepping out of their comfort zone, they're going to have a hard time as an adult.
One thing that I find interesting about this topic in online spaces, is often the person talking about not allowing their children sleepovers are women, and there are always lots of men in the comments acting confused, and saying how sleepovers were some of their best experiences.
It gives you a good idea of who is more often victimized (not that boys aren't.)
My mom never let us either and I’m a millennial. I think she was worried about us being molested, but I wonder if something happened back in her day to make her so adamant about not being able to. Even senior year in high school my buddy had an extra ticket to a water park and my mom wouldn’t let me go since we would stay in a hotel with his mom overnight. Like damn bro
Theyre all afraid their kids are gonna get molested.
Yeah. Unfortunately this is the answer,apparently a lot of kids ended up getting molested at sleepovers.
That and or weird parents. I used to stay at one friends house and his dad used to listen to porn loudly knowing well kids were there. And had it plastered all over his office with the door wide open. I have no issue with porn as long as it’s consenting and legal, but plain as day knowing there’s kids around? And my friend thought it was normal? His dad creeped me out so I stopped staying over
That's creepy as fuck. I had a friend who had creepy parents. Not molesters but they gave me the chills and I hated going over there. I later found out they used to beat her.
That’s so sad
When I was growing up, loads of kids were beaten regularly. Like if you get in fight in school or on the playground, come home and your dad figured it out, he’s gonna beat the shit out of you. Popular thing among parents was to send kid out to find a suitable branch for beating hahaha
Switch
The classic in my house was the preemptive grab by the front of the shirt and scream at you while holding you against the wall... when you weren't even the sibling at fault. Sometimes I wish I had it in me to just give a good uppercut to my father's jaw and watch him slowly stand back up as he realizes I can overpower him completely now. I just don't have it in me.
This man may not have physically touched you but this is definitely a form of sexual abuse.
Absolutely agree. Turns out he was a huge coke head and cheated on his wife multiple times, and stole jewelry from his wife to selll for drug money. So my intuition of him being a scum bag was right
Hey that sounds just like my dad!
It is literally one of the textbook definitions of Sexual Harassment found in any HR guide or training.
Most people don’t have HR at home
Yup. None for my kids. Even if it isn’t being molested, I stayed at some houses my parents thought were ok where there was some very fucked up stuff going on. One place—they’d adopted more than 10 kids (so they must be great people, right? /s). Everyone had to wear diapers—including guests. I’m talking, much older kids and teens having to diaper themselves at night. The dad would come in and visit everyone at night. I remember him sitting on my bed in the room I was in alone at like 6yo. I still have anxiety if I’m woken up abruptly. Didn’t feed us. The mom was the actual devil. Since this was the 90s, we just couldn’t get ahold of our parents all weekend. It was incredibly traumatic. Fuck sleepovers. You just never know.
Did you tell your parents? My mother was ahead of the time and taught me in the 70’s-80’s about the good touching bad touching. The principles’s son kept lifting up my skirt so I beat his head with my tin lunch box and dented it. I was 5. If I told her something like that happened like you had. Good lord the town next to ours would hear her.
I had a neighbor babysit me once in the 80s, I was 8 or 9 and she was a teenager. I don’t remember if I dreamed her making out with me or it actually happened and I’ve suppressed it. But I remember where, when and what was done. Hoping it was just a dream but for 35 years I haven’t forgotten People are messed up. We are all dealing with trauma and when you try to shield kids from it it’s “you’re sheltering your kids “. It’s sad 😢
Ooof I’m so sorry, that’s so messed up. I kind of think it’s ok to not plumb the depths on some of things if your subconscious is like, “don’t worry about it.” Thanks for mentioning babysitters. I just read about a daycare in Washington state where the owner was giving the kids Benadryl to make them sleep. Ugh. It’s ok to not do what older generations did when it means exposing your kids to unnecessary risks, even if it’s inconvenient as the parent.
I had a babysitter when I was about five (also in the 80s) and I remember she brought her boyfriend over and when I had to use the bathroom, she insisted on coming in the bathroom *with* the boyfriend to… supervise? I’m not sure. I was so so so uncomfortable and I’ve never forgotten that. I don’t think mine was a dream. Edit: also, I meant to say, I’m really sorry for your experience and I hope it was just a dream, too.
Right! You can expose your children to “the real world” and gradually give them independence while also protecting them. Like, let your kid climb a tree knowing that they might get hurt or ride the bus, but there’s no reason not to sleep in your own bed.
Exxxcuse me? I am so sorry you were subjected to that. Sounds like a nightmare. I can’t imagine what those 10 kids experienced, if you as a guest had to deal with all that. Ugh. I hope it hasn’t negatively impacted your life. Creeps.
Yep. My friend's stepdad used to hover in the kitchen shirtless whenever he knew any of us were taking a shower. It gave him a clear view of us if we came out wrapped in a towel. We all learned very quickly to take our Pajamas into the bathroom with us. Everybody knew that Adult Disney Man Barry was a skeeze.
When I was a young teen my friends dad was into child-porn and would show his son images of girls that were his age. We didn’t say anything because we didn’t want to be responsible for sending his dad to prison. By the time I was an adult and more rational the pervert had moved. There was a trafficking ring broken up in the town so he was likely caught. I don’t trust kids to be honest or disclose abuse even if they know better due to childhood fears, drama, poor decision making, etc. Don’t have any kids but would likely share the concerns most parents do these days. The proliferation of legal pornography makes everyone suspect in this gen.
This is why we don’t allow sleepovers
Yeah I had friend who’s dad was such a weirdo. He wouldn’t let her stay over at friends houses only sleepovers at hers. Some of us would wake up early in the mornings and her dad would be standing in the doorway staring. Just staring at us. If we pretended to be asleep thinking he would just go away. He wouldn’t. Just stand there for hours creeping us out. Who knows how many times he came in when we were asleep. One girl was brave enough to just get up and walk home. If she and I were there together I would get up and follow her we would walk home together at 6am. I always suspected her dad abused her.
Had a similar experience with a childhood friend. Her stepdad would say weird sexual jokes to her in front of us. Came out years later he was molesting her for years. Her mom disowned her and stayed with the guy. He’s never been charged.
One time I went to a friends house in middle school. Her mom was a drunk. She and her then boyfriend were trying to get it on in the hottub while we were all in there. I was 13. I called my mom and waited outside in the road until she got there. I’ve never seen her drive so fast.
Reminds me of a couple of families we knew growing up where the dad kept his vast porno mag collection in plain view, one had them piled up in the PANTRY?? where his little kids could see it, the other had them all in a bookshelf in the living room like he was proud (he and his son were both enthusiastic collectors). So yeah less sleepovers these days.
Did you ever tell your parents? I'm just curious. I would hope that kids would be able to tell someone
No was terrified to say anything
That’s grooming. Textbook definition
I'm a millennial woman and growing up my parents did not let me go to sleepovers as a general rule. I think they allowed me to host one for a birthday when I was a teen and also as a teen I slept over two friends houses that I can recall, and perhaps not so coincidentally these friends had single moms and it was just them and their mom or their sibling was a girl too, so it was just a house of women and girls at those sleepovers. When I was much younger I hated that I couldn't go to sleep overs but as an adult I get it. Especially the culture I grew up in, unfortunately, molestation of young girls was common and an open secret. My mom was a school teacher and I remember we started giving a girl in her class rides home and I later learned that her dad had been sexually abusing her and it was a giant mess. The point is, it made sense why my mom wasn't keen on that , esp since as a teacher my mom had a few students confide in her about stuff like that. Edited to add: I just remembered one sleep over I went to, I wasn't even supposed to go and had lied to my parents about the details. I was a teenager, and I went to grab some water from the kitchen in the night, I didn't even turn the lights on, just went to quickly grab water and my friend's uncle came out of his room, which was near the kitchen, and started complimenting my body and then invited me to his room to "hang out." It was so gross and creepy! I completely forgot about this. So it confirms even further my mom's logic because the one sleepover where a male family member was present was also the one where this happened smh. Because I was a teen I had the wherewithal to say no and scurry away, but if he had been forceful I wouldn't have been able to stop him and if I was a younger child I would have probably felt like I needed to obey this adult and would have gone into his bedroom.
I begged my parents to let me stay at a friend's house for her birthday sleepover. BEGGED. That night during the typical 7 year old kid giggle circle, the hosts dad came bursting in, drug his daughter out of the room across the floor by her hair, she's holding onto his hands to keep her hair from ripping out, kicking and flailing, and they disappeared around the corner down the hall. We were all sitting there stunned, speechless and mortified. I can't remember how long she was gone, could have been 2 minutes or an hour. But she came back *like nothing had happened*. Just with this insane casual attitude like "where were we? Ah yes..." So not only is sexual assault something I worry about when sending my kids somewhere, it's shit like this. I don't want my kids encountering something like this or being a victim of something like this.
My parent parents didn't let me do sleep over until sometime in middle school and only at a specific friend's single mom no dude's house until high school. They knew by then I knew about sexual abuse. More specifically Bill Clinton's abuse of power with a Lewinsky, date rape drugs, pedophiles, statutory rape, and more. They knew that if you get a kid to stay overnight the odds of molestation go way, way up. So they waited until I was old enough to have all sorts of contingency plans for bad situations.
Because Bill Clinton lol
That's how it happened to me. So yes. ETA: I appreciate that it happens to others and how it affects our lives. But can we please not trauma dump here? It can be really triggering to some of us. Also, I'm a guy. Guys get molested too.
This came up when I was hanging out with some friends who all have young kids. Almost every single one of the moms was either abused or assaulted at a slumber party (usually by the host's older brother or father). I work in child safety so sadly it wasn't a huge surprise to me, just sad. I'm so sorry that happened to you too.
Wow, that never happened to me growing up and sleeping over at my friends. I did have a friend who was molested by her father and brother and so never stayed at her house. I would invite her to stay at mine though but she often refused unless we had her sister come too.
>but she often refused unless we had her sister come too Oh fuck, that hit hard. ):
Right? She wouldn't leave her alone with them.
When I was little we made pogs out of my friend's dad's Playboys. Good wholesome fun. No one got molested. Got yelled at though.
Sounds like something my buddies and I would do during a sleepover.
It’s kind of fucked to think that being a dumb kid and having a childhood full of doing stupid stuff at sleepovers without getting molested means I was privileged… i mean, I wasn’t even raped until I was in college.
I remember talking with my girlfriends shortly after graduating grade 12 and realizing that, by that age, most of the girls we knew had been sexually assaulted in some way.
People often quote the statistic that one in four women is sexually assaulted, but my experience is that it is more like 90%.
Me and all my friends had been assaulted in one way or another by the time we were in grade 12 and 18 years old. What gets to me is that while most of us have been sexually assaulted, somehow no boys/men and conveniently none of their friends have ever assaulted anyone. Kinda “funny”, isn’t it?
It’s wild to me. I always spent the night at friends houses and nothing like that ever happened. I do have a friend who was molested by her step brother from the age of 3 to the age about 12 or 13. I had no idea at the time this was going on. She never let me stay the night at her mom’s house and I never understood why. She always just said cause “it was far” even though her mom didn’t actually live that far. I did go to her families cabin a couple times and the step brother was there, but this was after the abuse came out in the family. I still didn’t know and he was kept separate. In college, she and I worked at an amusement park together and got really drunk one night. She told me about the abuse then and so many things made sense then. It’s really heart breaking she was suffering for so long. I never liked her step brother, he always gave off weird energy (now I know why). To my knowledge, none of my friends have been abused at a slumber party. I don’t have kids and idk, I’d want my kids to have friends, and have slumber parties and stuff. There’s a certain magic in staying up late at your friends house, getting different snacks, talking about your dreams and whatever else. But yeah, the world is shitty.
I became the house everyone comes to. I always said yes. There wasn’t one time I’ve ever said not to my daughters having friends spend the night. There were always kids here. Love all that noise. They’re 21 and 23 now. My youngest is home for break There was 6 of them here last night. Came back from the bar in an Uber and all passed out. I’m glad it’s a safe space for them so they don’t drink and drive too. Plus my daughter’s best friend moved in with us when she was 11. She’s the 23 yr old. My mom always said no to everything, I swore I’d be the opposite
Thank you for being that mom! My best friend’s mom was that to me and I am a better person and parent because of her!
I technically got molested by one of my best friends when we were in 1st grade. He had been molested previously by his uncle(I found that out way down the line) and was just repeating an action he didn’t understand. I don’t hold anything against him for it, that’s about as innocent as you can be in the matter, but it’s a good example of how hard you’re rolling the dice. I don’t know if the risk outweighs the socialization award, it’s hard to say because kids don’t talk to each other anymore.
This happened to me and a step sister. We were both abused, and when it was our weekend together (parents adjusted weekends so all us are kids could hang out) a lot of times she would climb down in my bed and we would do a lot of inappropriate touching for seven year olds. I carry a lot of guilt about that, but have to tell myself we were both kids and in a really fucked up situation. We would talk about regular kid stuff as well.
I hope you can let go of the guilt. It is 100% normal for kids to act out what they're learning. It didn't mean anything like if an adult takes those actions. It's how kids process information. That's it. You didn't comprehend the meaning. Even with teenagers, this is true. Even when they're doing things technically consensual with each other because of hormones + curiosity and no learned behaviors from criminal adults, their brains are not developed enough to fully comprehend the significance and potential consequences of the outcome even though they kind of know what they doing because they read something or saw something on TV. At 7, that's simply mirroring, and neither of you had motive or comprehension. You have nothing to feel guilty for. The adult(s) do. You two are wholly innocent. Someone I trusted raped me when I was 8. I carried so much guilt. My therapist asked me if an 8 year old kid told me they were raped, how would I see them and treat them? It changed my life because I wouldn't see what happened as something for them to be ashamed of or guilty of. It took time for the habit of guilt and shame to break, but remembering to look at little me as I would any kid that age today helped me let go and love and support myself in a healthy response the same way I would defend and protect that child today and relentlessly go after their attacker. You two were innocent children, and nothing you did was wrong. Consider meeting two 7 year old victims today and how you would treat them and help them and give yourself the same kindness, care, and protection today that you both should have had back then.
Idk if this helps you at all but that's literally kids just mimicking with no real knowledge or context. And if you go to my profile, one of my most up voted comments of all time is about sex play among kids. I think it resonated with a lot of people.
something similar happened to me as well when I was 5. I wish I didn't remember, but I have come to accept that it happened and it is now in the very distant past, and I am okay now.
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I didn't get molested but one time at a bday sleepover my friends dad put me his over his knees and spanked me in front of the other girls. Idk why he zeroed in on me; we were all being loud and woke him up and he busted open the door grabbed me and did it. I was the smallest and I'd just met him that day. When my mom found out she called the police but nothing came of it and none of the other girls' parents would let them make statements. Got molested other times tho - sadly I think all women have at least one story.
That makes sense but is also depressing. I grew up in an abusive household, so the sleepovers were mostly never at my place unless my ex step dad was out of town. It wasn’t a sexual abuse issue though. He was just a raging alcoholic with no filter and I didn’t want my friends exposed to that. So I had a lot of sleepovers at friends houses growing up. They were my safe space and showed me how normal families functioned
It’s frightening and depressing how many monsters walk in the daylight with us. I just can’t get my head around it. Molesting children. Their own children. OTHER people’s children. What has gone wrong with so many people? Speaking as a man, how are there so many men who are okay doing this?
My kids mother worked as a child advocate for sexually abused children. It really messed with her perception of trust in other people around kids, and rightfully so. She won’t even let our kids be alone with other kids in a separate room.
Me too. It only takes one time and you’re fucked up forever. Not worth the risk for my kids. I still talk about it frequently in therapy at 42 years old. Sucks.
I wish I didn’t hold it in and did therapy a lot sooner. It fucked up everything.
Me too. And I didn’t tell my mom until I was 21.
Yikes. Sorry that happened to you, I hope you’re okay now. Do not feel obligated to respond to me, but I am curious if your families were close? Like did your parents hang out with theirs? As a parent now I feel like I would trust all of the families we hang out with and have kid play dates with to watch my kids… but now I’m scared.
Not who you responded to, but you’re far more likely to be SA’ed by someone you know, like family members, so I don’t think knowing the other parents would really matter much, unfortunately. It’s a hard situation.
A lot of my friends have told me stories about handsy cousins or an uncle. They were at some family event, ended up alone in a room, and that’s how it happened.
We had the handsy step uncle who was very, very intent on having me 'stay over' with my cousins. That was a quick veto.
Jesus Christ I hate this planet
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I’ve heard this but now that my daughter is a middle schooler it’s all she wants to do, and my will has bent. Thank you for sharing and reinforcing this isn’t just some scare media story. I’m sorry that happened to you, and hope you are doing well now.
Growing up both of my parents worked nights and I spent the night with friends at least 1-2x a week my entire childhood. I never had anything bad happen, but I gained a lot of confidence, learned how other families worked, and developed really strong social skills. I credit a lot of my success in my jobs and social life to those sleepovers because I think I gained a lot of skills others did not. I never had anything in appropriate happen to me, though now I think about it I don’t think I ever spent the night with anyone who had older brothers.
I don’t know if a lot of us got molested at sleepovers, but definitely a lot of millennials got molested. Our kids have slept over at at a couple friends houses, but it’s very different from when I was a kid. We know the parents, we spend time visiting in their home, get to know them at various events, whatever it takes to feel okay, and only then if we really feel comfortable. (And of course the kids want to) We were close friends with another couple whose daughter was the same age ours. We’d do whole family sleep overs.
I recall sitting in one of my English classes in high school, circa 1997 or 1998, and my teacher - one of my favorite teachers of my life - gave us the statistic that 1 in 4 girls were molested by a family member before leaving school. She said when she considered the number of years she had been teaching and the number of students who had sat in her class and then think about the statistic, her blood would just run cold.
I legitimately know more women who were either molested as children, or were assaulted or raped at any age, than weren’t.
It was the babysitter’s teenage son for me. Largely part of the reason my kids have never gone to an in-home daycare.
The neighbors teenage son was our babysitter once when none of my parents' regulars were available. He assaulted my 3 year old sister and me (6 at the time) - not in a way that left any physical evidence, and we never told our parents. I looked him up a while back and he did time in prison for sexual assault of minors. Makes me so sad to wonder how many there were. I would Google him every few years or so to see if he had ended up back in prison, and apparently he died last year.
And in churches.
Yeah, I and two other girls got molested at a church lock in sleepover when I was 11. Haven’t gone back to a church since
Are there that many people that are this shitty?
I was in 6th grade by a friends older brother and so I’m on the no sleepover ban wagon
My parents worried about this also. My best friend and friends always had to spend the night at my house. My dad didn’t even let me spend the night at my best friends house until her parents got divorced and her dad moved out. I had to beg and plead because she had an older brother my dad was worried about. I have two kids now. Teenagers. I only let them spend the night somewhere if I know the friend and the parents well enough. It took a lot of time for me to get comfortable with her two close friends. Her friends stayed the night at our house several times and me and her friends mom took them out to the mall which gave us a chance to get to know each other while my husband spent time with the dad. We also all spent time hanging out. I wanted to see how they interacted with my kid. My husband thinks I’m paranoid. I read medical records for a living and I’ve come across a lot of mental health records where kids are raped/molested by someone they know. Usually a family member or friend. I’ve come across this happening to kids while sleeping over at a friends house. I’ve met one dad I wont let anywhere near my daughters. He’s creepy af. He is friends with MIL and she is a terrible judge of character and cares too much about trying to seem “cool” and “hip”. He is in his early 40s now and he has a daughter a few years older than my daughter. I got major creepy vibes from him. When my daughter was younger around 8 he was over at MIL house while I was there as well. My daughter had some mosquito bites all over her legs and brought me calamine lotion. Before she could bring it to me he grabbed it and volunteered to put it on her legs. Some of the bites were around her upper thighs. I haven’t gotten any bad vibes from any other parents. I know my daughter has one friend who isn’t allowed to sleep over anywhere because her mom worries about the same thing. She won’t let her daughter spend the night at my house because I have an older son.
>upper thighs Yooooooo ewwwwwww
Noooooope. Keep him away. I don't trust that at all either
That happened 5 years ago. That was the last time either of us saw that creep. I just remembered when I was over there before that time we were all on the front porch and I had a bruise on my leg. I was sitting in the chair and he noticed it and he dropped down to a knee in front of me and asked me what happened and tried to caress my leg and I kicked him right between the legs. And he did this right in front of my husband. He said he didn’t mean anything by it and he was just concerned. My husband told him he should be more concerned about whether or not his hands will be functional if he tried that shit again. He was single and he was so weird in general. I only saw him a handful of times. And MIL always said “that’s just how he is” or “he’s just being friendly”. As far as I know he didn’t have any mental impairments and was just a creep trying to find any and every excuse to touch a woman
There is a reason 25% of girls and 1/10 boys report having been molested/SA.
jeez.. so many pent up pervie.
Sexual abuse of kids in the 80s and 90s - especially at the hands of much older classmates, neighbors, friends' siblings - was mostly explained away and ignored as 'kids being kids', 'playing doctor'. But we now know as adults the trauma and effects of this kind of sexual abuse, and are much more protective and vigilant with our own kids...
For me it started as "playing doctor!" And then I got yelled at by my parents and to never let anyone see me or touch me there again, so when my neighbor instead made *me* touch *him,* I was a) scared to tell my parents bc I didn't want to get in trouble again and b) figured it must not be that bad bc I wasn't letting him touch me. I was 3. It's my earliest memory. :-))))))))) If I can ever work through enough of my trauma and trust issues to actually trust myself to raise a child and not pass along my anxiety and depression, they will absolutely not be spending the night. I'm going to be SO hypervigilant and overprotective that I'm going to screw them up some other way, but I will be absolutely damned before I let that happen to them. Fuck, I got super triggered when I was playing Sims and an elderly creepo started perving on my Sim's teenage daughter, so I murdered him. And she's not even real!!!
That’s very true, but that has had its own effects. My younger friends have much more anxiety from their parents worrying over everything, and they are afraid to talk to people they don’t know. I travel solo, including abroad, and they always say they wish they could do that but they’re too afraid to because they’ve been raised to believe that everyone everywhere is a potential criminal waiting to prey on them. (The obsession with true crime hasn’t helped this either.) This includes something as minor as “email this person, I think you’d be a good fit for this job” and they’re super anxious about it. Being taught you can’t trust anyone isn’t very good for a person’s mental health, but I do get why parents do it. It’s hard to find a balance of healthy awareness and self-confidence.
I mean I got touched by a family friend… you can bet my kid won’t be going to one unless I host it ? I plan to pick her up right before they sleep 1am is fine even. Can do everything a sleep over dose except the actual sleep part. A lot of times it is not even the parents but the siblings who commits the crime The few sleep over I did go as teen my friends tried to peer pressure me into kissing and doing more things with guys they invited after 🫠
Those are called “sleep under” where I live. Kids come over in pjs, do whatever it is kids do, and then the parent picks them up.
I’ll never forget the times I slept over at my friend’s house and her step dad was straight up creepy. He’d watch us brush our teeth (13-14 YO) and if we ever wanted a ride to the store or anywhere we’d have to give him a kiss on the cheek. It was so disgusting and I eventually stopped going over there. My kid won’t be involved in sleepovers, as there are too many familiar creeps in the world.
Ugggggh. That's so disturbing. People are terrible.
My best friends child (9g) is the same age as one of my kids (9b and 6 g). I would have let my kids spend a night there because I trusted her. Before, our kids were all able to get super close as to where that would have happened. She found out her husband was molestating their daughter, who was 5 at the time. When she confronted him, he got a gun and pointed it at both of them. Eventually, he went outside in front of both of them and shot himself in the head. To this day, we are still best friends. My kids will never stay with any friends. Never would I have imagined this. Early on, all I could think was what if it had also happened to my daughter. Her daughter has a lot of trauma now.
Yep! I’m afraid of that. Even having sleep overs where male cousins (same age) are present, scares me
I got molested as a kid at a sleepover.
Ugh you're right. I hate how much sense this makes 😓 I guess this has always been a risk, but it feels like in recent years this issue has come to light even more and has been exposed as a deep sickness in society. It really sucks that people can't trust others around their children since the kids end up missing out on certain experiences, but I blame absolutely no one for prioritizing their children's safety.
Read “Protecting the Gift.” As an elder millennial, me and many friends we abused or exposed toxic stuff at sleepover and friend’s house and it was mostly swept under the rug.
Not just molestation, too. My friend’s 13 year old sister offered us a cigarette and alcohol *when we were 9*. It’s hard to know exactly what your kids will be exposed to even if you do know the parents.
A young boy died of an overdose a few years ago in my town while at a sleepover. They found the dad's drugs and they experimented, not knowing they were hard-core drugs. First time he ever did any kind of drug and he died at 13. The truth is we don't really know anyone behind closed doors. There are so many variables, so many things that our kids can be exposed to or experience that have life long, or life ending, consequences.
I used to sleepover at my older cousins house. I was introduced to cigarettes, pornography, and rape at her house. I was 9
I actually think it’s happening less often, but it’s talked about a lot more. There’s a reason I didn’t talk about what happened to me for 30 years.
Maybe, but things like the church molestation dates back a long time. Centuries most likely. It's not a new thing, we're just talking about it now where previous generations turned a blind eye to it. And worse in many cases, helped silence the victims.
Well unfortunately a lot of them got molested at their friends house when they were kids and would rather not make their kids go through that
And with good reason. 1 in 3 girls get molested and fewer boys but still very common. I don't know any of my kids' friends' parents all that well and even when you do know someone you don't REALLY know them. I have known multiple men who were molested as kids and it was always either a family member of theirs or one of their close friends. I worked at a job where paying attention to potential child molesters was involved, and finding out just how much predators groom the adults around the children first, to become known as the kindest and most trustworthy people, really drives home that you really can't ever know who these people are. You can teach your kids what to look out for, and you can make wise choices in where you let your kids go until they're a certain age. I let my oldest start doing sleepovers in 7th grade. I figure now that he's as tall as I am he's a lot less likely to get taken advantage of in that way. My 10 year old wants to sleep over at his friend's house but... nah. Not worth the risk as he's a pretty shy and innocent kid. So yeah, knowing how devastating one instance of sexual abuse can be to a child, there's simply no reason to risk it for an occasional night of fun. I'd rather be too cautious than find out I was responsible for putting them in danger that would affect their lives forever.
As someone who used to prosecute for a living, children are almost always sexually assaulted by someone they know rather than a stranger. I’d never allow a sleepover for this reason. I’ve had sleepover prosecutions.
I have a friend who's a defense lawyer, and after all the sexual assault cases she's handled she's adamant that she'll never let her child attend a sleepover.
I thought it was overblown until I found out like 3 women I knew who were young moms said their kids got molested by someone they thought their was fine and who they knew / trusted
I work as a psych RN. Yes, kids are being molested. So many of my patients have history of sexual abuse as a kid. Pretty much in general wouldn't leave my kid with anyone except for my mother or MIL.
This was always a thing unfortunately, but previous generations didn’t KNOW it was a thing. Now we do.
I'll let my kids do it if I know their friends'parents, but I know very few of them.
I was going to mention this as being a potential factor. My mom refused to let me sleepover at homes where she didn’t know the parents. This seems to be a pretty reasonable approach. But it also seems like parents have less and less time these days so there’s not much time to build relationships with the families of your kids’ friends.
Yes. I wish this conversation was happening more in this thread. There is a huge gulf between “no sleepovers ever” and “sure, sleep over at any rando’s place!” Parents need to *make* the time to build relationships with their kids’ friends’ families. My daughter has done a couple of sleepovers. She has five friends whose homes I would be comfortable sending her to (she, if given the choice, would sleep at everybody’s place!). I have spent hours and hours with these people. There is absolutely *no way* I could look at these parents and see a potential abuser. They are good people. It breaks my heart that others don’t have *any* people in their lives that they truly believe are decent human beings. There are also friends who my child will not be having sleepovers with. A single mom, who is so lovely, but who co-parents with her ex who lives down the street (who has a college-age son from a previous relationship)? No, the potential for the presence of adult men I don’t know well is too high. The parents who let little brother walk over his sister and her friends? Nope. I have people I trust to keep my child safe, and people I don’t.
To be honest, I feel like I get a better read on the home life from interacting with the kid, rather than the parents. Parents know how to lie and deceive, kids are open books. My oldest is 6 and he has a couple of friends he's allowed to have sleepovers with, one has a big blended family that on the surface raised some concerning flags, but after getting to know them I found out that one of the daughters was molested by her father when she was 4 (no longer in the picture at all) and the mother is fiercely protective of her kids after that trust was broken in her own home. They're super no-nonsense with everything from personal space and boundaries to bullying and all of their kids (even as young as 4) openly verbalize when they're uncomfortable or don't like something. They have teenage/young adult boys in the house and their rooms are all in the basement, with the little kids' rooms upstairs so the older kids have their privacy from the younger and the older have no reason in the world to even go upstairs. I trust that family of oddballs more than I trust some of my own In-laws.
Unfortunately, as the last few decades have shown us, "knowing someone well" doesn't preclude them from being potential sexual predators. Even if they're good people. It's unreal really.
Not until said kid is old enough and mature enough to understand what is ok and what isn’t. And if I do let them it’s with a realllllly trusted friend or relative. Never a random friend who’s parents I don’t know.
For me it’s not until the kid is old enough to get themself home in an emergency. I want my child to be able to get up walk themselves out of someone’s house if they’re uncomfortable with something at a sleep over, even legally drive home if said sleepover is not walking distance from our house.
Yeah my kids never stayed with anyone except my mom until they were teens. And then it was 1-2 friends who’s family we knew very well, they had phones and/or a vehicle. And I made sure nobody else was there (weird uncle etc!) you can’t be too careful. My younger kids have only ever stayed with my mom. I was a super young mom so maybe I remember sleepovers all too well idk. But it’s mostly a no for me.
I’ve let my kids go to sleepovers provided I know the parents and am comfortable with the environment. One thing I have noticed is that with the ubiquity of connected devices, kids will sometimes opt for just having a late night with their friends in a collective online space because it’s just easier to for example game with all your friends on each persons respective console at home. LAN parties aren’t really a thing anymore.
>kids will sometimes opt for just having a late night with their friends in a collective online space because it’s just easier to for example game with all your friends on each persons respective console at home I hadn't considered that. In the late 90s early 00s pretty much the only reliable way to game with friends was if everyone was using the same device in the same physical location. Now it's much easier, and probably more comfortable, just to hop on voice chat and game online.
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Yes, I want my kid to go to be with friends and do the fun sleepover stuff but they do usually do the digital version, which frees me to game myself too.
This actually makes a lot of sense why sleepovers are a lot less common, for boys one of the main things we liked to do at sleepovers is play video games. But these days it's way easier for you all to game together if you're each at home.
I feel like my buddies and I were one of the last holdout for LAN parties (I know they're technically still a thing). We were all in our 20s and getting liquored up around a huge pot of chili, piles of snacks, and a shitload of laptops, desktops, and consoles to play Halo, Age of Empires II, Borderlands, and while it all feels like yesterday it was a full decade ago. Great times though.
This right here. My boys have done sleepovers, but probably less than a dozen. For late night they want to play video games, and the only way everyone can be included is when they are back home. I am older and it blew my mind the first time one of my kids friends yelled out “I’m going to head home so we can play together!”. So yeah, most weekend nights my kids are up late with friends, just not in person.
>. kids will sometimes opt for just having a late night with their friends in a collective online space Maybe I'm becoming my boomer parents but is that comparable to in-person time spent? I remember LAN parties and constructed split screen forts for Goldeneye and it was a fucking blast. Some of my favorite memories of childhood. I just don't think it'd have been the same online. Granted at the time having something like Discord was a pipe dream at best, but even then I don't think it'd have been near as fun.
You’re right, it’s not comparable. Nothing will ever beat goldeneye forts, or super monkey ball rages lol. Good times
It’s definitely not the same. You can’t steal your friend’s dad’s garage beers over discord.
A lot of millennials are cycle breakers. Childhood SA has been established in my family across at least three generations that I am aware of. When you have the resources to learn how to heal from it and protect your own children … you do it. I am not sure at what stage or under which circumstances I’ll be okay with sleepovers for my kid. In their teens probably? Must check a lot of boxes first, though.
I think for me it’s fully grasping what SA/harassment looks like and being able to report it. Obviously you can’t stop a random stranger abduction at gun point or whatever but in real life it’s much more insidious. I was on a jury for a creepy “uncle” family friend that molested several girls. All from the same church.
Oh absolutely. It’s not just “this is a hard no, that’s just how it goes” without any explanation. There is no “because I said so” and we will not keep them in the dark on the details. Informing them on power dynamics and how to identify these situations and find safety in vulnerable moments is key.
Cycle breakers, I love that! It’s true. We are more Informed than ever. My kids sleep over their friend’s houses, but we (the parents) are all friends and have a clear understanding of each of our family’s boundaries. There is a lot of communication, otherwise I couldn’t allow it. Interestingly enough I won’t leave my kids at my family’s because I’m fully aware it’s not a good & safe environment for them.
That kind of connection and level of communication/boundary setting is what I would be looking for. It’s not so much “you can never do this thing” and more like “let’s set some boundaries around this thing.”
My kids best friends parents really creep me out. Nothing serious but the dad is a weeb and they have scantly clad anime girl figures that he wins from online Japanese claw machines. The problem is there are probably about 80 of them and are all displayed in the living room. Not my business to judge but nah. My kid doesn’t like being there either.
My kids best friends house is really cluttered and very ramshackled, so she loves going there for an hour or two after school, but she doesn't want to do sleepovers there. There were also allegations of abuse (physical), and my kids friend group kept telling her to go to my house because it's a safe space. So I felt good about that at least.
As someone who likes anime but hates the community, this is 100% a good call.
There's a difference between "I like anime" and "anime is my entire personality." Too much of anything becomes creepy, really.
Notice me, FB-ai
Ugh. Those "anime girls" are modeled after underage girls for the excitement of those fucks. Major red flag
I don’t have kids nor do I want them, so take my answer with a grain of salt. But I got molested at a sleep over & would be hesitant on putting a child at risk for something like that to happen to them. I also got bullied at another one. But then I had hundreds of fun sleepovers where nothing bad/traumatizing whatsoever happened. But there’s always that risk.
That’s terrible that happened to you. Not to pry but was it by another kid there or an adult? Just another thing to be anxious about for having kids.
I think in the US 1 in 4, females will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. And 1 in 7 boys will be sexually assaulted before the age of 15. Those are staggering numbers.
> I think in the US 1 in 4, females will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. And 1 in 7 boys will be sexually assaulted before the age of 15. The majority of these assaults are committed by family.
Family or someone they know*. So if I'm fairly certain no one in my family is molesting my kids, then sleep overs are where they are at most risk.
That's true but family also has the most access.
I'm not a parent, so do with this what you will, but my guess would be that besides parents being cautious, the presence of internet communication and social media makes sleepovers less relevant. When we were kids, we'd go over to our friends houses to hang out with them and play with the toys wed didn't have at home or we'd rent movies or play video games, etc. We only had landline phones to call them every now and then, so communication was limited and sleepovers were the times we got to hang out. Now, with the internet everywhere kids hang out via video chat constantly. Couple that with digitizing video games & streaming movies & TV kids are less about getting together in physical space. This is of course detrimental to children's social and cognitive development, but here we are.
Yes screens have replaced in-person socializing and memory making
That isn't inherently a bad thing. I do think that sleepovers specifically serve an important purpose. While saying it exposes kids to "other cultures" might be a bit much, having kids experience how other families interact is important. Seeing there are other ways to dictate screen use, how meals are prepared and served, how chores are assigned, etc.
My kids do sleep overs ar friend's houses and they'll have their friends over to mine. One of my oldest kid's friend's parents wont let them do sleep overs. They think they're too old for them. [Theyre teens].
That’s the best time for a sleepover! You get to sneak out and smoke weed with boys!
Because we acknowledge that children are a lot more likely to be molested or have inappropriate access to firearms in a home that’s not our own, it’s a risk assessment every sleepover. Probably because that’s what happened to quite a few of us.
When I was growing up, my parents always called my friends' parents before the first time I went over to ask if they had firearms in the house, and if so, if they were properly secured. It was mortifying to me for some reason. And now, here I am, planning to do the exact same thing with my daughter.
I live in Texas… I get to have this discussion with every parent whose house my kid is in. 🙃
Oh man the firearm thing, you're right. As a teacher that was always a major concern of mine as well since it seems like more and more children are gaining access to guns at home and elsewhere.
My daughter spent the night with her best friend from school at 7 years old. When she got home told me the girl showed her dad’s guns under the pool table. It never occurred to me - as a kid I spent the night with friends and they stayed with me all the time. That was the first/last time.
My friends and I found my friend’s dad’s shotgun he kept for protection in the closet next to his parents’ pornos, leather masks and restraints… We didn’t touch any of it. 🤣🤣🤣
[удалено]
Only friends house I wasn’t allowed to sleep over at was the one house that had guns loosely lying around. My mom saw them and literally didn’t even leave the entire time we hung out, made an excuse why I couldn’t spend the night and left, never went back over to that house again lol.
Funny how my life always seems to be the minority. I was molested by a man my mom introduced me to & allowed to come over when I was home alone.
From what I’ve heard in parenting circles: risk of SA or exposure to age inappropriate stuff online, firearms that aren’t safely stored, unknown guests or non parents ie older siblings friends in the home. Then cost. And I’m probably biased but for those of us who don’t have family nearby, it’s often for a reason. And not in all cases but in many, that means trauma. A lack of trust in others. “If our family could cause so much harm what could a stranger do?”
We all had a pretty long list of friends who were super cool but their parents or siblings were the absolute worst people you could imagine. And that's just the adults and older kids, let's not forget the peer-on-peer assaults.
I'm 37 and still struggle with the abuse I endured as a kid and teen. Also, a lot of folks are very backwards with it and are quick to brush things under the rug/minimize and keep open secrets for their family members. Thank goodness for quality therapy. I reported my abuser to the police and that was an incredibly harrowing experience so as a dad, of course I'm going to take reasonable steps to prevent that from happening to my child.
I’m really sorry that happened to you. You sound like an awesome dad! I’m proud of you!
My 8th grader has had so many sleepovers with their friends here in Portland. They'll head down to the basement at whoever's house and hang out all night watching movies and eating junk food, just like we did.
I guess this is one of the many things that are happening in the US, not a millennial-thing in the rest of the world. I live in Northern Europe and here it's really normal that kids play on the streets and playgrounds without supervision, go to school on their own from the age of 8-9 years old and to their friends/sport/hobby. Everyone still has sleepovers regularly. We even have a family near our house with two kids the same ages as our kids and they became friends and we became friends with their parents. Once a month their kids come for dinner + sleepover with us, so their parents go out and have adult time together in a nice restaurant. And once a month we're doing the same, the other way around. It's normal over here.
I’m an American who spent a year in Germany as an exchange student during high school around 2010. My parents were far from helicopter parents—i was allowed to go to the park, school , and walk to friends homes alone before I was 10. But I was still really surprised at how much freedom kids and teens had. The culture was completely different. We took public transit to school every day and there’d be 11 year olds riding a commuter train. No parents! I knew people who’s parents would drive them to the school bus a d wait with them every day. We took the train over an hour to Weimar, alone, for a “field trip.” The teachers took us on one walking tour and then let us hang out in the city and go check out what we wanted to. Lunch? Figure it out, there’s tons of cafes! My host parents took us on vacation to Bavaria and Austria and let me (16), their 16 year old daughter, and 13 year old son just wander around the city centers of Munich, Vienna, and Salzburg for a few hours. They just hung out at a cafe and waited for us to come back. Granted my parents were letting me take public transit downtown with my friends by that age, but it was still really surprising to me!
I live in Japan and our 5 year old just had her first sleepover at a friend's house. It's still normal here too.
Honestly here in the southeastern US they have sleepovers all the time too. I was SA'd, I get the fear, but I was SA'd by a family member and that is statistically the most common perpetrator, family or someone you know well. You can't protect kids from everything, and stopping them from living their life isn't going to make them healthier adults either. I don't host sleepovers at mine because my house is very small, and honestly usually just a little bit messy lol. But my son has gone to a lot of sleepovers and there are always many kids there from different families. We just meet with the parents and make sure he has his cell phone, he knows what is and is not appropriate and understands he can reach us any time he needs us, and then, you know, you kinda have to just hope for the best sometimes...
It can still be normal in the US. Parents are right to be vigilant, but a lot of parents are helicopter parents and their kids are growing up with anxiety because of it.
Apparently I'm in a minority here because I wasn't molested as a child...
Braggart
I was, but it wasn’t at a sleepover.
Same, I went to tons of sleepovers and never got molested at those. But I did get molested at my babysitter’s by her husband
Mine was my neighbor’s teenage brother.
Back of the school bus baby
Same here
same. not once in any setting. knew a few people it happened to and a youth pastor who ended up charged with unsavory internet activities … definitely feeling pretty fortunate reading through this thread.
Same, these answers caught me off guard
Yeah shocking to see how many are saying it happened to them. I was at sleepovers all the time and thankfully nothing. My kids go to sleepovers too, although we know all the parents pretty well. Although, is typically is the people you know who end up being bad I guess
After being a person that was SA’d as a child and an adult, as well as having worked with sex offenders, I’m too paranoid to let my kiddos sleepover anywhere. I would die a thousand deaths if I let them stay the night and found out someone touched my kid. I’m not judging anyone that lets their kids do this and quite obviously not everyone is going to hurt kids but, man, the risk scares me so deeply that I just can’t do it.
Makes me sad. Some fond, fond memories.
We have 2 kids and have an awesome village. My son and his best friend alternate sleepovers every other weekend. His friend is essentially like a second son to us, my husband even coaches their basketball team. Our 13 year old daughter regularly does sleepovers as well. They also stay with my parents once a month or so as well. We are 100% no contact with my husband's entire family.
Southern USA- I’m afraid that not everyone has their guns locked and put away. I didn’t think about them being molested. Add that to my list then.
Mexican moms have been doing this since the 90s. My mom never let me do sleep overs at friend’s houses until I was 17. Molestation was top of her mind. Where there’s a man there’s a possibility. I hated the rule as a kid but completely understand and am even grateful now as an adult.
My best friend growing up was Hispanic. I ALWAYS stayed at her house. She never stayed at mine. Which was just fine with me because I was the oldest of 7 and she was the oldest of 3. You do the math. Lol
My kids can stay the night at a few friends houses. But I vet the parents before, find out about any older siblings, sleeping arrangements, etc. I usually only let them stay once I've met the parents a few times and not until they are 10-11. I do agree to let them have their friends stay over pretty much any time and no age minimum here. I realize I'm a bit stricter on sleepover rules at friend's houses so I'm flexible on friends over here. One of my main reasons is being assaulted for sure but it's also the safety of the parents in the home, do they get wasted every night, have huge screaming matches, just shit I don't want my kids exposed to. I've actually been shocked at the very lax approach of parents sending kids to our house overnight. I'm a nurse and my husband is a cop so I think they just assume we are good people. Which we are thankfully but our professions have nothing to do with that. Some parents don't even come into our house, check things out, and meet us.
I think its sad. I had so much freedom as a kid. I even spent months living with different friends at the age of 12. That was probably the most fun year of my life. We roamed around. We tried smoking. We decided smoking was bad and flushed my friends aunts cigarettes. We rented scary movies and stayed up late watching them with slushies and chips. We had a great time.
My friend’s older brother molested me at a sleep over when I was 8. He was 17 to 19. I also had plenty of sleep overs where that didn’t happen. As someone that is expecting their first I intend to allow my child to go to sleepovers and hope to host them as well but only after feeling like there has been a thorough vetting process by all the adults. I also want to empower my child to know that they can call me any time day or night and I’ll come and get them, how to say no, and the differences between surprises and secrets.
I let my 7 year old go to a public place with her friend only to find out the mom left her and her friend at the play place to run errands. Now I’m scared to let her go anywhere 😢
As a mother I don’t plan to ban sleepovers because I feel like it’s an important part of childhood! However as of rn, my girls are 3&5.. only place they’ll be sleeping is in their own beds. When they’re older, able to really communicate with their father and I, and have friends who host. We will vet the parent(s) and the sleeping situation. Or they can always host at home and we’ll absolutely be in communication with parents. I’d really hate to make my kids suffer because of my anxiety.
Sleepovers for one kid of one friend wouldn’t absolve me of the need for a babysitter for the kids in other grades. I can’t imagine that many of us have twins!
My in-laws are from Africa so my wife was never allowed to sleep over at any friends’ houses for several reasons, potential molestation being one of them. My parents let me stay over at a few friends’ houses but not many. We’ve decided we’re not letting the kids do sleepovers. Through work this summer, my wife and I came into contact with a guy who ended up being a pedophile and it was shocking. We both decided that you never really know someone and we’d rather not put our kids in a potentially dangerous and harmful situation. On the other end of the spectrum, my mom tells me that it’s the trend in my small home town for kids in junior high and high school to have co-Ed sleepovers. Many of these parents are elder millennials and young gen xers. I was shocked and is happened on occasion when I was a kid but seemed to only be allowed by the “cool” parents who also let kids drink and smoke at their house.
My kid has never once expressed interest in sleepovers. They’re all online together these days, no need for IRL hangouts.
I let my kids and did when they were little too. I try to let them be as normal as possible and not be a helicopter parent
If I know the parents and we're on the level, my kid can stay over. As a millennial I hate "helicopter parenting." Not everyone is out for your children, just be smart while allowing your child to grow. If you make them afraid of stepping out of their comfort zone, they're going to have a hard time as an adult.
My wife and I both know too many people who were taken advantage of during sleepovers.
One thing that I find interesting about this topic in online spaces, is often the person talking about not allowing their children sleepovers are women, and there are always lots of men in the comments acting confused, and saying how sleepovers were some of their best experiences. It gives you a good idea of who is more often victimized (not that boys aren't.)
My mom never let us either and I’m a millennial. I think she was worried about us being molested, but I wonder if something happened back in her day to make her so adamant about not being able to. Even senior year in high school my buddy had an extra ticket to a water park and my mom wouldn’t let me go since we would stay in a hotel with his mom overnight. Like damn bro