Hi all, happy to have found an online space for Christian parents, who can hopefully offer some advice.
I’m mom to three kids. My oldest two girls are happily married. It’s my youngest I’ve been heartsick over for a year or so now.
We raised our girls in a church community that emphasizes the importance of purity before marriage. One aspect of this is courting - essentially, when a young man is interested in a young lady, he’ll come to dad to discuss it. From there, they get to know each other with their families and in groups of other couples, all with the ultimate goal of marriage in mind. That’s not to say every couple will end up married, just that casual dating and hookup culture isn’t something we find acceptable.
My older two girls were very happy with this - they lived at home during college and as they began their careers, and moved out once married after courting their husbands. One was a young man we’ve known since childhood, one was a young man she met in a Christian college group.
Our youngest is now almost 20. Just over a year ago, she was in freshman year living at home. She came home one evening and said she was going out. I asked questions and it turned out she was going for a dinner date with a young man she met in class at school. She was meeting him there. I said absolutely not, we argued and she left. She didn’t come back until the next day, and we were obviously worried sick and upset. We told her that and she proceeded to begin to pack her things, tell us a girl she’s met in college had posted a small bedroom in a shared apartment for $300/month and left. She’s been gone since, and according to my other daughter who has her on social media, she’s fully embraced drinking and partying with her roommates and other new friends. She’s been dating another young man (not the one who she went to see that night) for 6 months, and there’s social media photos and captions where they’re obviously sitting in bed together.
Our relationship has been strained as well. She doesn’t call to chat much, and when she does, she’ll rush off the phone at any expression of any disapproval. She doesn’t come to church anymore. The few holidays or dinners she’s brought her boyfriend to, she’s stuck to his side like glue, and flat out said “no, he’s fine” when my husband proposed him and her boyfriend chat man to man in the living room.
I’m at a loss of how to rebuild from here. She seems to have rejected our upbringing and values and is resistant to any discussion of it. Were our standards so unreasonable and awful that moving out literally overnight, when she’d never expressed any unhappiness before, was the solution? Hoping for some wisdom from other parents of young adults.
I’m mom to three kids. My oldest two girls are happily married. It’s my youngest I’ve been heartsick over for a year or so now.
We raised our girls in a church community that emphasizes the importance of purity before marriage. One aspect of this is courting - essentially, when a young man is interested in a young lady, he’ll come to dad to discuss it. From there, they get to know each other with their families and in groups of other couples, all with the ultimate goal of marriage in mind. That’s not to say every couple will end up married, just that casual dating and hookup culture isn’t something we find acceptable.
My older two girls were very happy with this - they lived at home during college and as they began their careers, and moved out once married after courting their husbands. One was a young man we’ve known since childhood, one was a young man she met in a Christian college group.
Our youngest is now almost 20. Just over a year ago, she was in freshman year living at home. She came home one evening and said she was going out. I asked questions and it turned out she was going for a dinner date with a young man she met in class at school. She was meeting him there. I said absolutely not, we argued and she left. She didn’t come back until the next day, and we were obviously worried sick and upset. We told her that and she proceeded to begin to pack her things, tell us a girl she’s met in college had posted a small bedroom in a shared apartment for $300/month and left. She’s been gone since, and according to my other daughter who has her on social media, she’s fully embraced drinking and partying with her roommates and other new friends. She’s been dating another young man (not the one who she went to see that night) for 6 months, and there’s social media photos and captions where they’re obviously sitting in bed together.
Our relationship has been strained as well. She doesn’t call to chat much, and when she does, she’ll rush off the phone at any expression of any disapproval. She doesn’t come to church anymore. The few holidays or dinners she’s brought her boyfriend to, she’s stuck to his side like glue, and flat out said “no, he’s fine” when my husband proposed him and her boyfriend chat man to man in the living room.
I’m at a loss of how to rebuild from here. She seems to have rejected our upbringing and values and is resistant to any discussion of it. Were our standards so unreasonable and awful that moving out literally overnight, when she’d never expressed any unhappiness before, was the solution? Hoping for some wisdom from other parents of young adults.
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