The Modern Parent

I pose the question to you, what exactly is a "modern parent"? Is this just a made up term?

According to Wikipedia "The Modern Parent" is a comic strip from the British Comic Viz.

Not exactly the definition I was looking for.

When I first became a parent, years ago, my parents defined the term modern parent as those who "failed to reprimand their children and let them get away with murder". 

That's obviously open to interpretation. Or, perhaps just bad parenting. Who knows.

One day Emily came home from school and told me our neighbor down the street, who is 15, was having her boyfriend sleep over this weekend. 

Ex-squeeze me?

A couple of weeks later we were visiting my husbands relatives. Sunday morning we were all excited for an English "fry-up" and we all trotted happily downstairs for breakfast, including the boyfriend of my husbands 17 year old cousin.

Mortified, I asked my hubby's aunt and uncle post fry-up, "what up with b-friend spending the night?"

Their answer: "You have to be realistic about these things. It's going to happen no matter what so either it's here under our roof or in the back of a car in some parking lot."

"If we didn't allow it we would never see her anyway."

Hmmm. As much as I respect their opinion, not sure I agree with it. No, I'm ABSOLUTELY SURE I don't agree with it.

What happened to boundaries, rules and curfews? And come to think of it, plain ol' abstinence?

Are these things not realistic anymore? Is this how I'm supposed to parent my soon to be teenager?

Gone are the days when the biggest parenting  issues I was faced with included, how many minutes to put Emily in a time-out? How many pieces of broccoli were sufficient at dinner? Was a forty five minute bath or shower too long for a little girl? And finally, what was the appropriate age to start sleep overs?

If being a "modern parent" is about giving in rather than teaching than please, call me old fashioned.

What do you think? Do you or will you let your daughters boyfriends spend the night?