It's probably more difficult for kids to throw house parties nowadays when their parents are out of town due to how accessible security cameras are.
Seems like just about everyone has a video doorbell and/or other cameras monitoring their property. Took it for granted in my youth without even knowing it.
I would actually be kind of proud of my kids if they threw a successful party with their friends when I was out of town. It seems like kids barely party anymore. As long as they clean up afterwards and don't break a bunch of stuff, I'd pretend not to notice.
Have you considered letting them party and being a cool responsible adult that sticks around to make sure everyone is safe. I had some friends growing up with parents like this. Their theory was the kids are going to party anyway so if you give them a safe space its less likely to go poorly. Anyone who got a little too sick or emotional ended up with an experienced adult to help them recover.
Yeah I'm gonna catch a felony charge so somebody else's kids can have fun...
Edit because I want to bring home my point: there is a big difference between teaching your kid how to responsibly handle alcohol and enabling kids who are not your own to drink at your house. It is not paradoxical to say
Mature teens and young adults should know how to responsibly use alcohol:
And
Legal adults should never encourage or enable underage drinking from children who are not their own at their house.
Expand that to culture too, some places it's somewhat common for a family to allow a teen some wine during dinner and that sort of thing, it's not seen as irresponsible at all.
This is so true. My dad taught be to be responsible with alcohol, and he did it without throwing a rager and then begging a bunch of teens to be responsible and practice temperence.
We just had a beer and watched some kung fu movies and talked about it. My kids will get the same treatment.
I feel like everyone knows of some dumb parent because they threw a rager, because "If they're going to drink, they should do it in a safe space," and then got the book thrown at them over an underage DUI case. I'd argue that a party is an inherently unsafe space for kids to learn about alcohol. There's too much going on, too much peer pressure, and too much alcohol to be yourself and learn your limit.
We hosted parties for our daughters when they were teens (15-16). They weren't big - maybe 8 to 10 friends. No alcohol, but lots of food off the grill. On occasion, we let them drink alcohol with us after they turned 18 at home with no friends, which is legal in our state.
I'm relatively young and yeah, I barely ever party. Never did it much as a teen, and I do it even less as an adult in my 20's. It's just not all that fun to me.
As an avid fan of festivals and raves, house parties are kind of boring man. I would suggest giving a good club a try and maybe working your way up to a rave or fest.
Whole different ball game, you're there with hundreds to thousands of people in good spirits with the same mindset. I've met really cool and genuine people at these places, people you'd never hope to meet out in "the real world"
No, I get you. I'm sure that's fun. I mean, I have awesome fun when I go to concerts I like, like Green Day or Gorillaz (yeah, I like old music lol).
But if you don't do drugs, and you don't even enjoy electronic music all that much, I don't really see much point to raves, clubs and that stuff. Especially if most of your friends aren't into that stuff either.
Drugs are definitely part of the fun (really they are common at any kind of public music event), but if you don't like electronic music, you probably aren't going to like raves even on them.
You could go to concerts then? Also, electronic music festivals aren't the only kind of festival out there. There are also metal festivals, rock festivals, hip-hop, etc. I've been to a good bit of those myself, I actually also am a big fan music like green day and gorillaz, first time I ever saw gorillaz was at a festival.
Ah yeah, I go to concerts pretty often. Radiohead, Green Day, Gorillaz, plenty of local rock, jazz and hip hop bands. But I don't really count that as "partying" as I usually go for the music first.
Their point is that not everyone is into partying. Some of us would rather kick back at a friends/our house and chill. I don’t need to drink to have fun.
My point is at which point does a few mates equal a party? If I have 3 friends over on a friday is that a party? If I have 10 people over, is that a party? If 15 of my friends and I rent a house for a weekend, is that a party?
I'm 25, so nah, not really. I enjoy spending time with my friends, but more like, going to get coffee or playing tabletop games. Maybe playing online games and cursing each other out.
But I can't remember the last time I went to a bar or a club. I was probably in college. I don't find much interesting to do when I go to places like that, so I just leave work early and go hang out at my friend's place with a couple beers, or something. We rarely go out to clubs at all anymore.
That’s you but there are plenty of us where the novelty of binge drinking got immature fast. Don’t get me wrong, I partied in my 20s but the way I carried myself when drunk, the dumb shit I did, the after effects of the hangover… definitely gets old. (If I could go back I think of would have impressed far more people, and more girls, had I not had a goal to get shitfaced with everyone and I don’t even consider myself a sloppy drunk.)
Also, at a certain age I think a lot of people realize that your drinking buddies are not necessarily your friends. When drinking is removed as your common activity it surprising how little you have in common with some people and who is really willing to stick their neck out for you in a time of need.
As a parent, my goal is to never let my kids see me drunk/buzzed. I want them to know they can always depend on me, and that I’m always clear headed and in a mental state to provide whatever might be needed (unexpected trip to the ER anyone?). Always on duty.
Oh no. Where I live we do party. Me and my friend groups meet up almost every week to party and almost always we randomly meet new people. It's lots of fun.
My kids are just winding down a 'first week of school party' at our house. I'm not sure how many teens we peaked at... Around 12 14-17 yr olds. This is a semi constant around here, roughly 1-2x a month for most of the year. I'm sure at some point it'll happen without us here.