Leave it to Angelina Jolie to throw out a shocker that tops the rest of the world's moms. Her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, let a 14-year-old Angie play happy families with her boyfriend. They lived in Bertrand's house "like a married couple." And here I thought parents who think it's OK for their kids to have sex under their roof were creepy? Apparently Angie's mom could have taken the top prize for Mommy Needs an Intervention way back in the '80s.
Let's just forget that letting your daughter's boyfriend (or your son's girlfriend) share her bedroom is like hanging up a sign that says, "Make me a Grandma!" It only takes an episode or two of 16 & Pregnant to figure that one out.
Let's talk about emotions, for a minute. And a hormonal, up and down, slamming the door one minute, throwing their arms around you the next, teenager. It's easy to want to give in to their demands to get them to just shut up and be nice to you for once! But they can barely handle how they feel about YOU, and you're going to let them shack up with the boyfriend?
Living with your boyfriend sounds like the ultimate dream world for a 14-year-old girl, that's for sure. Emphasis on dream. Fourteen-year-old girls, even the mature ones, aren't exactly known for their firm grasp on reality. When I was 14, I thought love was like something out of a Boyz II Men song (which pretty much keys you into WHEN I was 14). I was also head over heels "in love" with a guy who turned out to bat for the other team but who was hiding it pretty darn well because we lived in redneckville. I shudder to think what would have happened if we'd been old enough to marry -- me with my blinders, him in need of a beard.
This is why 14-year-olds don't marry. They don't know who THEY are yet. And they don't know how to demand what they really need from other people.
I hate to blame everything in life on a mom's mistakes, but dare I mention Angelina's been divorced twice? And she and Brad Pitt have had their fair share of relationship scandals? That can't be coincidence.
Letting kids play at marriage at that age stunts their emotional growth. They've skipped over the NORMAL stages of development, the ones that teach you all that stuff that makes an adult relationship work.