17 is legal in 38 states, 16 in 31.
+1 for not waiting.
I guess there isn’t much you can do about it if she has her mind set. I’d forbid her from seeing him. If she thinks she’s old enough to make adult decisions she should probably move out 
I read freejookys original post and now this one and have to wonder that aside from hypothetical purposes, whats the purpose in these threads. Its a no brainer to figure out the position of the hypo parents, unless the purpose is to gauge the winds of social norms. Most teenage girls that i have met over the years do tend to be in the 19 or 20 something range, older than the hypo example, but not that much older that they would have had a sea change in the way they think, and almost all of them thought the idea was icky.
The one that had no qualms was a seventeen year old single mom living on her own, so age is the only thing she would have had in common with her peers. I cant see how someone could be morally neutral in thinking this would be anything but unacceptable to society at large.
I keep thinking back to jerry lee lewis and how he wanted them young enough that they were trainable.
Declan
I would just point out to her it’s mathematically impossible for a 27 year old to date a 16 year old. Problem solved.
What?
At that young age, I’d just tell her no and explain why.
When I read these threads the last while I keep thinking of the Jeremy Steinke trial happening right now, here in Alberta.
Jeremy is a 25 year old man on trial for the murder of his currently 14 year old girlfriend’s parents and brother. This happened two years ago, so he was 23 and she was 12.
Up until recently he was claiming she planned it after her parents forbade her from seeing him (they played a tape of him talking to an undercover cop) and now he’s saying he was drunk and on drugs and supposed to meet the girl in the basement (how he got in the house) when mom surprised him so he attacked her and then dad attacked him and he defended himself… he never touched the boy! The girl killed her brother!
Then they ran away to Saskatchewan.
This is obviously an extreme example, but yeah… I wonder about people who want to date that much younger in this context. The example above? Jeremy is obviously fucked in the head somewhere (though competent to stand trial). The girl? I don’t know what to think. Her parents were doing their best from this side looking in, but I can’t know more than what is in the news.
Both adults though? Go at it. I dated guys ten years older than me when I was nineteen and out on my own. Didn’t work out, I learned a lot about life, users and immature men who were more like teens needing a caretaker than 30 year olds… but I was an adult (legally… emotionally? probably not.).
As for the OP. I’m not sure what I’d do. I’d try to protect my daughter from herself, and urge the guy to move on. I just hope I raise my son right so he doesn’t end up as the 27 year old in this scenario when he’s grown up.
That’s what I would tell her. He would be directed to the door with the understanding that my family comes first.
Long before this situation arises I would be telling my daughter/son what is expected of them and why. My mother started lecturing me when I was 10 on what was expected of me as an adult. There would be no support from my parents if I decided to play games with my life.
38 + 31 = 69 states.
Did I somehow miss 19 new stars on the flag?
Yes, the “rationale” is that alchohol is illegal for someone under 21, drugs are illegal for everyone and sex, while not illegal, can have serious, life-altering consequences like STDs or pregnancy. A responsible parent does not condone or encourage behavior that is illegal or potentially harmful. Thay should not, however, prevent them from discussing these topics in a calm and rational manner.
An example so rare and extreme as to not be relevant to the discussion. If anything, it just adds another reason why you probably don’t want to let your teenage daughter date someone ten+ years older than they are.
He may be a criminal in 38 states, but he’s awsome in the other 38.
I think the 31 are included in the 38?
No, just basic logic; you have 50 states; in 31 of them, the age of consent is 16. An additional 7 states set the age of consent at 17. In the 31 states that set the age of consent at 16, 17 years of age is obviously also legal. Hence, there are 31 states that set the age of consent at 16 and a grand total of 38 states that consider 17 year-olds to be of the age of consent.
In either case, other than for legal definitions, is there REALLY that much difference between a 16 and a 17 year-old person? If a girl was born in the afternoon, but she has sex with a man on the morning of her birthday when she reaches the age of consent, is that still rape “no exceptions”?
True… it’s just on the top of my mind because the trial is all over the news right now, combined with all these threads… shrugsAt the least, I could see a girl doing more and crazy things… things she might not otherwise do with someone her own age (or it might be as in examples given where the older man has been a steadying influence). It really depends on the people involved.
At 19 I did more and crazy things and was influenced greatly by the older men I dated. And not much for the better. In the end, I outgrew them and was more mature at 20 than they were at 30.
That’s how I first parsed the statement. It was poorly phrased, but most should be able to comprehend given a second or two. Others have explained. If you really needed the explanation provided, the problem is more with you than with the writer.
if 16 is legal in 31 then the other 7 states are the 17 year olds…i.e. in 31 states 16 AND 17 are legal.
FWIW I asked the 15-year-old in question how she thought I would and should respond, and this is what she said:
If I brought a 27 year old guy home to have dinner with my folks, needless to say they would explode. My father would bring out his shotgun (and who could blame him if he did), and my “date” would hit the ground running before he even stepped on the welcome mat. My parents would then talk some sense into me (because if this situation ever was to happen, it would immediately prove that my head was on backwards). After my little mad fit had finished, I would probably end up thanking them for getting me out of a situation that I don’t have enough experience yet to fully understand. Of corse, my parents would pay closer attention to me for a little while (so that I could prove that I could think clearly and make smart decisions again), but I by the time my common teenage infatuation was past, I would start to see that they were only doing what was in my best interest. Any 27 year old guy that is thinking about dating a 15 or 16 year old girl is only doing it because he can’t get any 27 year old girl. And if the 15 year old girl was really that special, the guy could find a way to wait; and we all know that not many guys will have the patience for that.
If I had a daughter (and let’s all be glad I don’t), I think I’d start planning for this moment as soon as she cleared the womb.
A long time ago, somewhere in these boards, I said I thought kids ought to be trained to be skeptics because later in life, every snake-oil salesman or get rich quick guru will separate them from their money if we don’t start that skepticism early.
Another poster said her son saw a box of instant oatmeal that claimed you just add water and the magic monkeys come out—some nonsense like that. He couldn’t be dissuaded so she found him extra chores, he earned that oatmeal money, and they bought a box. Predictably it was nothing like the fantastic copy described and he was disillusioned…no dancing monkeys whatsoever just globs of colored gelatin (I don’t know if I could have stifled my glee).
Whenever possible (i.e. nothing life-threatening, unduly damaging to the psyche, etc.), I’d let my kids fail like that rather than just vetoing with “because I said so.” I would try to demonstrate to them that “No, I’m not being a killjoy or a pain in the ass or anything else…I take no pleasure in denying your wishes. I’ve just been around the block more times than you have. But since you insist on learning this for yourself, ok.”
When my teen daughter wants to bring home a much older guy? I’d hope that from my allowing her to make lesser mistakes, she would be perpetually in skeptical mode. She’d scrutinize the guy via “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” “Don’t let yourself be fooled by a kiss or kissed by a fool,” “All’s fair in love and war (according to some),” and so on. Hopefully it would take a nudge from me instead of a shove.
Yep, that was my son and I. Please, it was egg-hatching dinosaurs, none of your silly monkeys. 
And it’s now 10 years later and we still, once in a while, joke about whether the must have thing du jour is another “Dinosaur Oatmeal”.
And yeah, same reason as you say. My job is not to protect them from the world, but to teach them how the world works so that by the time they can reproduce (can, not should), hopefully they’ll be making good decisions about it. And, if not, hopefully we’ll have a good enough (not Gilmore Girls by any means, but functional and communicative) relationship where they can come to me for help, instead of running away in fear.
Ah why cant everyone have parents like this,
if critical thinking were a 4th grade (or earlier) subject think about how different life would be? kids who understand things like the process of elimination and basic logic.
I stand corrected