My wife and I hosted a high school age foreign exchange student for a school year, for several years, and one of the girls told us about her family, and their bed.
Yes, I did say bed... one bed.
In accordance with the rules of the exchange student program, the student (boy or girl) was to have their own bed and a minimum of a 100 square foot room, with a window. A larger room could be shared with a same gender child. If you know someone that has adopted a child, or done it yourself, those same rules apply for adoptions. The homes of the hosting families were inspected for those requirements, before the family would get a student.
Soooo, that was no issue for us.
In her case, Mother, Father, youngest and oldest (girls), and middle (boy) all slept in the same bed. At least they did until she turned 11. She described that her parents got her a seperate bed, (still in the same room), because she was "a very mobile child". I believe what that meant was she moved around a lot in her sleep, and was big enough then to *bump* some of the others with her elbows and knees to at least wake them up, and even bruise them...
The family was not poor; her father was a respected architect. That sleeping arrangement was not at all unusual in their country. Saying families were all very close in their country would be accurate, and they found it comforting to know everyone was properly in bed, and safe.
Prior to hosting that girl, the thought of a family all sharing a bed had NEVER entered my mind. But a parent, including a father in bed with a young daughter that was frightened by a nightmare, or a mother and young son was not wrong, even in my own family, because the parent would go back to their bed once the child fell back to sleep. I was the oldest child, so I saw both cases. The house where I grew up occasionally suffered bad thunderstorms, and sometimes both parents each had at least one child to get back to sleep.
BTW, there are more than a few Hollywood stars that have talked about how their family sleeping arrangements are one bed for the whole family.
Even back in "the old days" in heavily religious times, a young man would visit the family of a young lady he was interested in courting. That trip would be made by buggy or on horseback, so it typically involved an overnight stay, in the same bed as the young lady. BUT, there was a bundling board. Why the same bed, and what is a bundling board? Back in those days, homes were small, each person had a bed, and the homes were heated with a fireplace or a wood burning stove, so it got cold overnight. The bundling board was actually a board that went from the head of a bed to the foot of the bed, placed over the covers, seperating the two sides from one another. Obviously, it was used for modesty purposes, and to prevent touching.
This may sound odd in today's U.S., but you will understand, how a father of a daughter would prefer to know that daughter is safely home, and in bed, and has not sneaked out to meet a boyfriend, or might be taken from the house.
*** Edited to add the following ***
I forgot to mention that although you might have never noticed, most parents check on their children before they themselves go to bed, not necessarily every night though. If you ask, they *might be* embarrassed and deny it, so be prepared for that. My wife and I didn't know before hosting the students that even teen-agers sleep as much as two hours more than adults in their 30s, and young children sleep more. How else do the TV show parents catch their kids using a flashlight under their covers to read, instead of sleep? **smile**
And as far as people saying something wasn't right...
No matter what, people will always gossip. Kids in school will listen to their friends talk, and start into a one-upsmanship contest with their friends to see how terrible their family treats them. It happens. My folks suddenly had about two weeks of trouble with my youngest sister for NO apparent reason. My Mom talked with her friends, and discovered they had each "grounded" their kids multiple times under the same circumstances. My folks grounded my little sister, and suddenly everthing was back to the previous normal.
What happened? My sister's friends talked about how bad their parents were for grounding them all the time, and she made it known she had never been grounded... Sooooo, she apparently wanted to be grounded. Once she got that, she was satisfied.
That duty to discipline their kids falls on parents, and absent that discipline, kids will act progressively worse, in many respects, to test their parents.
One of the other exchange student host families had a high school coach all set to take the student out of their home, to rescue her from the bad house and horrible family... The student had gotten caught up in that one-upsmanship, and word got to the coach. Fortunately, the coach had only gone to the exchange service program co-ordinator, to arrange for her taking the girl into her own home. The co-ordinator immediately set up a meeting with the family, the student, and the coach, at the family's house. Nearly all was resolved once the coach walked in the house, and didn't see, or smell, any of what had been described. Just a little bit later, the student told everyone she had done that to keep up with other students in her school, and she NEVER imagined anything would result from that.
As far as being in bed with a kid, there is integrity needed to realize there are boundaries that **SHOULD** come with being a parent, AND not cross them. Clearly there are baby-daddys and baby-mommas that should not be parents, lacking boundaries and/or integrity, but most are OK. (I hope.)
BTW, before we let the students visit another family's home, (much less a slumber party), we insisted on meeting at least one of the parents. Yes, we did encounter some similar families, and had to arrange an activity so we could each meet the others, but the hosting families had all met each other as part of the service's program with meetings before the students arrived. Again, that is a parent's duty, and we had extra incentive to NOT need to make "that terrible phone call" to their parents overseas who had trusted us with their child.
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