The Old ‘Gender Rules’ For Sleepovers Are Outdated. Here's What Parents Are Doing Now.

When I was growing up, there was one rule guiding all sleepovers, and that was the gender one. If you were going to have other kids stay over in a sleeping bag on the floor of your bedroom, it was either girls or boys only. No mixing it up, no shades of gray.

The purpose of this rule was, presumably, to prevent kids from waking up in the middle of the night and spontaneously having sex with each other. That 8-year-olds don’t really do this was beside the point. Sex was very, very dangerous, and we had to be protected at all costs, even when the reasoning was completely nonsensical.

Then there was the fact that once puberty hit, some of us started getting romantic with same-sex partners ... but secret sleepover action was one of the (few) perks of being a queer kid in the ’90s. No adult would imagine, let alone acknowledge, this reality. 

Today, thankfully, we have gotten over the idea that sex is something that only happens between a man and woman. Parents no longer assume so easily that their kids will be straight, or that their gender identity will align with the sex they were assigned at birth. Most families also seem to have let go of the idea that young children might engage in sexual activity if left in a bedroom together overnight.

For many parents, the sleepover gender rule — or at least the assumption that it holds — is gone. But has it been replaced by a new set of guidelines? Or are sleepovers another area where every family now follows the beat of their own drum?

“There are different factors that influence how families handle sleepovers, including cultural backgrounds, comfort levels, personal beliefs, and the specific needs of their children,” Ana Maria Ramos, a community health educator for Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, told HuffPost. 

While some families don’t allow boy-girl sleepovers, or won’t allow them after a certain age, “other parents consider sleepovers on a case-by-case basis, considering the maturity of the kids involved, the relationships between them, and the specific circumstances of the sleepover,” Ramos said. 

Most kids are eager to include their friends in their activities, and will likely advocate for permission to invite kids of different genders whom they feel close to.

“Oftentimes, kids don’t see gender as a barrier to friendships and may want the freedom to have mixed-gender sleepovers, especially if they’ve been friends with someone for a long time,” Ramos said. If some of those friends identify as queer or are gender non-conforming, “They might feel strongly about their friends being treated fairly and accepted,” she added. 

Whether you and the other parents ultimately agree to a sleepover, it’s important that your child knows you are listening to their desires and any concerns they have. You don’t have to grant their request, but you can show them you’re taking it seriously. 

The goal is to make sure that all kids, including gender-nonconforming ones, feel safe and comfortable. Ramos says the best way to do this is for the families involved to discuss the evening’s arrangements together.

“This is key to ensuring everyone is on the same page regarding expectations and boundaries,” she said, suggesting that families discuss topics such as bedtime, parameters for technology use, rules for behavior and which activities are allowed. 

In the interest of safety, she suggested that parents ask: “Are there any firearms in the household? Who else will be staying in the home during the sleepover?” 

What does safety look like?

For mum Amelia Wilmer of Georgia, escalating concerns about safety during her kids’ teen years led her to host coed gatherings in her own home “once they reached their junior year in high school,” she told HuffPost.

“Once they were at my house, all keys were given to me, and they couldn’t leave until the morning,” Wilmer said. She added that the kids knew she would take away any alcohol if she saw it, and that she would remain close by all evening. The teens spent the night in the basement, which had a small office but wasn’t set up in a way that she felt would encourage private romantic encounters.

“Most of the kids I knew pretty well. I made it my business to know all of them,” she said. In spite of all these safeguards, “I never really slept while all the kids were there,” Wilmer said. 

“The girls knew if there was a problem, they would just text me to come down,” she added. But a serious issue never arose. Wilmer’s children have all since left home and graduated from college. 

Other families are only comfortable with sleepovers among relatives. Andrea W., the mother of a 9-year-old son in Las Vegas, told HuffPost that she allows sleepovers, “not with peers from school, only cousins.” This is the rule her own mother had for her growing up, and while she didn’t understand it then, she finds herself now leaning “the same way,” feeling safer only leaving her child with family members. 

What are we teaching kids about gender?

For Gail Cornwall, a parent of five children in a blended family who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, safety is also a primary concern — and so is consistency in messages about gender identity. Her kids range in age from 9 to 20, and she said, “for our younger kids, we do basically zero sleepovers at other people’s homes unless we know them very well, including whether they have guns in the house.”

As for sleepovers they host, Cornwall feels that applying a same-gender rule would contradict their families’ beliefs. Telling a daughter who is involved in athletics and has friends of both genders that boys can’t spend the night “feels like telling her there really are essential differences between kids tied to what private parts they have, which would undermine all the other messages we’ve tried to send her about all colours and activities and careers being for everyone,” Cornwall said. 

With older children, Cornwall is well aware that romantic relationships may become sexual, but she doesn’t believe that a sleepover ban will prevent this.

“If they think they’re ready, they’re going to find a place to go for it, and we’d rather they be somewhere safe. If that’s our stance, there’s no reason to discriminate based on gender. How wild would it be to say a boyfriend can sleep over but a girl one of our daughters is dating can’t?” 

What are the neighbours doing?

Meg St-Esprit, a mother of four children in Pittsburgh, says that her 10-year-old boy/girl twins have attended “a couple coed sleepovers for birthday parties at one of their friend’s houses.” She usually limits these to “families we know really well, kids they’ve been friends with a really long time.”

Like many parents of our generation, St-Esprit’s instinct is to limit coed sleepovers around the onset of puberty. “Now that they’re in fifth grade, I would probably be a little more hesitant,” she said, immediately acknowledging, “that’s me assuming that they are straight.”   

St-Esprit remembers, “I had lots of friends that were not the same gender as me, that I was not interested in whatsoever sexually as a tween and teen. So I really think it’s a case-by-case and kid-by-kid situation.”

She also senses the impact of community norms. She described her own neighborhood as small and walkable. “Everyone pretty much knows everyone, for the most part. Sleepovers seem pretty common.” Yet when she talks to friends who live in other places, even those who grew up with her and attended frequent sleepovers, she finds that some of them have decided not to allow their kids to sleep at friends’ houses. St-Esprit believes that this isn’t in reaction to a negative past experience, but rather reflects the norm of the community they now live in. 

How do families figure it out?

Ellen Friedrichs, a parent and health educator living in Brooklyn, New York, told HuffPost, “Mixed gender sleepovers seem more common for this generation of young people than they were when I was growing up. But so too are trends like ‘sleep-unders’ where kids do sleepover activities but don’t actually spend the night.”

She sees quite a bit of variation from one family to the next, and recommends that families communicate with each other in order to ensure everyone’s comfort. If your child’s friend comes from a family that isn’t comfortable with sleepovers, perhaps because they simply aren’t a common practice in their culture, you might look for “alternatives to sleepovers if they aren’t an option for everyone whom your child would like to invite,” Friedrichs said. 

If your teen is in a romantic relationship, it’s definitely a good idea to talk through both families’ thoughts about sleepovers. You absolutely need to be on the same page. One compromise that works for some families, Ramos said, is “allowing the sleepover but requiring separate sleeping arrangements to maintain boundaries,” i.e., separate bedrooms.

“Even if you feel strongly about allowing sleepovers, I would never recommend that parents go behind another family’s back on this issue,” Friedrichs said. The consequences could be serious. Depending on which state you live in, consensual sex, even between two minors, could meet the definition of statutory rape. 

Friedrichs and Ramos said there are a number of things to underscore with your kids when you’re talking to them about sex and relationships — whether or not to allow sleepovers is only one consideration. 

“Parents should start discussions about what healthy relationships look like long before dating enters the scene. Key topics include respecting boundaries and avoiding the mixing of sex with substances,” Friedrichs said.

Ramos suggested that one way to discuss what healthy relationships look like (and what they don’t) is to “discuss how relationships are portrayed in the media ... and how these portrayals may differ from real-life relationships.”

In addition, particularly if you are straight and cisgendered, “it’s important to communicate that you are an ally and open to discussing relationships involving partners of any gender,” Friedrichs said. 

“I think that parenting is evolving, and we’re raising kids in a world that’s very different than the one we were raised in,” St-Esprit said. “So absolutely any rule we have now, any thought we have now, could change in an instant with a different set of circumstances or new information, or an experience that one of our kids has.”