Pre-dating?

[GoodGirl]

Does anyone’s church do this?

At the church my sons are members of, you generally are not allowed to date til 18, and a few families say 19 for their own family.

I also saw this in OO Menno churches among our friends in Lancaster County.

What actually happens (in my experience over the years) is a younger couple is allowed to be ‘friends’ and essentially pre-date.

A common activity would be ‘going for a walk’ together in daylight hours.

Or if there’s an event where the youth are supposed to pair up (to serve food for instance) it’s assumed the ‘pre-dating’ couple will *ahem* somehow have the boy draw the pre-girlfriends name out of the bowl to serve with, rather than draw just a random girl’s name.

Do other people do this?

Then, at the proper age, they are allowed to drive places alone together, hang out in the parlor room alone together, text/call, etc.

I just wondered how common pre-dating is, and how often it’s expected just to look the other way.

[steve-in-kville]

... hang out in the parlor room alone together, text/call, etc.

There's term I haven't heard in a while!

[GoodGirl]

Yeah, we’re old school over here.

We somehow ended up w a huge house (though nothing we did purposely~ long story) with 2 living rooms & a library.

I tell our youth of a certain age to pick one for their parlor~ either the second living room or the library, but we don’t call either of them a parlor… just use it that way.

We do have a zillion children/youth, so the big house is okay for now. I’m so ‘over’ cleaning it & am thinking of a cute little retirement house someday.

[Josh]

That sounds similar to OOM custom.

Holdemans have a bit of secret - or not-so-secret - dating that goes on, or worse, “texting relationships”. Such things are discouraged but obviously they do happen.

Associating in groups on the other hand is strongly encouraged.

[RZehr]

I don't see much of this. It does happen. There might be one couple in a congregation doing it, but the rest of the young people wouldn't be. Then there may a gap of time pass by where there is no couples at all doing this.

[steve-in-kville]

The parlor thing is a Horning and Joe Wenger thing. Not sure of other groups that do it.

[Josh]

The parlor thing is a Horning and Joe Wenger thing. Not sure of other groups that do it.

The other types of OOMs seem to do it too (the ones around me, at least). I’m unclear on what affiliation they are. Some kind of Wislers that the non-OO Ohio Wislers came from?

One of the odder things I heard of is if a couple gets married that don’t live in the same place, the girl doesn’t move for quite a while and the husband comes visiting on weekends, and spends his weeks being busy working and building a house night and day.

As far as I know Hoovers don’t do this but they have their own unique courtship practices.

[Ken]

It is honestly not that different from how ordinary American kids do it these days.

When my daughter was in middle school and even early high school she would talk about which one of her friends was "dating" or "going out" with so and so.

Upon probing it turns out that none of them were actually dating as we understand the term. In 2020s middle school lingo "dating" or "going out" just means that you like a guy and he likes you and so you both agree to that status. They don't actually go on dates. Maybe they sit at the same table in the cafeteria and text each other and their friends know that they are then "dating"

By later HS when kids can drive they start going on actual dates, but these days it is mostly group things not one-on-one dates.

[GoodGirl]

It is honestly not that different from how ordinary American kids do it these days.

When my daughter was in middle school and even early high school she would talk about which one of her friends was "dating" or "going out" with so and so.

Upon probing it turns out that none of them were actually dating as we understand the term. In 2020s middle school lingo "dating" or "going out" just means that you like a guy and he likes you and so you both agree to that status. They don't actually go on dates. Maybe they sit at the same table in the cafeteria and text each other and their friends know that they are then "dating"

By later HS when kids can drive they start going on actual dates, but these days it is mostly group things not one-on-one dates.

This was exactly my husband & I in public high school. We met & got together at 14 (me) and 15-16 (him).

I told my mom I was “going with D.”
And she was like “You’re not *going* anywhere!!”

But that’s what we called it at our school- basically we agreed to exclusively like each other and be ‘serious’, and wow… that was over 30 years ago now.

And my mom was right. For years, we we were not really allowed to “go” anywhere outside of school functions. But they eventually let him start hanging around our house, which I always suspected was due to the fact he always happily jumped in with the farm work & family business.

They had strong, young & able free labor on their hands.