Where the hell were these kids' parents?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

If when I was in high school, my parents had ever found out I was regularly attending parties where everybody was staggering drunk, punch was being spiked with drugs and girls were getting gang-raped I'd have been grounded until I was 40. Just the staggering drunk part would have been enough. And it sounds like these parties were regular events, not just a one-off where a terrible thing happened one time. The attendees were minors, and the parties were apparently occurring at kids' homes while the parents were out. How can this be normal? Did the parents think this was OK, you know, kids will be kids and we'd rather they had their drunken orgies at a nice home with a pool than out in the woods somewhere?

WTF?

[lapfog_1]

1. the rich kids...

in my high school were often left to their own devices while mommy and daddy were "busy at work" or "on vacation" or whatever.

[Bettie]

23. My school too

if there was a party, you knew if there would be parents there based on the address. The rich kids never had parents there, the middle class and poor kids almost always had parents there.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

26. "I don't remember giving permission for a party, Joel."

[lapfog_1]

30. yeah... I was left alone a lot in high school

I was no choir boy... but other than having my girlfriend over for some unauthorized but completely consensual activities...

I never hosted a party at my place while my parents were out for the evening.

But then, I wasn't a rich kid who was raised to believe that I was an entitled asshole either.

----

I loved the sound track to Risky Business.

[Betty88]

31. I'll second this

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Off having parties of their own. When it comes to "the elite," they have their own rules and mores.

[durablend]

3. "Affluenza" n/t

[redstatebluegirl]

4. The rich kids in my school played by different rules.

Their parents were so busy making money or making the rest of us pay they didn't have time to supervise little Johnny. Plus they knew if they got in trouble they could buy their way out.

You are right about my folks, there would have been hell to pay. I would have been cleaning barns by myself until I was 40.

[violetpastille]

5. Key Parties

"The Ice Storm".

[janterry]

6. There were a lot of parties when I went to HS

TBH, I didn't go to that many, but I sure went to a few.


There was a lot of alcohol around - not really much in the way of drugs (well, pot). It wasn't that the parents were always away. It's just that every few weeks one set of parents would be away - and that's where the party was.

[malthaussen]

7. Um, who says the parents ever knew?

OTOH, though I come from an earlier era than Mr Kavanaugh, I went to several parties where drinking, cannabis smoking, and sex (consensual, granted, for a given value of "consensual" ) were done with the full knowledge and consent of the parents.

On yet another hand, while those parties may have been considered "wild" in their way, they were nothing like the kind of animalistic feeding-frenzies Mr Judge and the deponents describe. But then, I wasn't the most popular kid around, maybe I missed the wilder parties.

Having said that, how are parents supposed to know what is going on if none of their children tell them? The victims don't report the assault, and I doubt the young men are going to brag at the breakfast table that they drugged and raped a classmate at the party last night. At least, I hope not.

-- Mal

[libdem4life]

10. Probably because kids never clean up after themselves?

Knowing about the party, that is. The rest of it, no...otherwise they'd monitor their house better while they were away.

[malthaussen]

11. I'm sure experience in this varies...

... probably a lot more than in other things. I never heard of a party where it was understood the parents didn't know a party was going to happen. They probably expected the odd beer can or patch of rug cleaner stain where some kid tossed his cookies.

I'll bet experience varies so much by region, period, and social class that it would be bootless to try to arrive at any consensus.

-- Mal

[Retrograde]

17. Or the house was too clean

I once had a young co-worker, a recent college grad, house-sit for me while I was out of town (and he was apartment-hunting in the neighborhood). I came back to a suspiciously ultra-clean house, including newly-washed floors. The neighbors mentioned a party, but it didn't seem up (or down) to Georgetown Prep standards.

[libdem4life]

20. Winner!!!

[FromTheAshes]

8. PLENTY of crap going on in high school and not just the rich kids. PLENTY. nt

[Solly Mack]

9. Sometimes out of town. Sometimes upstairs - if a basement party.

Sometimes right there in the thick of it.

If it was on someone's dock/boat-house, then the parents were often in the house.

Kids used various boats - pontoons, especially - to ferry kids to one of the islands, along with coolers of beer/booze and whatever.

Some families had in-town houses and lake homes and kids went to where the parents weren't.

There was a huge house on the lake owned by the state that could be rented - and police had to stay out of without cause. They weren't allowed to simply drive on the property to check it out. Big house - huge...multiple rooms upstairs and a huge area for dancing downstairs, etc. Kitchen - boat docks. Lots of water frontage within the boundaries. Close to a small island you could row to with ease.

Lot of denial in some parents.

[SWBTATTReg]

12. My parents were always working and also, they trusted the four of us (kids) then...

We didn't go around partying like this. This is abnormal behavior for any kids to go a party such as this and get drunk (or be drunk already before going to the party). We were too busy working, going to school, etc. to get terribly involved w/ crap like this.

These guys were spoiled brats, plain and simple. They had no responsibility to anyone and still don't.

This whole thing is an example of actions by pathetic and abhorrent prep school boys, who should have been spanked or removed from the student body when this happened. Unfortunately, when money is involved (rich parents etc.), this type of behavior is excused w/ the excuse of "shame on you, don't do this again!" mentality.

If I were smart, I would think that someone setup these parties on a regular basis...they, I am sure can find evidence of this if they looked hard enough.

[MountCleaners]

13. On vacation

Or the parties were held at second homes. My brother and I held a number of huge house parties when my parents were away in Wisconsin.

[Squinch]

14. Parties took place in houses where parents were out of town.

The drinking age was 18 until just before this era and still 18 in many jurisdictions so liquor was plentiful and not considered all that serious.

This was the time of my youth. All this stuff happened.

[elfin]

15. My parents never had to worry - I was such a late blooming squirrely kid

that I would never be invited in the first place. However, I would hear the stories and it was the same group of rich kids who had a cheat ring for important tests, even though they were pretty smart.

One of them got into Harvard (from my midwestern public school) and another got into West Point. The first one's HS girlfriend became pregnant --- and then she was not. And this is from the early 60's.

While raising our daughter, we ruled that she had to tell us where she was going and then check with the parents -- even in late high school. If they said, "What party?" we would track her down to much jibing by her "peers" who years later told us they wished they had parents like us.

She had the foundation to make responsible choices when she went to college to make her own decisions without our interference. It worked out very well.

As I read these accounts I thank my lucky stars I was never invited and now recognize it as a blessing rather than what seemed like a curse in my younger years.

[pnwmom]

16. Some "cool" parents just turn a blind eye, and the other parents who trust them don't know.

Once teens have driver's licenses it gets much harder for parents to supervise their activities. And the eighties was pre cell phone.

[maxsolomon]

29. In the 70s and 80s, parties were always at houses where parents were gone for the weekend.

I NEVER attended a party with drinking where parents were around. I also never attended a party with gang raping.

As a "Cool Dad", I had 1 rule when we left town: no driving, and I gave my reasoning for it. The cops will ruin your life. This was a persuasive argument to every one of my kid's friends.

I trusted the kids not to rape each other.

[maryellen99]

18. I graduated from Catholic HS in the late 80's-early 90's

A lot of my classmates were big partiers. A lot of their parents didn’t know because they thought their kids were “precious catholic angels” who wouldn’t dream of partying.

[Blue_true]

19. I went to school with a few rich kids.

They were raised on remote. The stuff they got away with amazed me. Most of the teachers kissed their asses, a few of the really young teachers didn't, but they were new transplants to the area.

[llmart]

21. My additional question is always this.

Where do these kids get the money to buy all the booze, etc. Do Mommy and Daddy give them an allowance of hundreds of dollars a month? I'm not specifically talking about the extremely wealthy like Kavanaugh.

I have worked at a public university and another post secondary public institution of education and my supervisor and I who were both in our early 60's at the time had lengthy discussions on the subject of "where do these young people get the money for eating out, partying, drinking, fancy coffee drinks three times a day, etc." while we were working full time in white collar professional jobs and didn't feel we could afford that.

[MicaelS]

22. I think some of them had the attitude....

"I partied hard when I was growing up, and I turned out just fine. Let the kids have some fun. Besides, boys need to get laid."

[Recursion]

24. Rich parents in '83? Doing lines of coke in their master bathroom (nt)

[cynatnite]

25. I grew up in a small town where most girls' dads had a shotgun next to the bed

We had crazy ass parties that I sneaked out for, but this kind of shit would've gotten boys killed or at the very least, maimed.

But this sounded like rich brats who thought they could get away with it because Mommy and Daddy were away or just didn't give a shit.

[karynnj]

27. I can't imagine one of my brothers coming home with a yearbook with printed comments

that they wrote that were remotely like that. It is weird that there were so many parties where the parents were not there.

[Johnny2X2X]

28. This kind of money is completely foreign to most

Most people have some affluent friends growing up. Maybe they have the big home and a Summer home on a lake, they drive nice cars and take expensive vacations. This group we're talking about with Kavanaugh is not that, they were way beyond that. The types of families with several homes, maybe private planes, maybe butlers and nannies. These kids grew up in a different world, a world without consequences and a world without rules. So yeah, it was not hard for them to find a home to party in when mom was off at a Spa in Iceland for the weekend and dad was in Monaco for a month. They were left to the servants to look after them. There was always an empty mansion, an empty lake house or ski lodge somewhere. And as far as parent expecting them to be home? Where is home when you're 17 and your family has 6 houses? "Hey mom, yeah, I'm going to be at Mark's house, that's near our beach house, so I'll just sleep there tonight so don't send the driver for me. Toots."

These elites do not live like you and I, and I think that the average person has no idea how they really live and how rich they really are.

And these rich prep schools that they attend that guarantee them admittance to Harvard or Yale, do you really think they actually are forced to achieve Harvard and Yale grades there? They will learn, but they are buying guaranteed As and a pass to the old boys network that will get them into Yale. Once at Yale they buy there way into the right clubs and frats too so they can get trough school with tutors and advanced copies of tests and papers already written for them.

I knew some of these kids in the Mid West, and the ones I knew were all like this and did not come from the old money network Kavanaugh came from. People really don't know that world and TV doesn't do it justice.

[haele]

32. They left the kids for a "conference" with the maid "in charge" of the house.

At least, that's what the family rich kids who went to my High School did.
The maid's primary duty was to make sure the house was clean, the pantry was stocked, and nothing was broken or damaged when Mom and Dad - or whatever PSLQ (person sharing living quarters) the primary parent had staying over for companionship came home.
If the maid was lucky working for a family with halfway civilized rapscallions, they would warn her they were throwing a party before hand, so she could secure the breakables and valuables and lock certain rooms up.
If not, she had a hell of a clean-up for the next day or so afterwards.

Haele

[TeamPooka]

33. The secret life of teenagers

[JHan]

34. My experience with elite rich kids is that their parents don't establish boundaries,

Very often they've never had a woman tell them they can't do something. They're not familiar with the word "NO" from any woman in authority or any woman at all. They're taught that women can be disrespected, ignored or the experiences of women trivialized.

There are other wider societal toxic attitudes that impact boys as well. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/09/boys-have-deep-emotional-lives/279359/

But the intersection of privilege is very much there among young rich kids and amplifies these toxic attitudes. I imagine it was 100 times worse in the 70's and 80's.

[KWR65]

35. You lived a very sheltered life.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

40. Probably. I was kind of a nerd, and at least in high school I didn't get invited

to even the tamer parties. But if these parties had been occurring and my parents ever found out I'd gone to one I'd never had heard the end of it. In college I lived in a dorm and got to go to more parties but I still never attended anything like one of those. We just hung out, drank beer and smoked pot.

[WeekiWater]

36. I went to a privileged Catholic high school.

Not as prestigious as the one Kav attended but pretty damn privileged. For most of my time before high school I attended public school. I maintained my private school friendships. The biggest difference in the two, the parties at the private school were insane. Damn near everyone was staggering drunk by the end of the night. There were two crews. The drinkers and smokers. The drinkers and coke users. Often the parents were at the house during the parties. Some parents bought us our booze.

I feel I had wonderful hands on parents. Parents aren't to blame for everything.

[MineralMan]

37. Probably they were all committing adultery with each others' spouses.

Remember, these are all well-off folks. Bored, too, no doubt.

[Tanuki]

38. Apparently his mom was assistant state's attorney of Montgomery County, MD at that time

and a member of the county Spouse Abuse Commission!

https://heavy.com/news/2018/09/martha-kavanaugh-brett-mother-mom/

..."Before she was a judge, Martha Kavanaugh worked as a prosecutor, according to the bio. She was one of the “first woman prosecutors” at that time, Brett Kavanaugh said in his speech.

“My mom was a trailblazer. When I was 10, she went to law school and became a prosecutor,” Kavanaugh said. “Her trademark line was, ‘Use your common sense. What rings true. What rings false.’ That’s good advice for a juror and for a son. One of the few women prosecutors at that time, she overcame barriers.”

The biography lists her as “Assistant State’s Attorney, Montgomery County, 1978-84. Member, Spouse Abuse Commission, Montgomery County, 1982. Member, Character Committee, Court of Appeals, 1990-93.”

[blueinredohio]

39. If my parents would have received a letter about parties going on weekends

I would never gotten out of the house on the weekend.

[justgamma]

41. It wasn't on their calenders, parents didn't know. n/t

[pnwmom]

42. You just explained why parents didn't find out. Their teens didn't tell them because

they wanted to continue going to parties with their friends - this was a huge part of many of their school friendships -- and so they didn't tell their parents when bad things happened.

After both my kids had gone through high school, the older one told me things she'd never told me before. She said she hadn't told me because she didn't want to panic me, and thought her younger brother should be able to hang out with his friends, just as she had.

By the way, these parties all involved groups of teens spending the night, so no one was driving after consuming any alcohol. In my view, even consuming one or two drinks would have been too many to allow for driving, so it made sense to me that they'd spend the night. I would have had a different attitude if I thought they were drinking heavily, or involved the kinds of situations described by Ford and Ramirez.

When WE had parties at OUR house, they were definitely PG -- and non-alcoholic. And I, too naively, assumed that all the other parents held PG parties, too.