Teen Parties

The year was 1989, and our son was a high school senior. One spring weekend, he threw an "unsanctioned" party at our house. My husband and I had taken our 14 year old daughter to Las Vegas for a gymnastics competition. When we returned, the house was very neat and orderly (almost too much so) except for one beer bottle cap on the kitchen floor (and we don't drink beer) and some small things that were out of place.

We found out from our neighbor the next day, that our son had thrown a huge party, evident, they said, from all the cars on the street and beer bottles in the yard. They were very impressed that our son had cleaned them up by the following mid morning. Later our son came clean with the details that he had hired a couple of guys from school who made extra money by putting on events at various houses. They had brought in a couple of bands, bouncers, and had 2 kegs of beer, soft drinks, and snacks. All of the rooms in the house had been cordoned off, leaving a pathway only through the kitchen to the bathrooms. They had even cleared out the medicine cabinets in case some of the party goers decided to help themselves to their contents! Advertising had been done by putting flyers on cars at the school., which was obviously effective as about 200 kids showed up!! Students were charged a $5.00 admission fee, (some of which was paid to our son).

I don't recall the details of our son's punishment, but he was probably grounded for a month! We were very lucky (or I should say, our son was very lucky) that everything went very smoothly. I have heard a lot of nightmare stories about these types of parties. Of course, we never would have agreed to allow either of our children to have a party like that which was open to the public, and most assuredly, never would have approved of the underage drinking that apparently went on that night.