Kissing
When I was in junior high (or maybe even earlier), my parents made a deal with us – if we didn’t kiss anyone until we got to college, they’d pay each of us $1000.
So far, three of us have gone to college and so far my parents have paid out a total of $0.00.
Last week, my cousin Ashley wrote a post about how, based on my parents offer, she and her husband have decided to offer their kids a car to take to college if they can wait to kiss someone until after high school graduation.
I told my parents last weekend that if they’d been offering a car, I would definitely have waited. To my surprise, they didn’t believe me.
But I would have waited. See, my parents paid my housing/food costs while I was in college and I paid for my books and tuition. About a month before scholarship notices came out, I started dating someone. But I didn’t kiss him until after I found out that I’d gotten a big scholarship. If I hadn’t gotten that scholarship, I’d have needed that $1000. So it’s not like I wasn’t weighing the costs.
If it’d been a car, there wouldn’t have been anyone worth kissing.
Would you have waited for a car? A $1000? Something else?
I waited till a week before we got engaged… and I hope my kids do the same!
I would’ve definitely waited for a car. Rick & I went on a BOM jungle cruise in central america (post-med school) with a girl who “won the trip” for graduating high school as a VL.
Wow, I wish my parents would have made me a deal like that! May have kept me out of a lot of trouble. I’m kinda money grubbing, I probably would have done it for $1000. And definitely would have done it for a car.
I haven’t yet been kissed (still a high school senior). I wish my parents would offer me money and/or a car. It wouldn’t be that hard for me to wait about seven more months if I knew that I’d get rewarded for it.
okay this is so wholesome and adorable I’m almost embarrassed to be commenting on it! Um…..no, there is no way I would have made $1,000 or probably a car for that matter. I was boy crazy!
I would like to say that I could have done it for a really nice car. It wouldn’t be just any ordinary car. It would need to be a shiny German, or Swedish, car, but I probably could have done it.
HA! That is awesome. I might have to do that for my kids. And yes, I would’ve waited for both the car and the money.
Okay, this never would have happened to me first off. My parents could barely afford their own car. BUT just for the sake of argument, if they did offer me a car, I still don’t think I’d have waited. I was all about boys. Or boy, I should say, since Dario and I have been together since we were freshman in high school.
You are such an economist.
I think my price would’ve been about $5,000. (Okay, so you know it would’ve been whatever she thought was the best call.)
Oh, man! I totally *didn’t* kiss anyone until I got to college! And apparently I would have paid $4,999.99 for it!
Aw, I am a lame guy.
I didn’t kiss anyone in high school, so the car or the money would have been fantastic. Of course, no such deal was in place–and my friends who were offered such incentives didn’t take them. Go figure.
I have never heard of anything like this in my life! I have no idea what I would have done, I guess I probably would’ve taken either the $1000 or the car. I think I would have resented my mom though for trying to pay me off instead of trusting me to not let kissing get out of control…plus I resented her for everything in HS, I was one of those teenagers (but I had my own very strict standards within relationships)
I would have done it in HS for the car or $$$$. (I made it through HS without kissing anyone, too bad that wasn’t an option in my home.)
Actually, my first kiss was with my now husband while we were dating. I met him three years after I graduated from college. I was 24. I love saying that he is the only one I’ve kissed.
I’ve come up with a good motto to help our kids get through such a challenge if we offer it: Even Cuties Have Cooties.
Or maybe a reward-focused warning: Go too far, get no car.
Helpful, no?
Those are great mottos Bart! I think my parents wished they had come up with something like this to keep me off the boys. I kissed too many in high school. My poor little brother is following in my footsteps as well. *sigh*
P.S. I think it would only work if your child was interested in the opposite sex. My little sister still doesn’t want to date and she’s a sophmore in college. Gotta save the challenge for those where it actually is a problem, right?
I’ve always thought it was a little crazy that your parents would pay you for you virtue.
I don’t think kissing is as big a deal as some people make it out to be. There will be no such rewards for my kids.
I might have held off for a car, probably not for a $1,000.
I’m with Sherry. Well, ask me again when we have kids the kissing age but the whole idea is kind of weird to me.
I definitely would have held out for a car, though, more because I was really shy than anything else.
That would have been no problem for me. Maybe if my parents thought there was any danger there would have been some reward involved.
I know two sisters whose parents offered them cars if they waited until college to have boyfriends. Both of them drove really nice SUVs.
Maybe I will just charge my kids a grand per person they kiss, that might work better. I guess then they would never tell me when they kissed someone. So, I am curious who the guy worth $1000 was. Hope it was a good kiss.
Hmmmm, personal opinion: I’d rather have a kiss than a thousand dollars.
xox
$1000 would probably have had me. Although I would have been angry with my parents for putting me in a position where I had to choose between kissing and $1000. A non-issue, though, since they didn’t offer the money and I had no prospects for kissing in high school. (My grandma did give me her sports car for graduation, though, so it all worked out.)
Probably not. But I was a little hussy back in high school. OK, not really, but I had a boyfriend I don’t think I could have resisted kissing. So, fine, kind of a hussy.
That’s the best idea since the chastity belt!
I don’t think i would have waited to kiss Seth just for a car…or money. Life’s too short to possibly pass up ‘a special momment’ for something material.
Scotty and I dated for eight months before we kissed. I’d have waited longer for money. I mean, after eight months, I should have been able to wait a few more years, right?
I might have done it for the $1000 but definitely for the car!
Too funny. I will almost give my kids anything to not kiss till college. So funny!
Man, I so would have gotten that $1,000. There was absolutely no one worth kissing in high school. I doubt my parents would agree to a retroactive prize award, though.
Honestly, I think that’s horrible. I’d never do something like this to my kids. I think if more kissing went on this would be a better world.
I agree with the dynamic trio.. life’s too short. My first kiss was worth way more than 1000 dollars.
Wealthy kids from our school had some kind of extremely lucrative deal like this with their parents, except some really disgusting amount of money and virginity. The slutty older sister was pretty mad when her sister tried to get it on a technicality…
because she was a lesbian.
They were weird parents anyway though, sheesh.