Ask Amy: FaceTime relationship leads to face time
Dear Amy: My 18-year-old daughter has had a romantic relationship for over two years with another young woman she met online.
They have never met in person, but communicate daily via FaceTime.
They would both very much like to meet, and we support this idea, but there are a few wrinkles.
First, we live on different continents (North America and Europe).
Second, the other teen is not out to her parents about the nature of their relationship or about being gay, which makes it difficult for us to visit her without being deceptive and potentially creating an unsafe situation for her and us.
The apparent solution is for her to visit us, but . . . the third wrinkle is that the girlfriend doesn't have enough money to visit without my daughter helping to foot more than half the airfare.
The lack of money also means that she would plan on staying with us, but we as parents don't really know her, so it's a little concerning to host her in our home. The visit could go south somehow, which could put us in the position of having to pay for her hotel and still generally look out for her -- until her return flight back.
We'd really like to help facilitate a visit so these two could spend time together in real life, but we are struggling to figure out how best to do that.
Any thoughts?
-- Parenting in the Modern Age
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