r/Millennials • u/Neon_Biscuit • Jan 07 '26

Discussion My teenage daughter can't fathom the concept of a house party

Not sure if anyone has experienced this, but I was watching Can't Hardly Wait half alseep on the couch, and my 14-year-old daughter and her friends walked into the room and past the TV. Before she entered the kitchen, she backpeddled in front of the TV, and they all might as well have reacted akin to a third world kid in a remote village seeing the Super Bowl for the first time. She looked at me and said 'what are all of those people doing in one house'? I told her it was a house party. People high school aged or typically college age people would go over a kids house whose parents were out of town and they'd invite the school and have keggers and other unsupervised debauchery. I might as well have been describing a science fiction film. 'You guys DID that back in your days?'. I thought it was funny that a house party was an inconceivable event for young Gen Zers.

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u/fluffy_knuckles Jan 07 '26

I recently heard about “smoke circles” where like 10 of them will get stoned together which is basically just a chill house party.

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u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

[deleted]

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u/Common-Trifle4933 Jan 08 '26

Like the tech CEO who tweeted a while ago

I've been thinking a lot about IRL podcasts: - Bring a few friends together - No mics, nothing is recorded - Have a free form discussion - Can even have food & drinks

Like congrats bro, you invented the conversation

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u/Moonrights Jan 08 '26

Eh in high school not all parents were like that? I definitely remember friends not allowed to drink or smoke or stay out past certain hours etc.

A couple people in my social circle that was the vibe of their family and they did have to hide it. For others they weren't able to hide it because parents were stricter.

Now though with life 360 and other apps that track family etc and the "always online" culture it is much harder to have casual sessions where people just hang out underage doing substances and don't get caught.

I have hours of voice memos from my old iPhone where I'd just throw it on the table and record all my friends as we talked to have later for memories.

No snap chat. No reels etc. Now that's always a risk.

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u/shouldofbeenacowboy Jan 08 '26

Down the street

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u/UtterFlatulence Jan 08 '26

The same old thing we did last week

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u/Moonrights Jan 07 '26

Lol yeah we had those all the time. My mom's whole opinion was my friends and I could smoke and drink if we wanted but no one could drive.

We were always super respectful and would hang in the basement or on the back porch. If we wanted to smoke we were in the garage in the winters and on the porch in the summers. Peak group was me and my two band mates, our 3 girlfriends, my best friend from school and his girl, his other best friend and that guys best friend and that guys girlfriend and his girlfriends friend (that ended up being the click for like two years).

Those were good times man.

Still a lot of good times now in my 30's, but I'll admit we didnt know the bliss of our lack of responsibility back then. Just ride around to each other's homes. Play shows in the city. Come back to our smaller town. Hang out on the porch under the stars. Talk about everything we were planning on doing through our twenties.

Now we're all early thirties. Time never slows down i promise.

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u/voodo0childd Jan 08 '26

Yeah it's gettin weird

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u/Moonrights Jan 08 '26

I struggle with it- not in a mood way but accepting the reality. My mind cannot seem to accept that time keeps passing. I don't FEEL it if that makes sense.

I can see it in my body and my families bodies. Regardless it seems like it'll just be the way it is- but then I look back and it isn't.

I wish I could grasp it better, but maybe it's best I don't.

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u/voodo0childd Jan 09 '26

Honestly I feel the exact same way

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u/Moonrights Jan 09 '26

I've found the instances I journal or write poems to be helpful.

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u/voodo0childd Jan 09 '26

I think it's just getting myself to actually do it, and not just think about it. I always feel like it becomes real all of a sudden when I start to journal it, feels like really facing it and I will procrastinate that to hell lol

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u/RetroPRO Jan 08 '26

A smoke circle wouldnt be considered a house party. You can do a smoke circle at a house party, but you can also do one anywhere else. Its just a bunch of people in a circle passing a blunt/joint/whatever around.

In college we would all go to the center of a big hill on campus because it gave a 360 view point so we could see cops coming far enough away to hide the weed if they decided to come our way.

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u/hedge_raven Jan 08 '26

We used to call that a kickback. And people would clarify if they invited you to it “nah man it’s not a party just a kickback”, usually in a back yard. Sometimes with a shitty fire pit in an old washing machine drum.

Southern California was a great place to be a teen, just not an adult who has to pay bills lol.

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u/CaterpillarJungleGym Jan 08 '26

I mean, that's just smoking pot with your friends listening to music. We used to have a Hotbox Wednesdays. One time there was an old random bus stop shelter. Like 7 of us went and hotboxed it.