"My Mom Won't Let My Boyfriend Sleep Over!"

Name: Whitney
Age: 24
Years at home: 4

Hardest part? "My boyfriend is free to come and go -- as long as he doesn't spend the night," Whitney says. "My mom was good about compromising in the beginning; she said he could stay over as long as he stayed in my brother's old room. But of course, we would sneak into each other's room -- and playing musical beds at 5 a.m. is not the best thing. Now she won't let him stay over at all, so I always have to go to his place. Sometimes I'd really just like to have him stay here with me, but my mom refuses to see that I'm a grown woman who should be allowed to have guests over."

Most embarrassing moment? "I hate coming home very late (or rather, very early) after spending the night at my boyfriend's. My mom is up at the crack of dawn, so it's a little awkward when I come home at 6 a.m. and she's like, 'When I saw you last night, you were here.' If she'd just let him stay over, this wouldn't happen."

The solution: Whitney needs to level with her mother, our experts say. "Look, her mom is well aware that she's sneaking around -- and that's got to feel rather teenage," Medea says. "It's not sophisticated to be running down the hall at five in the morning. It's one thing at 16 to believe you're fooling your folks, but at 24, she should know better!" Her mom already knows what's going on; she's just trying to pretend it's not happening, Newman says: "Parents do get stuck in the mind-set of thinking their child is a child, and young adults have to jog their parents' minds and remind them that they're grown-ups."

How do you do that? Honesty is the best route, Newman says. "She could point that before she moved back home, her mom didn't know she'd stayed out all night with some guy. She can say, 'You're going to have to look at me as a responsible adult who can make smart decisions for herself. What do you think I was doing when I was living on my own?'" If her mom still balks at letting her boyfriend spend the night, Whitney can also try presenting the situation in terms of safety rather than sleeping arrangements, Medea suggests. "She can say, 'I don't think I feel comfortable coming home at 4 a.m. Maybe I should stay there or he can stay here.'" That should get the topic out in the open and both sides talking about what makes sense.