Kids These Days
I’ve known this day was coming since my daughter was born, nearly 15 years ago. I’ve heard for years how beautiful she is, how much of a heart-breaker she’s destined to become, how my husband and I had better stock up on ammo. (And we have.) Now, despite my wishes, the dreaded day is here: she has her first “real” boyfriend.
We’ve met the boy and he seems nice enough. Tall, blond and athletic, fairly good-looking and bearing a smear of peach fuzz over his upper lip. He’s got that 16-year-old smirk down pat but seems otherwise nice. Except…he’s a walking bundle of hormones and my daughter just does not grasp what that means. Or she doesn’t care. Either way, I’m disturbed.
Lord knows I’m not the old-fashioned sort. I’m the kind of mom who was such a rebel in her youth that for my kids to rebel against me they’d have to don Amish clothes and aspire to join the clergy. When I was her age, I spent my freshman year of high school in the smoking section learning how to carve apples into bongs, applying eyeliner so it looked like Ozzy’s, and perfecting my mother’s signature on absence slips. When my daughter marked her freshman year with straight-A report cards and then triple-lettered in debate, volleyball and soccer, I counted it as full-fledged rebellion against my misspent youth and considered myself blessed.
So when she told me at the beginning of summer that she had a boyfriend, I vowed to give her nothing to rebel against in that department. I set out to do everything just the opposite of the way my own folks handled my first real love. They’d forbidden me to see the boy which naturally meant I snuck out to see him as often as possible. They’d told me I couldn’t even talk to him on the phone, so I went to my friends’ homes and used the phone there. They’d told me that at 15 I was too young to have a boyfriend, much less date, so I lost my virginity at church camp.
I was determined not to prompt my daughter into similar behavior.
We had the boy over last weekend to spend the day here. I sat on the sofa and watched a movie with my daughter and her guy, then my husband grilled burgers and we all had dinner together before driving the young man home. I figured it was a safe, wholesome environment without too many restrictions — perfect to ensure they could spend time together, but without the opportunities to really get into trouble.
Imagine my surprise, then, when my daughter and her boyfriend practically sat on top of each other during the movie. I coughed. I cleared my throat. I cast a few disparaging glances, and when they continued to ignore me I sat my 6-year-old boy on the sofa between them. They rolled their eyes and I rolled mine. Crisis averted, I thought. But then my husband told me how the boy had leaned over and kissed my daughter in the backseat of the car as he drove the boy home.
What the hell?!
Now, I think I’ve made it clear that I’m not really that old-fashioned but, excuse me, when the hell did kids start acting like this? Hell, even in my 20s when I brought a boy with whom I was living at the time to visit my family over the holidays, I don’t think we ever did more than hold hands. Just a few years back, my mother came and stayed with me and my husband for nearly a month and I can’t think of an instant where she saw engaged in more than a warm hug. (My husband swears we didn’t even have sex that entire month, and I can’t prove him wrong.)
With our 3,000,000-mile car camping vacation starting on Monday, my daughter is now angling to see her boyfriend each and every day. From the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep she’s asking if he can come over here or if she can go over there… and no matter how many times I point out that she’s essentially asking me to set aside 2 hours of my day to drive her there (and another 2 hours to go get her), she can’t understand why I won’t.
Tonight she came up with the idea of going to his house tomorrow for a few hours before his baseball game. His grandmother (who’s well into her 70’s) would be there to supervise and, allegedly, his mother would be there after 2 p.m.
My husband and I talked about it and decided we weren’t comfortable with it. As we explained to her, we don’t know his mother well enough to impose on her for the amount of supervision we’d be comfortable with. She pointed out that his mother had felt fine letting us supervise her son last weekend.
And there it was, for the first time in her life: the cold hard truth that parents with daughters have more stringent standards than parents with sons.
She’s upstairs in her bedroom now with no intention of coming out tonight. Chances are I’ll see very little of her tomorrow, too, at least until she decides to try begging us to take her to her boyfriend’s baseball game tomorrow night. Meanwhile, martini in hand, I’m trying to figure out the best way to explain to her that of course the boy’s parents aren’t going to be as uptight about watching her and their son as we would be… they’re not the ones that would have to raise the baby if their hormone-infused boy did, well, what boys are hard-wired to try to do.
*never tease someone who is dieting* *never tease someone who is dieting* *never tease...
“of course the boy’s parents aren’t going to be as uptight about watching her and their son as we would be… they’re not the ones that would have to raise the baby if their hormone-infused boy did, well, what boys are hard-wired to try to do.”
That’s how you explain it. If my parents had done that, life would have been a *lot* easier!
I’m with you, Kate, I *never* kissed boyfriends in front of my parents. My husband & I might exchange a quick kiss in front of either set of parents, but that’s it.
Look at it this way, you haven’t forbidden her to see the boy, so she can’t get you on that. You’re about to leave for 3 weeks so she’ll be out of touch (just don’t let her near the Treo!) It may die down when you get back, especially since he will have to find other things to do while your daughter is out of town.
Good luck with everything (including the trip!)
Fortunately (?) I’ve learned my lesson and password-protected the Treo. She managed to rack up 393 text messages in the first month I owned it, which is amazing considering how seldom its out of my sight.
oooohhhhh nooooo. Speaking from the man’s side of the bed you are in trouble. I’m fresh out of ideas and I have two teenage daughters. I did try a chastity belt, but darn it they picked the lock.
And here I am feeling a tad bit guilty for having put such fear into my teenaged sons. I’ve threatened them within an inch of their lives if they so much as think of having sex before I’m ready to become a grandparent. The oldest takes this threat so seriously that he was afraid to hold the hand of the last “serious” girlfriend.
Just invite him over for dinner several times a week and load the mashed potatoes with saltpeter.
[Note to the young: saltpeter, potassium nitrate, was in legend an anti-aphrodesiac.
Try these:
Rule One:
If you pull into my driveway and honk you’d better be delivering a package, because you’re sure not picking anything up.
Rule Two:
You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter’s body, I will remove them.
Rule Three:
I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don’t take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, infact come off during the course of you date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.
Rule Four:
I’m sure you’ve been told that in today’s world, sex without utilizing a “Barrier method” of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate, when it comes to sex, I am the barrrier, and I will kill you.
Rule Five:
It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is: “early”
Rule Six:
I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is okay with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.
Rule Seven:
As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process than can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don’t you do something useful, like changing the oil in my car?
Rule Eight:
The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden tool. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to introduce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka – zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided; movies which features chain saws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks homes are better.
Rule Nine:
Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a potbellied, balding, middle-aged, dimwitted has-been. But on issues relating to my daughter, I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house.
Rule Ten:
Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy near Hanoi. When my Agent Orange starts acting up, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveways you should exit the car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early,
then return to your car – there is no need for you to come inside. The camoflaged face at the window is mine.
TO: Kate
RE: In Case You Haven’t Noticed….
“…if their hormone-infused boy did, well, what boys are hard-wired to try to do.” — Kate
Girls are hard-wired to do this too.
Or are ‘we’ suffering from selective rememberance?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Keep fighting the Go[o]d fight. We’re all excited….for YOU, that is.
Just this:
“If you have a boy, you only have to worry about one boy.
“If you have a girl, you have to worry about every boy in town.”
TO: twoma
RE: Cute
However, in the current litguous environment, and the way a goodly number of girls are [mis]behaving in order to get (1) status in amongst their peers and/or (2) the missing male/father figure in their life, I’ll bet you dollars to donuts it’s going to be a two-way street.
Especially if the boy’s family has money.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
It’s possible that your daughter’s boyfriend’s mother is this trusting with all her kids…? Yeah, I know…it may be a stretch. /sigh That double standard sill exists.
After my boyfriend and I became affianced, I was more willing to be kissy with him in front of my parents. Still, I think we’ve only kissed in their presence a couple of times.
Chuck wrote: However, in the current litguous environment, and the way a goodly number of girls are [mis]behaving in order to get (1) status in amongst their peers [...] Especially if the boy’s family has money.
Do you actually read what you’ve typed before hitting that “Submit Comment” button? I ask because after reading your comment I came this close to believing that you’d just implied my daughter is a money-grubbing slut.
And that damn sure better not have been your intent.
TO: Kate
RE: Nothing Personal
“Do you actually read what you’ve typed before hitting that “Submit Comment” button? I ask because after reading your comment I came this close to believing that you’d just implied my daughter is a money-grubbing slut.” — Kate
I was looking at it from a generic perspective. I’m sure you’ve heard of Nicole Smith.
Why not apply that sort of approach to patrimony?
Some women, could certinaly do the same with regards to patrimony. Not that your daughter would do such. But, in general, the potential IS there for the rest of the gender.
I watched my first wife do EXACTLY that, albeit from a more mature perspective. First she raped ME in court, and then, after she had a child from her second husband, i.e., her boss who dumped his wife of 20 years for her, she raped HIM as well. Wound up with the better part of a CPA accounting firm as a result of the final decree, as I understand how things fell out.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. I THINK I was addressing twomas with that comment, was I not?
Or are you getting overly sensitive with regards to the idea that women are JUST as subject to their ragin hormones as men are? If so, cuidado, compadress…..
P.P.S. That’s quite a ’step up’, eh? From lowly junior captain’s wife to head of a CPA firm in Colorado Springs.
Funny how things work out though. She had to abandon that area because, as I suspect, nobody would do business with her. Not to mention reports from our daughter that some doctors wives were a bit upset about her hanging around their husbands.
She’s now working in a different community, as of last report, last September. Someplace where her reputation has not followed her….yet.