Uncharted Waters of Adulthood

My poor kids.

When I was growing up,the worst that could happen was my cousins who lived with us, coming by the front french glass doors of our house as I was ending a date.

"They're kissing They're kissing They're kissing They're kissing!" was the cry that echoed through the house. We weren't but as a teenager, one dies a 1000 times of humiliation. I was certain my Mom had put her up to it, but this has been denied consistently.

Now as the parent, it's my turn. I get to be the gatekeeper. This is uncharted territory. For years, I've supervised playdates, taken the time to know teachers and coaches and parents that surround my children's friends. Now, with a son in high school, I'd be hardpressed to pick his friends out of a line up, given the fact that the instutition at which he spends 8+ hours a day five days a week is more than an hour commute away.

We encouraged him to join a play, a club, anything to make friends more accessible. He did. Now, we must pay the price for our good counsel.

By being in a play, he had met and asked a girl on a date.

We tried to be nonchallant and vigilant at the same time. It meant we wafted between demanding that we be the drivers to pick the girl up and not insisting on getting her home address so we could google her family.

The date was on for this past Sunday. Because we were still unsure how this would work, I volunteered to take four children to see a seperate movie so we'd be oncall and available if anything disasterous happened. (Other than having your mother and two brothers and two sisters crash your first date)!

Our movie ended first. The other show had another hour to go, so I took my party home and returned to stake out the theatre. When my son came up with his date, her mother was talking with them. She had come along too. She had also taken the opportunity to catch a film she wouldn't otherwise get to see. We started up a conversation and hit it off.

I don't know how the date was for my son or for her,but as far as the moms were concerned, it was a fun evening. They gave each other a chaste hug and both parents went home sighing in vague contentment at having managed to cobble through the first hurdle of the next stage of parenting.

I'm thinking of putting in French glass doors and staking out his sisters for future date nights.