Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Let the angst now begin....

The Boy has his first girlfriend. It seems only last week I was taking him to his first day at school and now he's all grown up. 6'2, handsome as hell, just wiped me out at Tommy Hilfiger in Bath but he looks so damn fabulous in anything he puts on that I couldn't say no. Clearly, of course, he gets that from me. It's often been said that I'm something of a clothes horse..... or was it a clothes line full of badly hung clothes? I forget now.

So, despite my desperate efforts to scare him away from any predatory female, which, in the eyes of an overprotective lioness looking out for her cub, is anyone between the ages of 9 and 90, Cupid's arrow has managed to penetrate the force field I have carefully constructed around him and he is in luuuurrrvve.
Being a responsible parent, I've talked to him (much to his excruciating embarassment) about.. you know.... S E X and being true to himself. He assures me he is not ready for that sort of relationship yet and has promised, when (or IF if I have my way!)  the time comes he will be sensible. So imagine my horror when, on opening my laptop last night, which I had let him use for his geography homework, one of the 'recently opened tabs' was 'early signs of pregnancy'. SHIT!

I thought back over the last few days. He'd been a bit quiet, hadn't wanted to go to rugby training on Sunday and had been 'sick' on Monday morning. In my mind we were already a Sun headline. I was the errant parent, to blame for raising a feckless child, he was, well, not quite the country's youngest father, but certainly way too young. I pictured him being interviewed on the telly, tattooed, unshaven, baseball cap on backwards and saying 'laaak' for 'like' and everything would be 'amayzun'. Quite how he'd made the quantum leap from well spoken, tattoo-hating, Tommy Hilfiger wearing young man to a chav of the first order... well, I didn't quite know but that's how I imagined it. I would be a grandmother in my 40s and my parents would never be able to show their face in church again!

The Boy was already in bed asleep so I spent a turbulent night fearing the worst. My dreams were full of a disillusioned child changing nappies instead of changing the world. It was all I could do not to drag him out of bed at 6am to  interrogate
gently discuss my fears. Instead I had to wait until after breakfast, after we'd had the usual stressful search for the missing geography homework and 'where the hell is my school tie? I left it on the bedroom/bathroom/lounge floor so it should still be there' and for a moment when The Girl was otherwise engaged. Finally just before we left the house I got my chance.

Sitting him down, I put on my best 'caring parent' expression and told him what I'd found. Did he have anything he wanted to discuss with me?  He looked at me as if I was a halfwit, sighed deeply and said those three words every parent in this situation longs to hear "Biology homework, Mum". I flung my arms around him, thanking god. "Get off me Mum, you're mad. And just so you know, I'm not stupid either".

Phew!  I fair skipped out of the house to take them to school, forgetting  I was still in my pyjamas. I'm starting to understand why my parents seemed to go prematurely grey with three children going through adolescence at the same time. I don't think I'm ready for all this.

18 comments:

VEG said...

Hahahaha! Poor mum! I bet he inwardly had a good laugh at it though. And now you'll have a reason for that next grey hair. :)

Sarah said...

Classic! My eldest isn't quite there yet and I'm not counting the hours until he is! There's no hurry!!

Trish said...

Phew! Thank heavens for that!
Isn't it a wonderful experience, seeing your child become an adult and, for a boy at least, seeing him become interested in fashion for a change!
My son started his first two weeks of work experience yesterday. He walked off to catch the bus wearing his new suit, Dad's tie, new shoes and looked like a man...

auntiegwen said...

Love it!!!!! always nice to have your fears reassured

Steve said...

Ah yes. Biology homework. Nice to know he's not ready for the practical just yet. ;-)

Wylye Girl said...

Veggie, I bet it was the first thing he told his mates when he got to school... and had a good laugh at my expense!

Sarah, there is no hurry at all, but it's amazing(or is that amayzun) how quickly it comes around

Wylye Girl said...

Trish, it is lovely isn't it... but a teensy bit sad too. It seems to have come around so quickly. I think our boys are similar ages. Mine is 16 this year.

auntiegwen, I shall be turning to you for advice!

Steve, you say that as if 'biology homework' is some sort of metaphor for something that only boys understand! If I have my way he will never be doing that practical... but that's probably just a bit creepy!

Curry Queen said...

Time to send RJ out shopping for the buy-one-get-one-free box of condoms!! lol..

Perpetua said...

Welcome to the next stage with all its new reasons for sleepless, or at least restless, nights :-) It's seems a long time ago for me now, but since eldest grandson is almost 12, it will be starting all over again at one remove before long....

Lou Archer said...

Gosh, I'll be a nervous wreck when it comes to my turn. Keep writing the blogs, I'll save them as 'How to' Guides.

xx

Wylye Girl said...

CQ, not bloody likely!!

PiT, it is, indeed, a new phase, and one I'd rather not be confronting just yet but you can't stop them growing up can you.

Lou, 'How Not To' guides maybe. God forbid anyone should come to me for parenting information!

Anonymous said...

It's even more scary when you have girls ...

Wylye Girl said...

Alienne, I have one of each so does that make it twice the angst? Aaaarrgghhh!

the fly in the web said...

And I thought I had problems enough with the dog....

Wylye Girl said...

Fly, I'll swap you a dog for a child any day. I'll take them back after adolescence... promise!

Iota said...

Ha! My son has just been doing s..e..x.. in "Health" at school. He and I have been talking about it. He had a couple of worksheets, which I couldn't do at all. They were mostly detailed symptoms of all the different STDs. Then there were the more general questions like "what are some of the disadvantages of having a baby when you're still a teenager?" with multiple choice answers. I'd fail those ones too, because I just wanted to say "but it's so much more complicated than just a, b, c or d - it's probably a mixture of all of them, and then there are all the other things that they don't even mention...".

Just as well he's the one doing the worksheets, not me.

French Fancy... said...

This just proves to me I was right not to have kids - I'd have marched in there at 2.00am, dragged him out of bed and demanded explanations. How do you cope with all the worry - simple...you let it out on your blog.

Your writing style is very familiar - did you use to have an expat blog from France too? Do refresh my sloppy old mind.

Loved it here and will be back

Wylye Girl said...

FF, you are, indeed, right. I'm sorry I should have said when I commented on your blog. This is my new blog which I started at the beginning of the year. Just couldn't keep away!

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