Here come the girlfriends!

My oldest is 14.  He is also a boy.  This means that he doesn't often come to me with "boy type" problems or issues.  As his Mother, I am mostly grateful for that.  I am probably better off not knowing his "boy type" issues.

My son does come to me when it matters most though.  He will come to me when something is really bothering him, when he's really frustrated or confused by something or when he wants to ask about girls.

He always starts with, "Since you're a girl........."  It's right at that point when I take a deep but silent breath and remind myself to NOT sound like his Mother.

Those words evoke something in me.  Fear, joy, indigestion, I haven't decided which it is.
I'm not really a "girl" anymore.  I am a woman who has never really had a bunch of luck in the dating, boyfriend, love department until I finally got it right with my current husband.

I didn't date in Middle or High School.  It wasn't because I didn't want to, it was because the boy that I liked usually liked my friend and the boy that my friend liked usually liked me.  Like a bad episode of a High School drama, it went on and on this way.

So, now here I am with a 14 year old son who wants advice on girls.  I dare not tell him the truth.  The truth is, that he will like many girls who will not like him back, that he will have girls following him around, "in love" with him that he doesn't like at all.  That his heart will get broken, more than once, and that when it does he will pick up the pieces just to have it broken again.

I don't tell him that girls are as scared as boys are but mostly because if their girlfriends don't like the boy she is dating, she will have to dump him, no matter how she really feels.

I don't tell him that he's too young to be thinking about girls and dating and that there are more important things for him to focus on.  I also don't tell him that I don't really believe that he's too young to be thinking about girls and dating, I just want him to believe that so that he doesn't have to get hurt by it all already.

And so it begins.  His life is beginning to become his own.  This is the first step towards finding his future wife.  That sounds dramatic, but it's true.  Dating is how he will know her when he meets her. 

When the time does come for each of my children to marry, I do hope that they ALL will remember the one piece of advice that I didn't take myself the first time I got married BUT did get right the second time;

"Marry your best friend."

In the meantime, I will give advice only when asked, I will help him pick out corsages and I will not kick the ass of any little girl who breaks my son's heart.  What more could a son ask of his good ol' Mom?