This is a defining chapter in my life

I have known some teenage related heartache in my time…oh yesiree. But nothing could prepare me for the “FIRST GIRLFRIEND!”

It is the way of the world...the oldest of betrayals...the other woman…in your son’s life. There has to come a time when a son transfers his allegiance to another. One with a different vision for his life, for his time, his future, and the length of his hair. One that must, and should, in the normal flow of life, replace that of his parents. He and his lady friend evidently think the appropriate age for this transfer of loyalty is nineteen. I am thinking…no. I’m thinking that until he has finished college and pays for his own living expenses that I still get to reign as the supreme queen of his universe. He however doesn’t see it that way.

I am willing to let go of some of his time...I completely disagree about the hair and beard thing. Thing 1 has inherited my curly, frizzy, thick hair and he currently looks like his head should be put on the end of a toilet brush. I do have to admit that he dresses better and showers more often now that the other woman has entered the picture. For a while there, he was even cleaning his room regularly, but as time has gone by, he has reverted to his sloppy ways. He has developed a greater willingness to watch chick flicks with me. But I am under no delusion that he’s doing it for me. He’s just building up his tolerance levels so he can please his girlfriend. He will not watch Hallmark Channel even to please her.

We see less of him. Family times are now being planned around the schedule of someone who we did not know existed just 8 short months ago. Rules that conflict with their desires (particularly in the area of how late one may stays out on school nights especially when you are pulling C’s in school and I don’t care that you are in college (my house, my rules) or the requirement to check with us before you spend money (because he must pay his car insurance and other bills before entertaining a girlfriend) are relegated to the level of “unreasonable parental control.”

She asked him to go out on an elaborate Valentine’s Day date, and then informed him that boys pay for those kinds of dates. They think we were unreasonable balking at picking up the tab for an $80 plus night on the town. I would find their united front that he should pay, and we should “help” highly amusing, if…it was someone else’s kid. If they should marry and have a child, I am buying that future grandchild a drum set for its 4th birthday.

I refuse to be manipulated and forced to live beyond my means or for him to live beyond his means in order to have this relationship. The battle between mother and girlfriend is as old as time. I have a wonderful mother-in-law, so I was not on the girlfriend side of the conflict. I am surprised to be on the mother side.

After all, these conflicts are minor skirmishes, not an out and out war. Our son is only 19 and living in our home, as far as bids for independence, so this is not so bad. These types of conflicts will melt away with the passage of time.

In all honesty, I like the other woman in my son’s life quite a bit. I wish they had met 6 years from now; however, I accept I am not in control of the universe. Or the length if his hair.