Love is a many splendored thing

Yesterday, evidently, it was exactly a year ago that the boy 'asked out' the girlfriend. I'm not really sure what going out with someone means these days at the age of thirteen. It certainly doesn't mean the back row of the cinema every Saturday, as I think you can count the number of times they've been out on one hand. It may mean a fumble behind the bike shed...but I hope not and in my naivity, I think not. It does for certain mean hundreds of texts at all hours of the day and into the night. So the adage that you can only understand a relationship if you are part of it, and then it's not guaranteed, is true for sure.

I can't say that I think dating at thirteen is a good thing...after all he's got a lifetime of trying to figure out the opposite sex. But in the smoky haze of romance, I think a childhood sweetheart is a great thing...even if at some stage a heart will be broken.

The boy definitely needs a female in his life...four and a half years ago he lost his mother, four years ago he effectively lost touch with his sister and eighteen months ago when we moved to the Forest he stopped seeing so much of doting Irish Nanny. He still sees the nanny when he can fit her into his busy schedule...and she is wise to the thoughts of teenage boys, not to press him too much, inspite of the fact that she I am sure misses him almost as much as her own son who died of Aids a decade or so ago.

I can't say too much about the sister as it breaks my heart that she moved to live with her father and has never once made the effort to keep in touch with her little brother. In the early months of the separation I tried my hardest (perhaps too hard) to keep them close...it was so, so touching to see them together (when the boy's mother and I separated, I never really got to see them both)...but her indifference encouraged I strongly suspect by her father, has meant that a day or so ago he threw away the comment that he didn't really have a sister.

On the romance stakes I am a poor teacher (aren't all parents?). In the last few years he's seen a few girlfriends of mine..that is the semi-permanent ones that have lasted a year or more. But as I've not been truly, madly, deeply in love, they have all eventually been added to the list of ones that got away. Usually when they do go, I'm in deep trouble with the boy as another potential mother-figure has been lost, but I do sit down with him and explain...the last one was terrific but wanted children and that is not on my agenda. So on the long list of things that I am not competent to guide him on, girls and romance is right up there with trigonomics...