Boyfriends….

For someone who always has so much to say, I surprise even myself when I have writer’s block.   One page a week should be easy enough to write.   Last week the writer’s block was so debilitating that I simply gave up.  This week I asked my daughters for a topic to write about and I was pretty surprised at the response.

Boyfriends are a pretty constant theme in this house of late, as in our girls don’t date.  Most parents would be absolutely thrilled that a 17-year old and a 19-year old had better things to do with their time than chase boys.  Unfortunately for my daughters, I do not fall in that category.

One daughter skypes from college on a regular basis to tell me about her studies and about her travels.  I start and finish each cyber-visit with “Do you have a boyfriend?”    She came home for the summer and as soon as she started working, I asked, “Any chance of meeting a boy at work?”  The other daughter is spending her summer writing a children’s book in Chinese and studying brain scans.   After each day’s review of her academic pursuits, I always ask, “So, any boyfriends?”.

First of all, the window of opportunity for embarrassing a suitor is closing quickly.

By the time a child gets to college it is probably not a good idea to purposely do anything to embarrass your daughter’s boyfriend.   Brian and I started dating at the beginning of sophomore year and I would have been crushed if my parents had tried to humiliate me.  There is only one more year before the second one heads for college so I am a tad panicked.

Will I never get the opportunity to ground a daughter for the rest of her life for sneaking out to meet a boy?  Do they realize that it is very hard to have late night chocolate chip cookie sessions after a breakup if there is no startup? What about commiserating with one of the girls about how much we don’t like her sister’s taste in boys?  What about their poor father?  Do the girls think he grew to 6’5” for any other reason than to intimidate their dates?

In fact, the more I think about their selfish ways the more I realize how many people are being affected.   Our sons are in their prime for idiotic behavior and their talents are being wasted.   A boyfriend or two would provide my sons with a brand new audience to entertain.  How selfish can two sisters be?

At the end of the day it really is OK that the girls aren’t dating but it is sure fun to give them a hard time.  They are good sports about it and they know my one wish is for each of them to meet a man who makes her heart sing.  That, and a few grandchildren.