Coed

Kevin is going to N's house today. He was invited to go and hang out at her house with a group of other kids; she apparently has a pool at her house, so they're going to swim and eat pizza. This is not how I had envisioned it. What I had envisioned was that when they finally made concrete plans to hang out, it would be on my turf, where I could keep a good, close eye on things. So I was caught rather off guard yesterday when Kevin asked if he could go to her house. I told him I wanted to talk to her mother before I made a decision, so within a few minutes I was on the phone with N's mother.

She was on a cell phone standing, with N, in line at Disneyland. She introduced herself and I introduced myself, I told her I've been wanting to chat with her and wondered if now was a good time for a candid conversation. It is, she said. So I told her, "I don't know if you're aware of it, but Kevin and N seem to be pretty infatuated with each other." I told her that, although Kevin doesn't know it, I've been reading the emails that pass between him and N, and they're a little on the flirtatious side. She was not aware of this. She said that she's thought about checking up on her daughter's email, but just hadn't. "You beat me to it," is what she said. I assured her that it's nothing bad, and that Kevin is a good kid and N seems like a very sweet girl, but that my concern is that they're at a tricky age: too old for playdates, and not old enough to date, and they're both obviously developing an interest in the opposite sex. I told her that I'm very strict parent and that I keep pretty close tabs on Kevin. She said that she does monitor N's texting, and that she knows N has been wanting to call Kevin on the phone every day and she's told her "No, you're not going to be calling some boy every day." (However, N is in fact calling Kevin every day . . .) Anyway, she assured me that she's a very conscientious parent, too. I told her that I wasn't telling her any of this to get N into trouble, but just that I wanted to make sure that as parents, we're on the same page if our kids are going to be spending time together. I haven't forgotten being thirteen myself, and by that age I was already up to plenty of no good. That's what scares me and what motivates me to keep such close tabs on Kevin.

All in all, the call was very pleasant, and she said that she appreciated that we had an open conversation about what's going on between her daughter and my son. I wonder in hindsight if she now sees me as some high-strung, busy-body mom. On the other hand, it's really not about what another parent thinks of me, it's about looking after my kid and what he's doing. I'd rather be in his business too much at this point than not enough.

So after making sure that there will be adult supervision and a group of kids (and not just the two of them), I gave Kevin the green light to go. I did tell him that since he's going to her house, he's going to have to actually look at her and talk to her though ;)