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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BY SALLIE TISDALE | My middle child, Morgan, is about to turn 20, and he has never dated in any ordinary sense of the word. When he was 15, he simply acquired a girlfriend named Alexia -- the first girl who took him seriously, as far as I could tell. She was a big, outspoken, cheerful girl. I liked her. And I really liked the way Morgan acted with her; he softened, like ice cream slumping in a bowl. He patted her shoulder and called her "honey" and walked her to school. She became a fixture, in and out of the house every day. I could walk into the living room and there she would be, patting the dog. So it went for over a year. Then they broke up, without warning, and I didn't see Alexia again for several months. A very short time later, Morgan met Jasmine. Two years younger, silent and withdrawn, Jasmine was a different story. She rarely spoke, rarely came in the house at all, preferring to have her mother honk from the curb -- until she was old enough to drive and could honk from the curb herself. I didn't like the way he acted with her -- the shell of togetherness was impenetrable. In the rare moments they wandered through the house, it was punctuated by whispering and secret smiles. They were together every day. And I do mean together -- breakfast before school, lunch, "studying" after school, skipping school, breaking curfew, as a pair. After a few months, he began spending several nights a week at her house -- with her mother's blessing, but not mine. They acquired two pet rats to keep in her bedroom, and then two kittens, a refrigerator, a television, cable and a phone. Getting to know her was a frustrating, slow experience. We were polite, a little nervous with each other, and only very gradually relaxed. Last year, Morgan finished high school and started working, but the togetherness didn't change. He was at her house more nights than not and spent weekend afternoons sipping coffee at the restaurant where she cleaned tables. She gave him a telephone. When he did manage to make it home for a night, she would call promptly at 7:30 each morning to wake him up before she left for school. To my dismay, he spent Thanksgiving at her house and ate Christmas dinner with her family. They gave him birthday presents -- and bought him a bicycle after I told him we couldn't afford one. I watched all this from a distance, clouded by confusion. I didn't like their isolation and intensity. I wondered if he'd come to regret lost opportunities. I tried to imagine a long relationship with this girl, with her silent, unreceptive mother. But I liked his loyalty, his obvious affection for her, his ability to keep a commitment. I was relieved that he seemed to be out of the sexually transmitted diseases danger zone. Mainly, I hoped he was happy -- and knew the situation was largely none of my business and out of my control. I don't believe parents most of the time when they complain about their helplessness to monitor children's activities. But there's a crucial difference between buying a 6-year-old action figures on demand and influencing a young man's choice in girlfriends. We are, in the end, powerless to control all the things that can control our children. The most we can do is guide. Our children bring people into our lives and take them out, just as they themselves come and go. There isn't much to do but let them climb and fall and dive and struggle mostly alone, cushioning the inevitable falls as we can. N E X T+P A G E: The breakup |
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