It had to happen.
Like sand through the hourglass or a rain-drenched movie kiss near the end of a rom-com, it was utterly inevitable. My baby’s got a special friend. He went from a ‘tune’ to a ‘boyfriend’ without me even noticing. No one actually told me. No one said, ‘Hey, Dad. Guess what!’ It just happened. I haven’t actually checked her Facebook status, but I’ll die if it says, “in a relationship.”
Oh, God. How did it come to this?
She’s just a kid. Sixteen. SIXTEEN!
And given this has been pretty much sprung on me, I’ve had to go back and think about what it was like when I was sixteen. What was I like? What did I do? What did I want to do? Oh, the shame! My internal thermometer is on its way up.
My first girlfriend, Roz-someone-or-other said I was frigid. We went to the movies in Frankston, year seven, I think. I was meant to pash her, but couldn’t muster the courage. It had been the same with Debra Underwood. While all the other kids were trying to gag each other, I sat next to her absolutely rigid. With fear!
But by 16, things had changed a little, maybe even a lot. We moved towns and at the first party we went to, I hooked up with Amy Court. It was just a kiss. By Tuesday word had filtered in from the kids who caught the 72 tram from Camberwell that I was a ‘user’.
The horror. It was just a kiss: a long one, to be sure, but still.
And now I have daughters. They could go out with boys like that 15-year-old me who might think it’s okay to suck face for half an hour and walk away as if nothing had happened.
Oh, God!
It is interesting that when a man has a daughter, the reaction is different to when he has a son. No man ever says, ‘Bloody hell, mate. A son. Better lock him up in a convent ‘til he’s twenty-five.’ You’re a good chance of hearing that about a daughter, though. And, that you’ll ‘need a shotgun to keep the lads at bay. “Heh heh heh!”’
Well, “heh heh heh,” yourselves.