What? Me worry?!

So yesterday I learned that my 14-year-old son is no longer a single man. He’s a grown-up in a committed relationship. Apparently.

I say ‘apparently’ because I’m finding all this out second-hand. The day my son comes home and confides in me first will be the same day my husband discovers where the hoover is kept.

No, I got this rather earth-shattering piece of news from my twelve-year-old daughter, who drip-fed me information until I threatened to tell her dad she wants a bra.

Finding out your son is the object of a teenage girl’s affections is momentarily startling. While you still see him cycling up the garden path on a trike, she sees him as a potential husband and the father of her future children. Call me dramatic, but cast your mind back to your secondary school crushes. Exactly.

Upon hearing of this relationship, I desperately wanted to sit him down and see to it that he does it right. I want him to respect her, I want him to respect himself and I want to supervise each and every date until he turns 18.

Like seeing my 12-year-old in make-up last week, this revelation gave me a glimpse into the future, and like seeing my daughter channel her inner Lily Savage, it didn’t fill me with warmth. It filled me with dread. For the rest of the day I worried about teen relationships, underage sex and unplanned pregnancy.

I almost drove myself mad envisioning every worst case scenario that this development could lead to. I saw wailing infants, the premature use of the word ‘nan’ and the end of my son’s carefree life as he knew it.

When I had finally convinced myself that we were an episode of Jeremy Kyle waiting to happen, I glanced out the kitchen window and caught my son and his mystery woman stalling one door up. Knowing I should turn away, I felt compelled to watch.

After shuffling awkwardly for longer than you might think (I mean, I almost got bored. Almost), my son leaned in to kiss his ‘girlfriend’. It was awkward, uncomortable and I almost stopped looking. Almost.

Eventually, they managed to make contact. Pressing his lips against her with his eyes wide open, he looked as petrified as I had initially felt. Abruptly breaking apart, they stared at each other in the same way you might when you’re faced with a stranger in a lift, vaguely polite, but mostly uncomfortable.

Enveloping her in a painfully awkward bear hug that almost knocked her off her feet, my son stumbled away from the embrace looking for all the world like he wished he’d never gone there to begin with and she staggered off in the opposite direction, no doubt feeling the same. Turning from the window before he caught me, I realised my day of near hysteria had been for nothing.

After that performance and the inevitable girl-talk that followed, my son won’t be kissing anyone for a long, long time.

I'm pretty sure he's OK with that.

I know I am.