by Janie Gafford

Created on: March 25, 2007   Last Updated: April 03, 2010

I tried to be calm. The source of my anxiety - my oldest baby is 13 and I took him to his first date today.

He's taking this girl to the movies. She's 13. He met her at a skating rink when he was in LA with his father. As it was reported to me, a number of girls "bum-rushed" him and started "macking" on him that night. So, this one particular girl invited him to the movies.

I have the boys this week, and it was my duty to take him to this date. I asked about this girl a bit, trying my best to be unobtrusive and nonjudgmental with a smile on my face.

I wanted to ask questions about her like, "Does she live with both her parents? Does she have any brothers and sisters? Is she in a gang? Is she sexually active? What kind of grades does she have? What do her parents do for a living? Does she come from a socioeconomically stable atmosphere? What educational level did her parents reach? Does this girl have any immediate goals, long-term career goals? Is she intellectually on your level? Is she in the Gifted and Talented program, like you? What is her religious affiliation?"

But, I was amazingly calm and I asked him, "So tell me about her, baby." I gazed up into his beautiful brown eyes. This is my oldest baby, now towering over me even in my 3-inch heels. I felt so proud of him and I enjoy going through milestones in his life. And, this is an important milestone - his first date.

In his deep, but slightly squeaky pubescent voice he said, "She's cute, she's Hispanic..and bisexual."

Ooooohhhhhhhkkkkk. Yeah.
"What's wrong with you, boy!" Okay, I didn't say that. But, that was my first instinct, and to slap him in the back of the head.

This is not how I imagined my boy's first date to be. This is the boy I breastfed. This is the baby who peed, spit-up, and pooped all over me, who told me he would never leave his mommy, and as a 4-year-old, told me that when he got married he would tell his wife that his mommy has to sleep with him every night and his wife will just have to understand.

I did not see this coming. I knew that my boy was on the threshold of young adulthood and I would eventually deal with teenage issues. We've had our talks. I anticipated the sex talk, the avoiding gang bangers talk, the career goals talk, the preventing teen pregnancy talk, the staying away from drugs talk.....but dating bisexual girls, I did not foresee.

With all this in mind, this morning I dreaded the drive to the movies. I have gay and lesbian friends, but somehow my boy going on a

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