First Love - Part 2

Or, Fifteen

My daughter is experiencing her first love (in her mind) - a crush that will likely last just a few weeks (in mine) - at roughly the same time that Taylor Swift's song, "Fifteen," is making its way up the pop charts.

Swift sings about being a freshman in high school, fifteen years old, believing an older boy who tells her he loves her, and not knowing who she's going to become yet but thinking she's got it all figured out.

My daughters are 10, and they're naive enough to believe that a smile and a wave from a boy as he's getting on the bus is a sure sign that they'll get married someday. "For real!" she says.

But this is all in their minds so far, since they're not nearly old enough to date yet.

When they're 15, it's likely they'll be naive enough to believe that a kiss and an "I love you" from a boy is a sure sign that "he's the one." But then they'll be old enough to date. So it will be a different story altogether.

When I was 15, I was that naive. Even when I was 18, I was. And 21.

But that naivete collided hard with reality when I was 23, with a lesson that was painful but pointed.

I'll guide my own children away from naivete and toward reality at a much younger age. Perhaps not precisely at 15, but certainly before they leave my nest.

It'll hurt, and I'll hurt watching them hurt. But it's inevitable, and I'll be here to help them through it. As many lessons as it takes.

Meanwhile, I've got a few more years. We're still in the very simple first phase of boy/girl relationships with my girls. I'm going to simply appreciate watching them experience this cute, harmless, "boy-like" stage while I can. After all, they're only 10. Not 15. Yet.