Wednesday, September 05, 2007

dangerous date?

Something happened to me this week that has happened twice before, but always feels a bit strange.

A mother was describing what happened this summer to her fifteen year-old, somewhat boy-crazy daughter. He daughter came home from a party that she had gone to up at the beach. The party was at someones house and this kid knew that kid, who knew kids from another town, who brought other kids, who knew other kids, so there were kids there from all over.

The girl spent the evening and into the night flirting, and maybe a little more, with a real cute boy she met. He was cute, he had the same sense of humor she did, and she was hoping to see him again.

Two days later the boy called and the daughter talked to him on the phone for over an hour. A few things that were mentioned caught the mother's attention. When the girl got off the phone the mother asked a few more questions. Then the mother got upset.

Later that night the mother made a few phone calls. The next day she told her daughter that she was not allowed to go out with that boy.

The daughter was upset and demanded an explanation. The mother cried, but avoided the question. After an hour or two of evasive answers the daughter was not accepting the decision. The mother told the girl to call her father -- the parents had been divorced for about five years, the daughter saw her father regularly.

The daughter got right on the phone and called her father. After fifteen minutes of a private discussion she hung-up the phone and ran to her room crying.

The father had told her that she couldn't see that boy because he was her brother, well, her half-brother technically.

Keeping secrets is always risky.

7 comments:

Lena said...

Wow what are the odds of that happening...

Amanda said...

Agreed. I have found it a lot easier to give a straightforward, age-appropriate answer than to try and come up with "a story."

Jamie said...

Well, I didn't see that one coming. And to think, this is what you DO. The tangled webs of deceit....

Ms. Meander said...

oh, ouch. that's awful. poor kids.

Anonymous said...

Please see my reply on Dec.1,2006 under the post "they've been in here".

Anonymous said...

I am appalled that you are writing about your patients!
This will make me think twice about ever going to therapist.
What if your patients found you??? Can you imagine how betrayed they would feel?
You should know better!

Anonymous said...

I think that anon down there should give more than two thoughts to the idea of seeing a therapist...

pssst...anon...you should go ahead and locate mumbles through the internets and chat with him in person, seriously, it'd do you hella good!