IF THERE WAS a book about ‘what to expect when you’re expecting teens’, I don’t know if I’d read it.

That was a lie. I know that I wouldn’t.

I never picked up a single parenting book when I was expecting, possibly for the same reason I’ve never been to a psychic and why I turn off movie trailers approximately 0.4 seconds in.

I just don’t want to know.

I like the good parts of life to be a surprise, and I am also a firm believer in delaying any inevitable bad until it cannot be delayed for a single moment longer.

So, I wouldn’t buy this book that doesn’t exist for reading, but I would buy it so that I could wave the chapter on ‘dating’ directly into my partner’s retina. Triumphantly.

Obviously, any book that offered advice on raising teens – a possible ‘What to expect when your child now knows everything there is to know in the universe and is entirely convinced that you know nothing’ (we can review the title later) – would have a chapter that covered dating.

And while I would never claim to know a single other sentence from that entire book, I know in my heart that the dating chapter would say that you need to downplay it.

Don’t react. Definitely don’t try and forbid. There might even be a photo of Romeo and
Juliet, as a cautionary tale.

‘Dating’ is a handy little word to explain everything before marriage, but it’s a very American term and largely obsolete in our little country.

I can remember first hearing the word on Nickelodeon TV shows, watching what I assumed were 13- and 14-year-old kids (how I wished they would have used actual ages instead of meaningless words like freshman or sophomore) begging their parents to be allowed ‘date’.

The word itself was a verb and once they were allowed to ‘date’ they would go to a local diner to share a milkshake, or attend a ballgame or something. I couldn’t relate to any of it.

This was partly due to an unfortunate haircut that my mam gave me right before my communion, resulting in me growing out a fringe that encompassed 85% of the surface area of my head over the next 12 years. Oh, and also because we didn’t have diners, or ball games, or 15-year-olds with driving licenses who could swing by to pick you up.

I did have one friend who managed to secure a fairly serious boyfriend, but they just used to go and sit on the electricity box outside the estate for hours.

Anyway, having absolutely no frame of reference for teen dating outside of these US shows, it was more than a little unnerving to embark on the journey as a parent.

Our first foray into the world of young love was when my daughter was about seven and developed a deep infatuation for an eight-year-old boy who lived around the corner. She would spy on him from the kitchen window and bribe her little sister to cycle around to his house with a stack of love letters in the basket, and stuff them through his letterbox.

Finally, his mam opened the door one day mid-letter stuffing, dragging my poor child with it because her little arm was still half-way through the letterbox, and firmly told her to stop.

And that was the end of that.

Teen love, as we have discovered, is much harder, if not impossible, to stop.

When our 14-year-old daughter announced that she had a boyfriend, my partner handled
the situation by announcing that she was too young for a boyfriend (fair) and that it ‘wasn’t happening’. As if she was just going to listen. As if she would just take our (her entirely outdated parents) advice on anything. As if the fact that she had already found someone she was interested in would just cease to exist once his disapproval was aired. As if we could be the first parents in the history of the world to successfully block a teen romance by simply not allowing it.

Did we not watch the same after school specials with the Olsen twins moving Heaven and Earth to sneak out on those aforementioned dates?

Young love, like all other emotions experienced in the teen years, is extremely powerful and all-consuming.

And when you combine that with the recklessness of the teen years, you really are swimming against the tide to try and ban it. I know that 14 is very young, but I also know that poets and authors alike have written about the angst of forbidden teen love long before Nickelodeon ever did.

And we trust her, shouldn’t she be free to spend time with people whose company she enjoys? Would we get planning permission for a Rapunzel tower in the back garden?

Could I ever get her to agree to a haircut from my mam?

Most of my friends have kids much younger, so I don’t get any guidance there either.

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Instead, there is a collective intake of breath when I mention that she has a boyfriend.

Judgement scorches my face (possibly an exaggeration), “You let her have a boyfriend?!”

No, I don’t ‘let’ her, the same way you don’t ‘let’ your newborn wake up 16 times overnight, and you don’t ‘let’ your toddler have a poonami right in the middle of Penney’s.

It’s just yet another fun part of parenting that you try to juggle along with everything else.

Not allowing something doesn’t stop your kids from doing it, it just means they won’t get your advice before they do. But even if you do know, and give advice, there is no guarantee they’ll listen.

I reassured my partner that we were better off knowing, and at least that way we could
offer some guidance. I told him that we needed to under react, and that teen romance is
intense but fleeting, and that it would all pass over quickly.

And I am happy to confirm that they recently celebrated their year anniversary.

But listen, if there’s one part of parenting that I am good at, it’s looking like a fool. And also, eating my words. Two things! There are two parts of parenting that I am good at.

One of her friends started a new relationship a few months back, but her parents
completely forbid it. I admired the vision wholeheartedly, but the execution was flawed
because the two couples regularly double date (to the local electricity box, obviously).

They are all great kids, doing well in school. The only difference is that her parents probably sleep better at night, and you can make of that what you will.

And then please tell me the answer.