Ok, now I am an enlightened person, open minded, etc. But I just found out my 16 year old daughter has a boyfriend. I haven't met the boy, but I am having to tamp down the desire to hunt him down and take a pair of gelding shears to his bits!  I am about to google, facebook, mappy, myspace, bebo him! Am I over-reacting?

Oh yeah... i forgot the bit about how you should trust her, that should have come first.  but sod it, just dont tell her lol

Hi Violette,
              Welcome to the sleepless night's courtesy of a teenage daughter's club!
There is little you can do.
You have to trust her to make the right decisions and really, it's rarely serious at 16 and when the boy breaks her heart that is when your going to want to hunt him down and chop off his wotsits!
My daughter is almost 18 and I remember the first boyfriend she had at 16, he went off with her friend. You will not believe the tears and it's no good saying to her it was not serious, you'll see in time, to her, it was everything in the world.
Your going to get nightclubs soon. Alcohol, staying over at a friend's.... Nothing you can do about it except monitor her, I have (please nobody yell) read her diary, I do not see it as invasion of privacy, I see it as keeping tabs on her as things are different today than when I was her age and I just speed read it really, watched out for key words to see if she was okay not in any trouble. I know it's wrong, but, I was watching her back. She never knew, I would deny it outright!
As long as she has a good head on her you have little choice but to let her grow up and make her own mistakes, as heartbreaking as they will be for you her mother, you have to let her do it.
It's horrible. Really horrible. I would like to keep my kids in the house as soon as it gets dark and all that stuff, I do still with my other children as they are younger - but at 16, you have got to let them go to an extent as they will never learn life's lessons if you mother them too much.
It's horrible.
Good luck.

When you have finished with the boyfriend, its time to convince your daughter that a chastity belt is actually the latest trend in body jewelry

Sorry,  i know im suppose to hate him and be all suspicious of the hormonal freak but... Ahhhhh, thats quiet sweet that he took her home to meet the parents first. they both sound like good kids (obviously i can retract that when necessary) if he has already taken her to meet his parents and she is arranging the same.  How sweet.  What i do remember at that age is not wanting to introduce my boyfriend to my mum or meet theres, it was just a horrible thought so at least they are doing that much.  Bless.  and maybe he wont break her heart, it was the other way around for my first love, i unfortuanatley broke his.  ooops.  nothing has been conventional in my love life ever since lol

The bringing the young boy home to meet you and going to meet his parents is actually common place around here.
I am with lexie - never went on in my day, even the thought of it would have been mortifying. But it goes on a lot here, my teenager did it with her current boyfriend, she did it with the one before. She still is very friendly with the mum of the one before! All her mates do it as well. Her current boyfriend (I luurrrrvvveee him mammi!!) has even met the Grandparents and stays there for tea and watches Tv with MY Mother! I don't think there was a single episode of Celebrity those two did not watch together, well, when the kid was not working! Ha!

You sound as if your on top of things Violette, your doing all the right stuff. I am not sure I would even know how to check out Bebo and Facebook! Blimey, your well educated on this teenage stuff! Good on you!

Face book was rather easy, they all use it, and being that they go to the same school, even the teachers are on there. So I searched the school and just looked for the right description. Kids these days are much more savvy that we were at their age.