who offered space, the one who understood that privacy is the currency of adolescence, and that trust is a two-way street paved with mutual respect. I told myself, and anyone who would listen, that my fourteen-year-old daughter and I had an understanding. She knew the rules, and I knew her heart. But theories are easy to maintain when they are hypothetical; they are much harder to hold onto on a rainy Sunday afternoon when the door to your daughter’s bedroom is firmly closed and a boy is inside.

My daughter is fourteen, an age that feels like walking a tightrope between childhood innocence and the complex emotional landscape of young adulthood. Her boyfriend is the same age, a boy who, by all accounts, is the picture of teenage politeness. He is the kind of kid who remembers to take his sneakers off at the front door without being asked, lining them up neatly on the mat. He greets me with a shy but audible “Hello, Mrs.

Roberts,” and he never forgets to thank me for the snacks I inevitably force upon them. He is gentle, soft-spoken, and surprisingly respectful. On paper, he is the dream first boyfriend. But the reptilian part of a mother’s brain doesn’t care about polite greetings or neatly aligned sneakers. It cares about hormones, impulse control, and the terrifying reality that fourteen-year-old judgment is not fully formed