An Open Note To My Oldest Son

This is my oldest son Matthew. He escorted me down the aisle, him on one side and my younger son opposite. He's been a pillar of strength for me over the last year, but maybe he doesn't know how much it's appreciated.

Last week, Matt's friends kind of set him up with a young lady about his own age. As far as I can/could tell, he was very taken with her and I think it's a good thing.

I don't know anything about this young lady. My son, though, wanted to bring her everywhere he went. I chalked this up to being a new relationship, until he wanted to bring her mowing with him.

Mowing. Sounds simple. It's not. We were going to mow a lot in West Brooklyn, IL, were there is no power, no water, no toilet. In fact, West Brooklyn is so small, there's not much of anything except a bank. I had a very tiny house there once, which is now in some serious need of either a complete rebuild frame up or a complete tear down.

I can't say it's not some place to take a first date, because the first place I took my new, then boyfriend, now husband, was to see what I thought was one of my not-so-great aspects. But for me to take my son's new girlfriend? I don't think so.

We would be mowing and I wasn't sure what condition the property would be in. I wasn't sure if mowers would do or I would need a brush hog. There are lots of dips in the land and not a lot of places to be out of the way. If you don't know your way around, it's easy to turn an ankle and not really close (12 miles) to a hospital.

My oldest son has psycho-effective disorder, rather like psychosis. He doesn't always grasp some concepts easily, like liability. It's one thing to be liable for my own children, but quite another to be liable for someone else's.

So, Matt, I'm very sorry I couldn't take your friend there, but I wouldn't probably take your friend Dave either. It's really one thing to take you or any of the other children, but it's really something different to be responsible for someone else's, especially when you know nothing about them.

So, I think my son feels that I don't like that he's dating and don't support his decisions, when that is really furthest from the truth. I'm comfortable with my son dating. I'd like to get to know his date first before taking her places that my liability might be extreme, though I realize that my son didn't consider liability to be an issue, or give me an opening to explain it.

So, Matt ... if you read this ... it really comes down to needing to meet your new friend and the fact that I cannot afford the liability issues to take your new friend to places I own. But, I love you bunches!

Laura