The seemingly inevitable has finally happened in my household. My last child has been snatched by the alien known as hormones. I had been lulled into a false sense of security with my son as he has been a bit of a late bloomer and I had started to hope that he would ward off the body snatchers.

Both my daughters were snatched at 14, those beautiful, angelic (well, so I am stretching the truth slightly), sweet little girls suddenly turned into horrible, nasty and petulant aliens overnight. They say girls return anytime from about 23/24 so I am hopeful that this return is coming soon. I will definitely throw a big welcome home party as there have been some tough years living with the aliens.

Back to  my son though, he has always been the sweetest little  boy, has a very strong sense of truth, honesty and justice (always loved his superhero’s) from birth. He passed 14, 15 and 16 relatively unscathed, staying open to us being a strong presence in his life. Where all the other boys were wanting to avoid mum and dad, we were still wanted on the soccer or basketball sideline every week, he would still glance over every time he made a good play to see that we had noticed.

Now we have hit 17 and suddenly those gorgeous baby blues which used to look at me with love and affection, now send frustrated or pitying looks my way, that’s of course if he makes eye contact at all. The conversations we used to have on any subject now resemble a 20 questions session, with me as the interrogator getting one word answers back (and I have to count the grunts as answers or a lot of the time there would be nothing!).

I know of course that this is just another stage in the growing up process, but it does not make it any easier as a parent to see and feel the growing distance, although, on the positive side,  it obviously makes the idea of the children leaving home a whole lot more appealing!

So, I have no choice but to sit and wait now for the aliens to leave, to go and choose another poor unsuspecting child to snatch.  In the meantime I will keep my head down and hope this alien is slightly kinder then the ones who snatched my daughters.