When you are out of the house for a while, there starts to be a disconnect between you and your parents. This fact couldn’t be better illustrated than within the context of a conversation with my mother.

“And there were boys in the hot tub?” my mother asked me. “For heaven’s sake tell me that they weren’t sitting by you,” and before I could groan into the receiver she added, “Do you do sexting?”

After explaining the logistics of a keg-stand — which are actually terrifying (“It sprays down your throat?”) — I realized that I could no longer connect with my sweet mother. She and I live different lives that are, not insignificantly, 30 years apart.

Things are different when a person is in middle school. The big issues are grades, after-school sports, snacks, and the confusion of French kissing. For some reason, I think that mothers know how to handle these simple things. You used to be able to speak freely, cry even, and she could pull her wisdom off a shelf in her brain and hand it to you while she rubbed your back. But time makes things complicated.

As you grow into an adult, your life becomes a series of events that are both culturally sensitive and dependant on the new friends that we make out of our hometowns. Both of these issues can make the information that we give our moms too perplexing or ominous for our mothers to sort through. The most common scenario after laying down the details of your life for your momma is that she will worry about you. No one likes to make their mom lose sleep.

Here’s what I propose: Don’t tell your mom the truth. When she asks you about what you did this weekend, lie to her. Don’t tell her you kiss before the sixth date. She doesn’t need to know about that Chlamydia scare. She doesn’t need to know about the time when you peed your romper in Tonic.

You can mention that you’re thankful for her. Tell her that the campus is beautiful and you miss her cooking and her hugs. Tell her that you have a hard time waking up without her cooing by your ear in the morning. Tell you love her, but don’t tell her anything else.