Hang with me here....My 10 year old does not have a cell phone so when he rides his bike to a friends house he needs to use their parents phone to call or text me that he's "here." He usually does this but today I didn't realize he didn't text me until an hour after he'd been gone. We live in a subdivision in a small village. I know about 95% of the neighbors between our house and his friends house. I texted the parent asking if Nate was there. No response--he was busy playing with the kids...I was sure of it. He's a fantastic dad and my son loves going over there to play with the kids AND their dad. :) However, my mom gut still went on mild scare mode. Keeping my concern to myself, I asked my older son to run over and check on Nate and to see if he was hungry for lunch.(I checked the house while he was gone.) He was gone about 15 minutes....10 minutes too long for a 17 year with long legs. Mom mild scare mode went to mild internal panic. I busied myself in the kitchen trying to stay calm while my mind went to all those scary places they do sometimes, regardless of how much we want those thoughts to stay away. Hunter walks in laughing, "He's there, lauging and having a great time. He doens't want to eat because he doesn't miss any fun." Mom mode goes back to it's comfortable place of summer fun and no worries for the moment.
Fast Foward...kids are at the pool and I sat there looking at my phone but my mind was on what happened 90 minutes ago in my house and I wondered, at what point would the world have thought I was a bad parent. For 10 whole minutes, (said with a mild touch of sarcasm) I wasn't 100% positive where my son was. I was pretty sure, but he's a kid and he could've forgotten and bounced to someone else's house and didn't text me. The world and especially social media would've thougth my mother was an awful, horrible mom because I'd leave 10 minutes after I woke up and didn't come home until the siren rang at 6:00, unless it rang throughout the the day at which point I had to run home to yell in the door, "it's not for me! I'm okay. See ya!" I don't do the helicopter mom thing. I believe in letting kids have wings and flying, with supervision at first. I want them to have a carefree childhood like I did.
Our rules are few but are enforced if broken. New drivers are expected to text me when they get or leave a destination in case something happens and they don't know where they are. We can take the path we think they would take to get to them. New 'freedom bike riders" have to call me when they get to their friends house or if they leave alone to go someplace else. Other than that, I want my kids to experience childhood the way I did. Go! Run! Have fun with friends...all summer! Have friends over here. Make some noise....But have you done your chores first?
Had my scary thoughts really happened today, how long would it be before the world judged me and said I was an awful mom? 10 minutes? An hour? A second? Keep that in mind when you watch the news or read those articles we scroll by. I choose to believe that most of us are doing the best we can and try our hardest while letting our kids have the fun, carefree childhoods we had. I think of Baby Jessica in 1980's...was it? Baby fell in a pipe and got stuck. The nation didn't judge mom for not being by her side every moment. We prayed for her, for her family, for the rescuers pulling her out. Let's go back to that. Judge less. Love a LOT more.
Now I'm off to go find my dog. I think he's in the garage wiith my husband....but I don't even hear the tablesaw anymore. Where's my husband?!!...
