The Case of the Missing Uniform

I could hear that my son was in distress from the tone of his voice. It was something between a wail and a whine with a bit of a sob thrown in for good measure. "Mommy," he pleaded. "Can you find my blue uniform? I can't compete unless I have it."

"Are you sure I don't have it?" I asked him. "Yes." "Check your gym bag and your backpack right now," I demanded. Shuffle. Shuffle. "It's not here."

"OK," I reassured him. "Where do you think your uniform is?" "I think it's in my top drawer." So off I went like the good mom I am to find nothing but mismatched socks in the top drawer and no blue uniform in the other drawers either or the closet or underneat the bed.

Then my husband got into the act after another frantic phone call. "He says it's in the top drawer," he told me. "It's not in the top drawer," I snapped. "Maybe it was last week but not anymore."

Half an hour later and we were still searching. We searched the dirty clothes in the laundry room a dozen times and the clean clothes half a dozen times. We overturned the hampers and searched through smelly socks and worse. We did everything but check the refrigerator.

We were unable to rescue my son from the situation. He had to face the consequences. We're so used to rescuing him but we couldn't produce the blue track uniform and R. came home feeling humiliated and nearly in tears.

I felt like crying too and my husband was angry at the coaches who let other kids play without their blue gym shorts. "Rules are rules," I told him. You can't tell a policeman that other people were speeding if you're caught doing 50 miles per hour ina 30 mile zone (not that I would know anything about that). You can't argue your kid should slide by because other kids are sliding by and it's the wrong message for your kid.

Long after R. had gotten over his disappointment and consoled himself with some video games, I was still searching for that darned uniform. I knew it could be hidden somewhere on his bed where you could easily hide an 800 pound gorilla under the blankets, animals and junk. But there were no blue shorts and shirt there or underneath or anywhere.

Finally I saw some papers underneath R.'s desk and underneatht he papers was the balled up uniform. I made him and my husband come in to see it before I fished it out. "What is the moral of this story?" I demanded. "To look everywhere?" my son ventured. "Wrong," I snapped. "To always put things where they belong. That was a hard lesson but you've got to learn."

And what was the moral of the story for us? The moral was that you can't always rescue your kid. And while it might be painful, it's the only way they learn for themselves.