This week I am in charge of a funeral luncheon and there are several sisters in poor health in my congregation. I was trying to think of how to meet so many needs and I remembered this adventure from my memoir project. I’m grateful that our children are old enough to take care of themselves this week!
To the Rescue with Children, 2003
Our phone rang almost all of the time during the years that I served as the president of the Relief Society in my church in Austin. On this day in 2003, the call was from a woman who needed me to pick up her son from school because he was sick. She was a bus ride away from home and had no way to pick him up. Her son lived with many disabilities and I was on the list of people who had permission to pick him up from school.
I looked down at my three young children, ages a few months to age 6. How was I going to pick up this boy with all of these kids in tow? I had many people who helped watch the children during these years, but finding a sitter wasn’t always possible. Today I didn’t have time to call around for help; the boy needed to be picked up right away. I loaded the kids into the van and drove to the high school.
It was a cool, blank-skied Texas spring afternoon with some rain. My mind dashed among the incompatible players in this situation. Should I bring the kids into the school? I couldn’t believe that this was a good idea. I needed both of my hands to help the boy to the car. What if he was angry and unwilling to come with me? I tried to shield my children from a lot of the anger and grief I saw as I did my Relief Society work. The cool rain gently spattered the windshield as I pulled into the school, still with no solution.
I looked at my children in the rear view mirror and spied a blanket in the back seat. As I gathered up baby Timothy I told Paige and Daniel, ages six and three to hide under the blanket while I was gone. I didn’t want anyone to notice the abandoned children in our van. This was not a smart solution. But it was all I could do. Any other solution would have meant leaving them alone for a longer period of time. I didn’t worry about their safety as much as what people might think if they saw them. I became a mother in the early years of the attachment parenting movement which evolved into helicopter parenting. The cultural reflex to judge a parent harshly when children are seen alone, even in a cool car with its doors locked, caused me more angst than was helpful for the kids.
Those ten minutes while I collected the boy from school were filled with guilt and frustration. I was relieved that he didn’t need to be coaxed into coming with me because he was interested in the baby I had tied against me in a sling.
My children probably remember my work with this family because I would abandon them to do it. “Play in this tree while I go inside this house, kids,” and, “Hide under this blanket while I go and fetch this boy from the high school,” and “Have fun with Grandma and Dad while I go for a visit!” I hope that I was able to frame these maneuvers as adventures to them.