I called it the "Lunch on the Couch."
That's right. This morning Huckle forgot his lunch. Here it is, sitting on the couch like a plump, little, self-satisfied cushion, right beside his guitar (which he forgot to put away last night after practicing).
And that little flurry of activity happened 7 minutes after the following exchange at 7:40am --
t minus 5 minutes before the car pool was due to arrive:
Me, yelling up the stairs: Huckle, is everything okay? Are you going to be ready to go in five minutes?
(I asked because his lunch was still perched, half packed, on the kitchen countertop. And his backpack had a stray paper resting on it. And three minutes before that, he was still in his pajamas, eating Cheerios and staring out the family room window. Besides, it was awfully quiet upstairs, considering that departure was imminent...)
Huckle, in his most exasperated tone: Mo-ooooom! Of course I'm going to be ready.
You can probably hear the implied, "aren't I always?" But everyone in our house knows he isn't always -- yes, he's always frustrated that I ask but, no, he's not always ready on time.
So then my dilemma:
Do I deliver his forgotten lunch to school, or not?
On one hand, I've heard stories of the helicopter parents still circling anxiously when their 20-something-year-old kids lose a college term paper or haven't heard back after a job interview. Obviously, I don't want to follow that trajectory. Besides, I'm still steamed from our morning exchange, in which I could feel Huckle's moms-are-so-annoying eye-roll all the way from the bottom of the stairs. If he had been paying attention to the time, or had said he needed help getting out the door, his lunch wouldn't still be sitting here. And then there's his pattern of scatterbrained forgetfulness. "Consequences!" I lecture myself. "There must be consequences to reverse this pattern!" Okay, I definitely shouldn't deliver his lunch, right? It's tough love and learning from one's mistakes and all those other good, strong parenting practices I support in theory.
Ah, yes, in theory. But there's also a flip side. First, not taking Huckle his lunch goes against my maternal instincts, honed since the dawn of humankind: if a mom has food and knows her offspring will be hungry, how could she not provide food for said offspring? Second, I technically have the time. I don't have any strict deadlines today. In the half-hour it takes me to write this post, I could drive to the school and run his lunch into the lunch room -- I could even written him a nice little note. (Or a snarky little note. No, wait. I'm resisting the urge to include a side dish of guilt, a mom version of the eye roll he gave me this morning.) More importantly, I'm trying to teach Huckle to be merciful and forgiving -- he likes things fair and done according to the rules. This inclination is admirable but tends toward legalism. I want him to not only practice justice but also to love mercy. Okay, so I should definitely deliver the lunch, right? It's the merciful thing to do. Besides, Huckle is entering the teen years with all the upcoming emotional upheaval and unmooredness and self-questioning. He's always been a solitary kid, but now he's starting to notice the popular/not-popular divisions among his peers. He says things like, "I won't mind too much if I don't have any friends when I get to high school. It's only four years." I breaks my heart. And so what I really, really want Huckle to know as he faces the teen years is that I'm 100% on his side. And if delivering his lunch is what it would take to tangibly demonstrate this, then I would deliver his lunch 50 times in one day, uphill both ways, grape by grape, on hands and knees, and all that mushy, maudlin mom stuff.
Or would that just teach him that his mom is here to serve him and clean up after him and that learning responsibility isn't actually so urgent after all?
Argh!! If only the decision would be made for me! If only I were facing a tight work deadline so I definitely couldn't get his lunch to school. Or if only I was already planning to drive right past the school, so I definitely could get his lunch to school. (And if only I didn't sound so much like Vizzini in The Princess Bride: "So I can clearly not chose the wine in front of me...")
All I really wanted to do was the right thing.
So what did I finally do, after all this neurotic waffling? Well, first I prayed one of those sheepish prayers that you don't really expect to get answered but you know is the right place to start: God, I know I'm probably over-thinking this, as always. I just want to do the right thing. Would you mind giving me a clear answer, one way or the other?Thanks.
And then the phone rang. It was my friend Connie.
Connie: Hey. Do you mind if I stop by your house in ten minutes? I'm going right past on my way to school to drop off my son's gym shoes. He forgot them in our hurry to get out the door this morning.
Me: Seriously? You're THAT kind of mom?
Just kidding. What I really said was more like: Seriously? Um. Since you'll be there anyway, would you mind delivering something to the school for me, too?
Connie: No problem. I'll be right there.
Seriously. It couldn't have been clearer. Or more convenient. Or more perfectly timed. Or more delightful in that way God has of surprising me over and over again by giving me the very thing I so timidly, sheepishly requested. And then he throws in the bonus of showing me that I'm not the only mom dealing with the Lunch-on-the-Couch variety of parenting dilemmas.
And so Huckle's lunch is now sitting smugly on a counter top in the school lunch room. And maybe it will seem as mysterious and wonderful to him as that elf on the shelf is to other people's kids. But, unlike the elf, Huckle's lunch didn't move as a consequence of good behavior. It was a direct act of mercy.
And that's no surprise answer when you ask God to weigh in on your parenting dilemma. It's one of His favorite moves.
