It continues to amaze me that the most remarkable milestones in the boys’ social and emotional development seem to happen unpredictably and completely without precursor and, even more astonishingly, with pretty much no intention or intervention on my part.
It’s early Saturday afternoon and I’ve just returned from my weekly grocery adventure. I’m unpacking cereal and pickles and red peppers when Simon asks if I can call A’s parents to to ask if A can come over. A is Simon’s school chum, and lives down the block and around the corner.
Because I’m concentrating more on the task of fitting an 11-inch long bunch of celery into a 10-inch crisper, and because we have had this conversation many times before, I don’t give Simon my full attention. “Not now, Simon,” I begin, ready to put off yet again the coordination of a playdate. “We still don’t have A’s phone number, and I don’t know what their plans are today…”
Then I stop, and think. We know kids in the neighbourhood but not on the street, and I’m vaguely annoyed on an ongoing basis that I have to act as social coordinator any time the kids want to play with a friend by setting up play dates in advance via telephone or e-mail with the parents. Why am I doing this? When I was a kid, if I wanted to go out and play with a friend, I’m pretty sure my mom never called ahead to arrange things. I just went. I knocked on the door, and if the friend couldn’t come out, I’d wander off and find something else to do, maybe try another friend or maybe play on my own. The only thing even remotely resembling a scheduled play date was either when friends who had moved out of the neighbourhood got together, or when we visited my parents’ friends who happened to have kids, and then we all played together while the parents drank and played cards discussed important parenting issues.
I take a long look at Simon, who is looking at me and my derailed train of thought with curiousity. I don’t consult with Beloved in advance, but he’s sitting right there listening and I know he’ll speak up if he’s concerned.
“Do you want to go ask A if he wants to come over to play?” I ask Simon, and he lights up like a pinball machine.
“Oh yes!” he exclaims, dropping the video game controller in his hand.
“Tristan, will you walk with Simon down to A’s house and walk back with them?” There is safety in numbers. It’s only about 10 houses, maybe less, and one very quiet residential street to cross, but I feel better if they’re together. It’s only a little bit further than our community mail box, to which Tristan regularly walks alone. Tristan, always up for any perceived gains in independence and who also likes A, is amenable to the idea.
I figure it’s vaguely more polite to invite A back to our house than for both boys to show up uninvited expecting an invitation in, even though that’s exactly what I would have done at age seven. I look at Beloved, but he seems fine with the idea. I briefly talk them through any potential pitfalls in the plan: if A is not home, they are to come straight back. If they get invited in, call home to let me know. No talking to any other grown-ups on the way, no stopping, no wandering.
They scamper off across the lawn and I watch them go. I’m smiling and anxious at the same time. They deserve this freedom, I know, and I truly believe it’s important. Still, I can’t help but worry. I wander back inside after they disappear from view, and ask Beloved if it’s wrong that I’m more concerned about my mother’s reaction to this abdication of parental responsibility than I am about the risk of child abduction or other unspeakably remote horrors.
Enough time lapses that I have put away the groceries and kindled a small flame of anxiety wondering why I haven’t heard from them when they come rambling back up the street with A, A’s older sister who happens to be in Tristan’s grade, and their father in tow. Waiting on the porch as they round the driveway, I feel the tiniest flicker of something that is not quite embarrassment, not quite shame, wondering if A’s parents are agog that I’ve let the boys venture out unshepherded like this. He seems content enough to leave the kids to my care, though, and after a few hours I lead a rag-tag parade of all four kids, plus Lucas and the dog, on the expedition to return A and his sister home.
The boys are seven and nine, and this is the first time they’ve ever simply walked over to a friend’s house and knocked on the door. I’m proud of them, but a little bit sad, too. How did we get to a place where this is a milestone achieved so late in the kids’ lives? I clearly remember running in a pack of neighbourhood kids that included an unsupervised three-year-old, bane of the existence of us older kids. I know this isn’t the 1970s anymore, but really, is the world so different?
