Irrational Fear

A parent's worst nightmare is the fear that something will take a child away from them. There are volumes of books, movies, and news reports to prove this is not just an irrational fear, but has its roots in a horrible reality. I don't know about you, but my past experiences combined with our current situation has given me a finely-honed paranoia about losing one of my children.

No parent ever wants to see their child's picture
on a poster like this.

Yesterday, this paranoia was triggered when, half an hour after the school bus was supposed to have dropped him off, our 10-year-old son still was not home from school. His bus stop is just four houses from us, and he likes the independence of walking home by himself instead of having us meet him there. 


Usually, one of us is usually watching out the window to make sure catastrophe doesn't strike between our house and the corner, but yesterday we were distracted and didn't realize he wasn't home until about 10 minutes after he was expected.

A close friend had asked us to watch three of her kids while she ran her husband to the Emergency Room, so we were tangled up with snack time treats and homework. When we realized our son wasn't there yet, we checked the bus stop. None of the other parents were there waiting. 

A phone call to the school office went directly to voice mail. A quick trip to the next door neighbor's house revealed their son (who is in our son's class and rides the same bus) was home, but he hadn't seen our son on the bus. A second phone call to the school was also sent to voice mail. 

Now we were worried. This is where my crazy irrational fears come out to play. 

When my step-son and -daughter first came to live with us at Christmas 2013, we were shocked by the situation they had been in with their mother. Her drinking had gotten out of control and our daughter had been covering for her. As time passed, child services investigated, and our petition for full custody was heard, we were terrified that something would happen to take the kids from us and put them back in a scary, unstable situation. 

We were accused of "taking her children from her" and of plotting to make her look bad so she couldn't get her kids back, but the reality was she was taking care of that for us. Even still, we were afraid we would lose them. I had visions of her showing up at their schools to pick them up and disappearing with them. All rational arguments said she would be stupid to try such a thing, but rationality rarely has anything to do with fear. 

So when our son didn't come home, I was immediately convinced she had picked him up and took off. The irrational part of this: she's in a psychiatric ward in a hospital because of her latest drinking and depression binge. She also was in an accident in her rental car provided by the insurance company after she totaled her car, so we have serious questions whether she's even allowed to drive.

So, I threw on some shoes and headed toward his school. It's a 20-minute walk in good weather when I'm feeling good. Yesterday, it was raining and about 35 degrees, plus I'm still recovering from a hysterectomy and reconstruction surgery. So the walk took a little bit longer, and I again wished we could afford to have a car. 

The short of the story: he stayed after school for an MCAS* class. He had participated in a language arts MCAS program after school a few months ago. When we received notice of the program and were asked to sign a permission slip, I called to the school to ask about alternative transportation options. We were told they didn't provide alternatives, so we would need to work out a way to pick him up. We arranged for his sister to pick him up on her way home from school. It made for a long walk and cut into homework time, but if the school thought it would help him, we weren't going to say no. 

Apparently, they started a Math MCAS class yesterday. We hadn't received a notice about it, and we certainly didn't sign a permission slip for him to not ride the bus. But these details were overlooked by the school. So he stayed because he thought he was supposed to, the school let him because he had stayed before, and we panicked.

Needless to say, he's home, we're calmed down and there was no actual crisis. I'm somewhat sheepish about my freak out, but my inner lioness is secure that her cubs are where they're supposed to be, and I'm ok with that. 

(*For those of you who don't know, MCAS is Massachusett's attempt to determine how well the students are learning. That's a whole other discussion for another time.)