Missing Children

First things first. I did not know the little girl we we searching for. I dont know her family. And I was only one of probably 200 or more people walking the fields and forests this afternoon. None of us were particularly special for being there.

Foose and I spent the afternoon today clearing trails on his property for the atv's. It wasn't very hard work, and of course we had to ride them for quite a while afterwords. Then, after my kids were done with naptime, Babe brought tank and turtle out, and we had to ride some more. It was a fun day... When the riding was done, we all ate dinner, and relaxed for a while.

During the course of dinner, we had heard some sirens and what not going past the house, didnt make much of it. Foose's mom called, informed us that a three year old girl was missing about a half mile away, and that the ems team was asking for help locating her. Since Babe was taking the kids home to go to bed, Foose and I set out across the fields on the quads to see if we could help.

We met with the person in charge of the scene, He assigned us to the group led oddly enough, by the apprentii.

Lesson one for today. Apprentii is my younger buddy. We met when he was about 16, and have spent many many hours together since. I'll get into that on another post. Suffice it to say that I had no idea how together the kid is until tonight. The guy is i think 22 now. He led a group of four firemen and probably 16 of us civilians on a search mission through fields and woods and swamps. He kept track of all of us, made sure nobody got lost, and that we were all going the right way. Kudos. And by the way, nobody had any question who was in charge.

Lesson two. I have not been this scared in a while. The whole time we were searching, I kept imagining tank. This little girl must be about his size. SO the two thoughts in my head were 1. I cant imagine if we were all out here looking for him, and 2. Where would he go if it was him. It was both heart wrenching and eye opening at the same time. At one point, I found myself walking along the edge of the woods and as I thought about where would tank go, I found myself looking under things, behind trees, imagining places that he would hide if he was alone and scared. I think that I learned a lot about my child this afternoon.

Lesson Three. We live in a very nice little area here. This little girl ( who is reportedly ok by the way) lives on a road that is i think about 2 miles long. By the time the search was over, that two mile stretch was literally parked full of cars. It looked like game day at lambeau. I would guess that there were at least 40 atv's either on trailers or on the sides of the road. Everybody that heard the call for help came out. It speaks volumes about the humanity of rural people.

Just a sidenote; Because of our rural environment, there was never a discussion of the possibility that this little girl was kidnapped or anything else; the tone in general was to question where she wandered off to. I love my neighborhood.

I hope that this was a once in a lifetime afternoon for me. I hope that I never have to help look for another missing child. Not that I am not willing to help, just that I hope no more go missing.

But unfortunately, it happens every day in one place or another.

I used to think that the parents who were "over protective" of their kids had it all wrong. You have seen these people. They are the ones at any given public outdoor event who have the toddlers on a leash. I always thought that if you were any kind of parent at all, you would know where your child was at any second, that the kid wouldnt be able to leave your sight, much less need the leash to keep him in check. Tonight, although i wont likely go buy the leashes, I found myself reflecting on how many times my kids are not supervised. When Ive got to just run in at the gas station, or when they are playing outside and I have to be in the house for a minute. Any parent can name a hundred examples of times that they have done these things. "I just left him for a second..."

By the way, it is a necessity of life. Sometimes you just have to pee. Or answer the phone. Or get something to eat. ( or even take a sanity break) It doesnt make you a bad parent.

There are two things that I imagine this experience has made me realize.

I dont think every parent CAN really supervise their kids every second of every day. Kids do go missing. Kids do get hurt and worse while the parents back is turned for that split second. There are sometimes horrible consequences. Facts are facts. It doesnt make them bad parents. Just like a car accident, sometimes things happen so fast, there isnt time to react even if you hadnt just run quick in the house.

I also dont think that parents SHOULD supervise their kids every minute once they reach a certain point. Some of the strongest memories that I have, some of the most formative ones for who I am today, happened in situations where, if my parents had been watching, they would have kicked my ass or worse. I am certain that you agree that an awful lot of who you are today has to do with your own independence, your own ability to make decisions. I very seldom worry about what turtle is doing at any given time, but yet, kids his age wander off all the time too.

And how do we learn to make decisions? You guessed it; usually by making the wrong ones first.
Our parents, like any good role models, had they been present, would have tried to prevent those mistakes. An illustration of this happened this afternoon. I was riding the new trails with turtle, and I kept stopping him, explaining how to take this curve, and that rut, and how to properly apex this corner, and what to do in this hill. He looked at me and asked one of the most astute questions of his young life. "Dad, Cant you just be quiet and let me ride?"

This seems to be one of the most central points of parenting. It is very hard for us to let go. All I want to do is wrap my boys in a big soft blanket and keep them safe until one of us dies of old age. But I cant do that. The most responsible thing for me to do is give them some space. To guide them where I can, and let them figure out the rest. Like the turtle just wanting to ride the trail, I cant over teach him. At some point, I have to trust that I have shown him at least how not to get hurt too badly, and that he knows enough from there to handle the situation. Today he took a wrong turn, and found himself lost. I interpreted his reaction to sit still and wait for me to find him ( i knew where he was) as evidence that he had been listening somewhere when they told him what to do if he ever got lost.

Think of all the things that your kids do that are hard for you to watch. The first time they ride a two wheeler. The first time you have to leave them in somebody else's care. The first day of school. Swimming lessons. Swimming in general. You get the idea. But if you dont let them try, how are they ever going to succeed? If I wrapped my boys up in fleece; They would surely live to adulthood unscathed, but how much damage to them will I have caused?

Back to the point. I dont know how this little girl wandered away from home today, but I do know that she is safe tonight. I just hope that my own willingness to allow my children freedom never requires the good hearted batch of folks that I saw today to straighten out.

Thank god for happy endings,
Greg