How my daughter came to be NOT lost in a foreign city...

Time to try this blogging thing again. I'm going to try to stick to topics about learning to deal with responsibility. How I learn about my resposibility as a parent, and as a person on this planet, and how I let my daughter learn about responsibility too. And I'm starting with this story that I also posted over on Free Range Kids about my daughter growing into an understanding of her responsibilities.

I never gave much thought to which side of the parenting “line” I came down on. I just parent, and let my daughter show me when she is ready for more responsibility. And then I realized... I’ve been a "free-range" mom forever. Not as free range as my parents were, but very much more than my friends.

We live in a suburb of Edmonton, AB, Canada, and since my daughter was 9 years old she has taken Public Transit into Edmonton to go to school. By herself. A 45 minute ride with TWO transfers each way. Including one on the outskirts of downtown. When I tell people this the general reaction is that they think I’m crazy for letting her (or making her!) go to school SO far away and making her get there on her own. But the benefits in our lives have been far reaching. She has learned independence and decision making, and how to take responsibility to get places on time and what to do when you aren’t going to be on time – Call Your Mother!

So fast forward six years: in June, just after her 15th birthday, we were in Seattle together for a shopping trip. We only had 46 hours in Seattle and then we had to leave, and we each had a “must do list” that was FAR longer than 46 hours, and the lists didn’t exactly overlap. The “teen” stores that she wanted to spend time in held no interest for me, and the stores I wanted to spend time in held no interest for her (surprise! LOL).

Our first day in Seattle we walked from our downtown hotel into the shopping area of downtown together. We went to all the places where we both had an interest to be, and in the process re-familiarized ourselves with the layout of the city, who to ask for help, areas to avoid, etc. And then with our joint errands out of the way, we agreed to meet up in three hours at a specific location. No problem. This is a common enough occurrence for our family. We travel a lot and know our way around a number of cities well enough to feel comfortable. And as expected, three hours later, there she was. She had a great time, bought some great things for the next school year, and enjoyed herself. And she was back, safe and sound.

The next day we walked downtown together again and at 10 in the morning, on the corner of 5th and Pike, I said “Ok, have fun, I’ll see you at the hotel at suppertime” and I turned right and she turned left.

It wasn’t until some hours later that I realized that “suppertime” isn’t an exact time... it could be 4:30, or 5:00, or 7:00... and I started wondering. Playing it safe, I headed for the hotel at about 4:00, and spent the next hour convincing myself that 5:00 is a perfectly reasonable supper time. That she would show up at 5:00 and "everything would be fine", and if she didn’t I’d call her cell phone and she would head back and that would be that.

So at 5:00 when I called her cell I got her voice mail. I left a message asking her to call me. And then I spent the next half hour thinking that 5:30 would still be ok, and that she would call me back and "everything would be FINE".

And at 5:30 I called again and again got her voice mail. Then I spent the next half hour running through in my mind how I was going to explain this “disappearance” to the Seattle Police:

“Hi, Yes, I’d like to report my daughter missing, she’s been gone since 10AM”
“No, I don’t know what she is wearing, she tends to change into the clothing that she buys as she shops”
“Our home? Oh, well, no she didn’t run away from home... we are staying at a hotel... no, we aren’t from here, we’re from Canada”
“Yes, I did let my 15 year old wander around a foreign city alone...”
“Yes, I do understand why you have to involve Child Protective Services...”

And then I spent seventeen minutes convincing myself that I could wait just one more minute before I made that call.

And then... she walked through the door. Safe. Happy. Flush with success.

She apologized for not coming back sooner, and for not realizing her cell phone’s battery had died. She was having such a great time that she lost track of time, and as soon as she realized the time she had almost run all the way back to the hotel so I wouldn’t worry anymore.

Even though I had spent over 2 hours worried about her, I was so proud of her that day. She finished all the “must do’s” on her list, she was safe, she realized that she had worried me and had apologized for it. All signs to me that she is well on her way to being a grown-up who can handle herself in our world.

And that is the goal, isn't it?

I KNOW I don’t have to worry about what will happen when she is 18 and legally an adult. I already know that she is going to be just fine because I have spent the last 15 years, and will spend the next 3 letting her learn step by step how to be an adult and take care of herself not just on our block, or in our city, but in our world.