Mom to the Rescue

I took Christa to school the other day and headed out to run an errand. Twenty minutes later, my cell phone rang.

"Hey, Mom, it's me--Christa."

"Are you okay, sweetie?"

I'm a mom. I immediately started thinking the worst. Sure, I saw her 20 minutes ago. Has she gone from healthy to feverish in that short of time? I don't think I am the only mom who make this mental leap that quickly.

"I don't have any more money on my lunch card."

Sigh of relief. My daughter was fine--she was just looking at the possibility of being very hungry by the end of the school day.

"Okay, we have a couple of options here." I'm thinking out loud. "I can come back and write out a check for a new lunch card or I can pick you up a Lunchable and drop it off at school."

I confess to hoping she picks the Lunchable option because that would be easiest on me. My checkbook was at home, which would add an extra step to the "rescue plan."

"A Lunchable is good, Mom."

Another sigh of relief--and the realization that, as a mom, this is what I do. I fix things when they go wrong in my kiddos' lives.

The reality is, I don't do that so much any more in my young adult children's lives. They are, after all, twentysomethings. They don't usually need me to be "Mom to the Rescue."

But I've got a few more years to be available to Christa--to be there when she needs something. All too soon, Christa will be in middle school. The "Rescue Rules" change. If Christa calls asking me to bring her a lunch, do I?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Suppose I spent the morning saying, "Don't forget your lunch or your lunch money." Christa assures me she's got it and then calls saying, "I need my lunch, could you bring it to school?" There will probably be no rescue. Instead there will be a lesson in responsibility. Christa may be hungry, but she won't starve.


But, that's the future. This time, the lunch money snafu was because I was at a writers conference all weekend and didn't see the note telling me to purchase a new lunch card. That's my responsibility, not hers.