Our younger son recently reported, between guffaws, his ten-year-old daughter’s abortive flight from her gilded cage and from the meanest parents in the whole wide world. Her plan was not well thought out. In her haste, she chose to bolt in the midst of Michigan’s harsh winter.

Snow and ice covered the ground. The wind chill made below freezing temperatures colder still. She departed on foot, insisting she was leaving and never coming back.

She returned fifteen minutes later, red-faced from embarrassment or maybe from the wind chill, and went directly to her room without saying a word. To my son’s credit, he said he refrained from laughing until she slammed her bedroom door shut. Kids.

The incident reminded me of the time our firstborn decided to run away at the age of four and a half. Actually, most people thought he was a miniature forty-year old because he sounded so grown up over the phone. He wasn’t all that grown up on that one particular day. I think of it as my Leave it to Beaver moment in time.

I don’t recall exactly what set him off. It was probably the word “no” in response to whatever it was that he wanted to do.

FIRSTBORN: You’re the meanest mommy in the world.

ME: Then I guess I must be doing my job right.

FB: That’s not funny, Mommy.

ME: I wasn’t trying to be funny. [Actually, I was. The kid was a tough audience.]

FB: I’m really mad at you!

ME: Why?

FB: You won’t let me do anything!

ME: That’s not true. Sometimes mommies have to say no, like this time.

FB: Then I’m going to run away!

ME: [attempting to play it cool] Oh? Where will you live if you run away?

FB: With Missy.

ME: You’ll have to ask her mother if it’s all right first.

FB: [Thinks for a moment] I can go live with Jeff.

ME: You’d have to ask his mother too.

FB: [frowns] I’ll find someplace to go. [stomps down the hallway toward the door]

ME: [thinking fast] Don’t you want to pack some clothes first?

FB: [turns and nods]

ME: I’ll get a suitcase out for you.

FB: [packs suitcase mostly with favorite toys and only a few necessities] I’m all done.

ME: [coming up with another delaying tactic] Why don’t you call Daddy at his office to say good-bye before you leave? He’ll feel really bad if you don’t say good-bye to him. [And why should I go through this crisis alone?]

FB: Yeah. Okay.

I dialed the phone for the would be runaway and informed Macho Guy that his son wanted to say good-bye to him before he leaves home for good. Macho Guy laughed and asked if I was kidding. In reply, I handed the phone to Firstborn.

I only heard Firstborn’s end of the conversation. It went like this:

FB: Bye, Daddy … Yeah … Uh-huh … Mommy was mean to me …Uh-huh … Uh-huh … No … Uh-huh … I love you too … Okay … Bye, Daddy.

Firstborn hung up before I could get my hands on the phone to find out what Macho Guy said to him.

The little devil picked up his suitcase and started toward the front door. He stopped halfway there and turned around, an earnest expression on his face.

FB: Mommy, do you love me?

ME: Yes, of course I do.

FB: Do you want me to run away?

ME: No. It would make me very sad if you did.

FB: [a big grin spreads across his face] Okay, I won’t.

He trotted back to his room where he proceeded to unpack his suitcase as if he hadn’t a care in the world despite causing several gray hairs to sprout from my scalp. Kids.

Epilogue:

The phone rang shortly after Firstborn decided to remain in residence. It was Macho Guy, speaking and chuckling at the same time.

MACHO GUY: You are not going to believe this. It’s hilarious.

ME: What is?

MG: J.N. was standing in the doorway and he overheard me talking to our little runaway, but he only heard everything I said. After I hung up, he came into my office and said, “Oh my God. Is your wife leaving you?” He thought I was talking to you and that you were the one who was leaving. Isn’t that hysterical? We can’t stop laughing. [MG cracks up.]

Kids. Yes, considering the gender just mentioned here, I meant to write kids and for the very reason that sometimes makes me want to run away myself. ::sigh::

It was cold and overcast on the first day and windy. Very windy. The wind whipped across that wide-open space and chilled all of us to the bone—except for the players who kept warm so long as they were moving.

Along the sidelines, parents either sat or stood watching their girls and cheering them on. Oh, not so much cheering them on as nagging them on, actually. Occasionally, there was a “Yay, team!” or a “Nice try!” but most of their shouts sounded a lot like this:

“Don’t just stand there, move! Move!” 

“Get after that ball! Don’t let her take it away from you!” 

“Don’t jog, run! Run faster! Keep going!” 

“Hustle! Come on, girls, hustle! Show some team spirit!”

I cringed when I heard them because it brought back embarrassing memories. The “parental prodding” I heard this past weekend reminded me of Macho Guy and me years ago—the two of us plus the parents of Baby Brother’s other soccer team members.

We also assumed our kids were slacking off and not putting forth their best efforts, and we scolded at them from the sidelines to do better. I suppose we considered ourselves honorary coaches.

Close to mid-season, Baby Brother’s soccer coach sent home a flyer announcing a potluck picnic for the team members and their families. We were surprised because the teams normally had a picnic or banquet at the end of soccer season and distributed trophies or other prizes at that time.

It turned out to be a gorgeous day for a picnic, sunny and warm, not hot and humid. We socialized, grilled hot dogs and pigged out on the potluck dishes and desserts. Afterward, the coach announced a surprise special activity for the afternoon—a soccer game, the kids on the team versus their parents (their mostly out-of-shape parents, to be accurate) that he would referee.

Macho Guy, thinking fast, volunteered to be our goalie so he wouldn’t have to run all over the field. My, but he thought he was clever. We’ll see about that.

I was assigned the right wing position. I never played soccer before in my life. What I knew about it I learned from watching Firstborn and Baby Brother play. I was totally green, totally clueless. I hadn’t played a sport other than golf since high school, and golf doesn’t require one to run after a ball and kick it. If you do, you’re disqualified—unfortunately.

At the kickoff, the soccer ball headed in my direction. I ran toward it as fast as I could, which wasn’t fast enough because a forty-pound Lilliputian beat me to it and kicked it really, really hard. He kicked that soccer ball right in my face and it struck me in the eye. Eee-yow! I saw so many stars that I thought I was part of the Milky Way. The ref blew his whistle, signaling time out and that my soccer career was over before it started. I was in the game for approximately thirty seconds before being helped off the field with an icepack over an already swollen right eye that was tearing like Niagara Falls. I spent the rest of the game on the bench, the envy of the other parents, watching the game with my one good eye and cheering my teammates on.

As the other parents went on and off the field, I heard them grumble about leg cramps and stomach cramps, about their lungs being on fire, about being tired and thirsty and wanting to lie down somewhere. The parents were shocked that their kids were able to run rings around them. After all, they were bigger and stronger than the kids and should have prevailed.

As for Macho Guy, some goalie he was. The kids used him for target practice. They didn’t just aim at the goal; they aimed at him. After a while, Macho Guy gave up protecting the goal and protected himself instead. He would have been better off running around the field because it would have been harder for a kid to hit a moving target—unless the kid happened to be a forty-pound Lilliputian.

The game was never a contest; it was a rout from the start. The kids humiliated the parents. They massacred the parents. They annihilated the parents. The parents slinked off the field completely mortified, but with newfound respect for what it took to play soccer for an entire game—and what it felt like to be injured during a soccer game—no doubt the object lessons the team’s clever coach had in mind.

After that eye-opening (well, not for me) game at the picnic, only positive cheers rang out from the sidelines during the rest of soccer season. We parents learned our lesson the hard way but we learned it well.

Are there any soccer moms out there with confessions of their own? I’d love to read about them.