学进去

“You need to sign this,” my son Joe informed me. “What is it?” I asked. Rolling his eyes with a sense of impatience, Joe replied, “Your permission. And it’s due tomorrow!”

I learned that Joe’s sixth-grade class would be taking a field trip to the state capital. “That sounds like fun,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to go there.” “You can’t come!” Joe answered. Puzzled, I asked. “Why not?” “Because you always come on field trips!”

Of course, I always joined his class on field trips. Being a chaperone (监护人) on a field trip is one of the advantages that comes with being a mom, a vacation day in a career that offers few opportunities for a change of scenery. “You don’t want me to be a chaperone?” “Give someone else’s mom a chance,” he suggested. What was surprising was how much I minded being so impolitely removed from the short list of willing chaperones by my own son.

When Joe was in kindergarten, his class planned a pretend trip to Norway. The day before the trip, Joe woke up not feeling well.

After learning that he didn’t have a fever, I asked, “You don’t want to miss getting ready for the trip to Norway, do you?” “I guess not,” he said.

But when I picked him up at the end of the day, the teacher whispered, “Joe got a little upset today.” “What happened?” “He doesn’t want to go to Norway without you.” So that was what had been bothering my 5-year-old. He thought his class was really flying to Norway on their wooden chairs in their paper airplane. He believed those passports and tickets he and his classmates had been making were the real deal.

Preadolescence fell upon my family as my husband and I found ourselves preparing for our son’s upcoming teen years with the same trepidation as someone about to climb an ice-covered mountain wearing high heels.

Joe needed to take a field trip without me accompanying him. And I needed to let him. I’m glad he doesn’t need me all the time.