Stacy and I have three children. This story is about two of them, Preston (age 13) and Zach (age 10). Our kids are what many people call MKs, missionary kids. Preston has lived just about 3 years in the US in his life, while Zach only has about 2 years in the US. The rest of the time has been spent in other countries, places with different rules and opportunities. This is important for our story.
Zach came up to me last week to tell me about something in the parking area behind our apartment. Now, you have to understand how different my children are. Preston is the math guy. Zach is the artist. Preston analyzes. Zach has feelings. Preston makes his bed while Zach does not even use a top sheet. Preston buttons his shirts. Zach just got used to wearing underwear every day in the last two years. Preston uses judgement to reach conclusions about the best course of action. Zach says “You know what would be cool?” Preston’s favorite outfit is his Tennessee Titan shirt and some denim shorts. Zach’s favorite outfit for years was his skin.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Zach has been to the ER more than 10 times in his 10 years on this earth. Zach falls off of roof tops. Tumbles down stairs. Hits himself in the head trying to copy moves from “Revenge of the Sith.” Takes off his clothes and runs in the rain across the playground and among the houses on a Baptist seminary campus.
Zach is the one who, upon arriving at our new home last week, promptly climbed the fence, scaled the wall, and stood on the neighbor’s roof. “Get down from there! That’s not our roof!” prompted him to reply with “But why? There’s nobody up here.” Preston, on the other hand, helped me mow the yard. On a side note, Emily was in the still-empty house pretending to shop.
In essence, circumstances and situations have given me ample reason to fear Zach’s judgement abilities, and to rely heavily on Preston as the voice of reason when Mommy and Daddy are not around. This, too, is important for our story.
So Zach is telling me about the parking area, and how the 25 foot high walls around it are not perfectly straight. It seems there is a ledge about 10 feet up or so running all the way around the parking area. ”So, there’s this ledge, ya know? And that big board down there? Well, if you put the board against the wall, right on that ledge, you can just walk right up and onto that ledge! We walked all up and down the wall on that!”
Great. Kids can barely walk and chew gum without tripping each other. Now they want to walk on a 12-inch wide ledge 10 feet off the ground.
“Well, that small house down there where that other family lives is right at the same height as the ledge. I mean, the ledge ends at the edge of their roof top. Since the roof was flat, we just walked right on top of the roof.”
So I said it. ”New family rule: NO walking on other people’s houses or roof tops, even with permission. Zach, you’ve fallen off a roof before, so this goes double for you.”
Then Preston, the voice of reason, chimes in. “You know the back wall of the property is really high? And on the other side is, like, another house? Well the people from that other house put an electric fence on top of their wall!” Bells begin to ring. Sirens. In my mind, I can clearly see the triage nurse at Hospital Voz Andes on Calle Villalengua. She’s saying “Senor Parks? Back again? Que paso?”
“Well Dad, we touched it. The fence.”
Did it hurt? “Well, not at first. Zach didn’t touch it for long. I held on the longest, and then something happened and the shock just THREW me off. I couldn’t have held on any more! It THREW me, Dad!”
Did anyone fall off the roof? No.
Was there a sign, one that said something like “DANGER! LITTLE BOYS SHOULD USE THEIR BRAINS AND CLIMB DOWN RIGHT NOW BEFORE THEY DO SOMETHING STUPID”? Preston again. “Well, of course there was a sign. That’s why I made Zach touch it first!”
I’m crushed. This is what I expect from Zach. But Preston? Oh, my son….tell me that’s the end.
“Anyway, Zach was finished, but I went ahead and touched it with my forehead. That really hurt.” Long pause. “We got down after that.”
I recovered long enough for my next pronouncement. “OK…new family rule. No touching of electric fences, especially while standing on someone else’s roof top. I should not have to make this sort of rule. I work too hard to have think of these sorts of rules. If you were normal kids living in the normalcy of the United States, I’d have to make rules about the new words your friends at school taught you, or about which side of the street is best for skateboarding. Here? I get saddled with electric fences and who gets to eat the chicken heart for supper.” (We actually have to take turns on that last one. Family rule.)
People say to me, “It is so great that your kids have the chance to live in other countries, where they have such unique opportunities! Isn’t it grand?” Yeah. Laugh a minute.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually, the actions of your boys was true to form. Zach was no doubt thinking “it would be cool to check out this electric fence!” And Preston was then ready to conduct an experiment (what happens when you touch the electric fence longer? How long can I touch the electric fence?). Kids. Gotta love ‘em. We are on the verge of becoming “empty nesters” (senior in college, senior in high school), and we wonder what we will do for entertainment when both our offspring are gone.
It sounds as though you’ve been observing my three boys…right down to the preferred daily attire and ER tendencies (although without the electric fence…yet).
Actually, when my two oldest were little, I started alternating ERs in our city (there were two), because I didn’t want to have to describe the frequency of our trips.
Yeah, my sister says, “Do you know what we call 10 ER trips here in the US? Child Protective Services….”
Whether it was Preston falling off a high fence while trying to retrieve their only soccer ball (it IS South America, after all) and knocking himself out while fracturing an arm, or my being stitched up without anesthesia, or Stacy taping the side of my thumb back on after a misguided machete, or Stacy’s being rolled on a gurney down a hallway to the OR and being able to see daylight between the ceiling tiles…medical life on the field is never dull.
When I was a kid growing up on the mission field, I broke my arm and that trip to the doctor was not exactly what such an experience would be here in the good ol’ USA.
Jeremy – Funny stories . Caused me to remember when I was a child living on the second level of a three story tenement ; and, with both parents working I had instructions not to go into the street. So, I opened up my window and climbed out onto the roof and lit some firecrackers I’d saved. One I thought was a dud went off in my hand and caused a blister. Either one of your children might make good pilots who learn to take what is presented and make the most of it.
Jeremy, I am glad that your guys were not around my two oldest when they were that age. It would not have been a good thing. Not at all.
This was priceless. C’mon Dr. Lemke, this needs to make SBC Today’s “top posts of the week” thing!
Awesome. Immediately reminded me of this comic strip:
http://xkcd.com/242/
Great stuff!
My kids have been pretty tame… at least they’ve mostly stayed out of the ER. Although when I was helping my oldest edit his most recent video – he and a friend like to write screenplays and video them – I got to a scene where he appeared to jump off the roof of the barn to the ground. I said, “Hey that was a good camera trick. It looked like you really jumped off the roof.”
He replied, “No, Dad. We jumped off of it. It’s not that far.”
10 feet isn’t that far? “It looked like you hurt your back.”
“That was just good acting, Dad.”
My generation on the other hand… my stepbrother would get us into all manner of backyard sports. During football season we had enough kids to get together at the neighborhood school football field on Saturday afternoons to have 11-person teams with second strings, full tackle, no pads. My dad was an orthopedic PA. We kept him busy with strains, sprains, dislocated joints and broken bones.
Ouch! Sounds like me at age 3 in Detroit, Mich. in 1944. I got on my tricycle and set off to see the world. Made it to a downtown area and a lady gave me to the police who put me in a jail cell with another little boy with whom I played until mom came to get me. I do not remember the part where she turned me over a toilet seat at home and set my fanny afire. And then there was our son, but I won’t go there. Suffice it to say, they taught us in Adolescent Psych at Liberty that the real aim of the teenage years is survival. No, not the kids – the parents. People often look relieved, when I tell them that little fact. Here is another, this, too is for the teen age years. Some teenagers are crazy all the the time, and, without exception, every last one of them is crazy some of the time. All it means is that MKs like PKs, regardless of age, are just simply bright, interested, eager, curious, and down right obtuse. Enjoy while you can. David, Mrs. W. laid on the couch and cried for I don’t know how long after the last hatchling left the nest. It took years to recover from the Empty Nest Syndrome. One of the most shocking things is how silent the house is….no phone calls, I mean you can count them on the fingers for the week and not use all the fingers of one hand unless there is an emergency of some kind.