Not a child any more

“Dad, do you have five dollars?,” Michael, 15, asks as we drive home Wednesday night.
“What do you need it for ?.”
“The NCAA pool,” he responds.
“I thought I already gave you $5 for the pool.”
“This is a second one I’m in.”
This is the first time Michael has played the NCCA basketball pool. In fact, he’s been talking about the pool and the upper classmen who are running it all week.

When he first mentioned it, I felt a parental obligation to warn him about gambling. I didn’t because it would have made him feel like a child a month before he turns 16. I’m trying hard not to make him feel like a child even though I wish he was one. I don’t tell him what to do as much and allow him to make mistakes that I probably could have and would have prevented a year ago. He’ll be driving soon and has already started riding with some of his teammates and friends. He will be getting a steady job soon and maybe even a steady girlfriend. That would be OK with me, but his mom is worried that some pretty, skinny teen-age girl in tight pants and a low-cut top is going to break his heart. “Don’t their mothers check to see what they are wearing before they leave the house,” she says as we drive by a gaggle of girls Michael’s age. I tell her not to worry because boys take after their fathers.

I have new appreciation for anyone who has survived teen-agers. Letting them go is a lot harder than reining them in. Watching them make mistakes is more painful than spending every waking moment making sure they are never in a position to screw up.
I reach down to the console and hand him my wallet, knowing that I have $7.
“Mike, I need $5 to enter the pool at work,” I said, wanting to see what he would do.
He took the $5 and didn’t ask how I would pay for my office pool.
That’s OK. Parts of me was hoping some teacher would catch him turning in his sheet and give him a week’s worth of detentions.