My mammoth mistake delivered mammoth lessons

I lost my child. There you go, I’ve put it out there. I did wonder whether I should write about this, it’s a bit of a taboo subject, mothers aren’t supposed to lose their children. It’s a mammoth mistake and entirely avoidable but on a positive I’ve found him, it delivered many lessons and I’ve learnt a lot.

He was missing for over two hours. I say “missing” but the truth is I forgot to collect him from his sports club. Yep, I forgot him and I have no credible excuse. I was working at home on an evening, my task was going well, I was totally in the zone, going great guns when I looked at the clock and realised I was already an hour late for him. I had no sense of time, I couldn’t believe it. Panic ensued.  Lesson one – set alarm clock ten minutes before pick-up time to wake me from work induced coma.

I flew down to the sports club, but it was in darkness, no-one was around, he was gone. I was filled with utter terror. What now? Lesson two – always keep a torch in your car otherwise you will be in the dark whilst running around the rugby field, frantically screaming out your child’s name, phoning random people, desperation rising.

Relief, just as I was about to call the Police I found him. It’s complicated but he had taken himself to a local school where he expected he would find someone he knew, he didn’t find them but he did thankfully find kind people who took him in, gave him copious amounts of hot chocolate and biscuits, tending to his every need while they tracked me down over social media. Lesson three – social media is powerful, we are no longer anonymous; our cyber calling card is everywhere so remember to check social media even when running around a field in the dark. If you do this you will find your missing child more quickly.

Although I tortured myself with a horrific vision of “what if” it is clear to me post event that my missing child was having a great time, charming his new lady friends and squeezing every ounce of value from his plight, confident I would arrive any moment to pick him up - I was not having a great time, I was hyperventilating.  Lesson four – my son is tremendously resilient with incredible initiative and absolute confidence in my mothering capabilities (possibly misplaced but that’s love for you).

My first reaction to his return was joy, overshadowed very quickly by hysterical wailing followed by intense feelings of shame. Once I got the raw emotion out of the way the job of working out what I could and should have done differently began. Lesson five– work life balance – got to get a grip of this, a work induced coma cannot be good for you even if you feel in the zone when writing your discussion paper.

In my business I have a rain forest of papers, scenario testing, risk management, disaster recovery and business continuity processes, plans and systems all designed to keep the charity safe but I have no credible plan in place to keep my family safe, the most important thing in my world negligently exposed to risk – Lesson six – take the time to contemplate what will happen if you are late, the car breaks down, you are somehow incapacitated on the way to pick him up, aliens descend from the skies or he decides to leave the sports club before you get there.

Lesson seven – My failure to consider these risks disabled my child, he did not have the tools he needed to respond to a “no show parent”. Dunn Family Disaster Recovery Conference urgently required; the aim to identify risks, plan, mitigate and train the troops so everyone knows what to do the next time mum is late because, and this is the biggest lesson of all, perhaps controversial but I will be late again because I am only human, I make mistakes. 

Lesson eight - shame is a wasted emotion. I have nothing else to say about that, it really is that simple. Shame, guilt, being unkind to oneself, wishing you’d done things differently however you want to articulate it, these things are a waste of energy. My son is fine. I am fine. We are fine. Next time I’m late we have a plan.

Yes, there’s no doubt this was a mammoth mistake but mistakes deliver lessons and, whether we like it or not, we all need a lesson or two from time to time, it forces us to re-evaluate, adjust and advance. Take the lesson, I have.