My son is totally awesome. I’m in awe of him. I’m inspired by him. I truly am. An eight year old most assuredly can change the world. He most certainly has changed mine. The second he came into being I was a changed person. But I will not continue to gleefully rant about how great he is. Every mother thinks her child is awesome. Or most assuredly should. Unless he’s Jeffrey Dahmer or the like. But even then..well, I have digressed most unashamedly.
My son has an extremely keen sense of fairness. And when things don’t appear to be fair he will let you know, to no end. He recently entered a math competition in his own without even telling us. We found out when we had to sign the permission slip.  I was completely excited for him. I thought that finally he would be a bit like me. I used to enter all sorts of contests as a kid from Miss Carvel to storytelling competitions. He didn’t win but it was still cool that he tried.  Although, he was quite miffed. Not that he lost but that he didn’t have a fair chance as the competition was do badly organized his team didn’t hear their call and thus arrived late to the stage. I asked him if he had fun anyway, hoping he would answer in the affirmative.  Because the situation had been unfair it wasn’t that much fun. Yikes.
Luckily he had some video games to hurry off to play. He moved on somewhat easily. However, I was reminded of that other time recently where he was outraged at a so-perceived unfair situation: that of the water bottle.  See, at his school they were all told they could no longer drink from the water fountain. They had to carry their own water bottle as if they were constantly on a hike.  Don’t ask me why this policy was put in place. All I can say is that it is a school in Los Angeles.   There was recently a movie about the city called LALA Land. Enough said.

Regardless of what led to this situation, my son was peeved.   Ok. Let me back up. One kid made a mistake and everyone basically had to now carry their own water.  My son could not fathom how all of the kids were made to pay for the mistake of one. And on top of which it was a mistake.  He repeatedly let me know that mistakes happen and that people shouldn’t be punished for a mistake.   He was so upset that he contemplated taking action. He thought about gathering his friends in an insurrection. The funny thing about it all is that my son received the first Character Counts award of the school year. It was an award for being best behaved.

Did I want my son to behave or did I want him to act up?  It was going to be up to him. I am raising him to fight for what he believes in. Even if it is a fight to not have to carry a water bottle. A strong-willed son is the best thing on earth.