It’s funny how time flies, how roles get reversed. Today, I asked for my son’s permission for 3 posts on my blog that referred to him. To the first one, he smsd, “I liked it.” Wow! I was thrilled. Getting something like that from your 19-year-old is praise indeed. To the other 3, he smsd, “OK ha ha.” I’m glad I can make him laugh.

It wasn’t so long ago he had to ask us if he could play with the boys in the park, sleep over at a friend’s house, or start the fire in the fireplace. He had to ask permission from his teacher to speak, stand up, go to the toilet.

Now that he’s doing his military service, he has to ask permission for lots of things and is ordered to do many things, some less pleasant than others.

We never stop asking someone’s permission, do we? However old we are. There is always a higher authority, or if not an authority, someone we care about, whose opinion matters, so we defer to them.

When we are children, decisions are made for us. We don’t have a say in our lives or our future. I left home when I was 9. No, I didn’t run away. I was sent to live in an apartment, next door to my mom’s best friend, with my brother and sister and a maid in the big city, a 4-hour ride away from our town. My parents had a store and couldn’t leave. They wanted what was best for us and that meant the big city school.

My mom said, “If you stay here, you are a pearl in the mud. A pearl needs a beautiful setting. The city is that setting. That’s why you have to go.”

“I wanna stay in the mud! I wanna stay in the mud!”

I was still crying when she put me on the bus between two nuns who were also going to the city. For the life of me, I can’t remember how I got from there to the apartment where my brother and sister lived. I don’t know who picked me up at the bus stop or whether the nuns took me all the way to the apartment.

We went home for vacation and I slowly got used to living away from home. At least I didn’t have to ask permission from anyone at home. My brother and sister were 13 and 15 and had their own busy adolescent lives. I knew I had to get good grades, so I did. The rest of the time was mine to do with as I pleased.

The thing I remember most about those years is closing the gate, walking to the screen door, opening it and… silence. No “Hey, you home? Come sit, tell me all about your day.” No arms to enfold me, a warm cheek on the top of my head, a big hug. Someone to say, “Yay! 100% on your spelling test! Bravo!” or “I’m sorry your best friend dumped you.”

There were no hands to comb my hair and put them into pigtails. I loved pigtails! None to teach me to cook or to bake, none to help me with my school projects.

I would have traded years of asking permission for moments like these.