Mommy Gets Arrested (a possibility)

I generally keep this under raps, not because I think it's necessarily wrong but because it's sort of illegal, but I've been known to relax the seatbelting/carseating rules when I'm on drop-off duty in the morning before school starts.  I drive the "work car" (there are no carseats in it), and it's a five-block drive through our subdivision and one block outside of it -- my adult assessment of the trip is that it's a pretty low-risk drive.

By the way, when I say "relax" the rules, I mean flat-out just don't do.  Not one strap and not one buckle.  The kids' buns may not even be touching the seat, and I'm already backing out of the driveway.  I do make it a point not to speed too bad as I make my way down the main drag out of the subdivision, and I do pay close attention to cars arriving from side streets or even sitting idle at intersections.  Afterall, I'd really prefer not to encounter a police car.  I fear the risk of getting caught doing this more than that of the harm that might come my kids way because they're not strapped in.

Knowing how kids, particularly my kids, have no filter and tell anything to anyone, you'd think that I would not say anything to them about the wrongness... wait, strike that... the illegality of what I'm doing; but they fully know how wrong... wait, strike that... illegal it is.  But they know because I told them.  I think the first time I said something, I was highly stressed.  I was late, they were fighting, we were all yelling and I said something to the effect of not worrying about anything because we were all going to be arrested for their not being strapped in.

Yes... yes, that's right.  I told them that they had some responsibility in the decision to not only not be in their carseats but to also not be wearing their seatbelts and that they could actually be arrested for it.  And since that time, I've repeated it... on many occasions, stressed or not stressed.  Their teachers haven't pulled me aside and questioned me about it yet; so I really think that our doing this has, until now since I'm blogging about it, stayed within the confines of our car.  I'm not sure how, but I am not going to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth and am just going to not question that part of it.

This past Thursday, our morning was a little rushed but not too bad.  Dan had already left for work, an unusual non-work-at-home day, so I was on drop-off duty.  My goal was just to get them into the backseat and myself into the front seat so we could just start making our way to school, so I had no seatbelting expections nor did I iterate any.  For some reason, Cal buckled himself in.  Once we started moving, he decided to tell on Ella.

"Ella doesn't have her seatbelt on!" he exclaimed.  "She's going to get arrested."

I don't know why I chose to clarify the law, but I responded with, "She's not going to get arrested.  I'm the one who'll get arrested."

Cal didn't question that I said Ella wouldn't get arrested.  He very logically concluded something, though, and responded, "But I won't be able to go to school if Daddy's at work and you're arrested."

I thought this was incredibly funny and very amusing.  His world -- and I'm sure Ella's, too -- is so small, so practical and so immediate.  His only thought about my getting arrested for not strapping my kids in to carseats was about himself and what he's supposed to do.  He wasn't worried about me being thrown behind bars and he wasn't afraid of any emotions he might experience if I were to be arrested and he and Ella separated from me.  I'm sure a lot of it is due to his just being young and selfish and some of it due to his being naive and untainted by movies and daily news.

This observation of his isn't going to change anything, of course.  In fact, today I expanded my doing this to a quick trip to Walgreens a few blocks from our house in the opposite direction of school.  This time, we didn't speak a word about the illegality of it all.  Perhaps that's what I'll encourage as we do this going forward... which we surely will because I really don't think it's wrong.  I think it's safe, practical and, to be honest, fun to joke about.