Angel’s school has a passenger drop off zone, where you can drive past and stop safely momentarily to drop the children off…. and I hate it. I prefer to park the car and walk Angel into school, but he’s ‘a big boy now’, so wants to be dropped off in the car park with the other big kids, so he can walk into school by himself. The problem is the passenger zone is on the other side of a public park from the entrance to the school, so the kids have to walk through the park unaccompanied to get to their schoolrooms and playground areas.
I know that it is probably the usual hypersensitive parental paranoia…. but I cant help thinking that it is a perfect place to try and steal kids from, if someone was that way inclined. Most of the time there is heaps of people around and lots of children meandering towards the school through the park, so Angel isnt actually walking in by himself – but for some reason that doesn’t really make me feel any better about it.
So every morning that I deliver him to school, I pull into the drop off area, and give him a kiss goodbye, and he jumps out the back passenger door, and puts his school backpack on, and comes to the front passenger window and taps on it until i wind the window down… and he sticks his little head in the window and smiles adorably at me and says ‘Bye Mum! I love you!’
And every single time, I tell him I love him too, and watch him walk off towards the gate … he looks so little an vulnerable… too little to be doing anything by himself…. and an unbidden, fleeting, but very tangible thought crosses my mind…. what would I do if something happens to him and that was the last time I saw him… 🙁
