The Urge To Do It On His Own

Kenton Weaver----the Florida boy who drove his dad's Ford Explorer to the Fort Lauderdale airport, parked the car in the garage, and (without ID) got onto a plane to San Jose earlier this week---is 13 years old, just about the same age as my son Charlie. Charlie, I quite suspect, would not have been able to pull off such a journey---with his limited language skills, I would think someone at some early stage in the game would figure something was up, and hopefully Charlie would be able to respond quickly to any questions about (for instance) his phone number (he has my always-on cell phone number memorized as his home phone). And Charlie driving----I think I can pretty reliably say that he wouldn't get too far behind the wheel. For one thing, he still has trouble tracking moving objects (like moving cars) and driving being a task which involves the coordination of multiple activities and quick observation and execution, it's not likely that Charlie will ever be getting behind the wheel.

I've been thinking more about whatever it was that impelled Weaver to undertake such a journey in the first place. Weaver had lived in St. Louis prior to his parents divorcing; he had been living with his father, Dean Weaver, in Boca Raton. His mother, Kimberly Casey, lives in Fresno, California, and said in the April 29th Sun-Sentinel:

"He's having issues," Casey said. "He was ultimately trying to get to me."

The divorce and moving from St. Louis has been hard on the teen, Casey said. Life's been hard too. Because of birth defects, Weaver had to have surgery when he was 1 day old because his intestines were in his chest cavity, his mother said. He's also had two heart surgeries. The seventh-grade special-education student at Eagles Landing Middle School west of Boca Raton has been under a psychiatrist's care since he was 5, his parents said.

"I love him and I'm going to be really happy to see him," his mother said Wednesday before reuniting with him. "And I'm just going to enjoy that for a moment."

According to the Sun-Sentinel, "Weaver's parents remain stunned by what he did and that he was undetected" and it's unclear whether he'll stay with his mother or return to his father.

I'm wondering how much of a desire to go out and explore, to do something on his own, to be independent, might have impelled Kenton Weaver on his transcontinental odyssey. Of late, my own son has started to hop on his bike and start pedaling away and going fast down the street just as Jim is strapping on his helmet. Jim's a fast bike rider himself and catches quickly up to Charlie. My worry is more about Charlie getting his bike out, donning his helmet, and speeding off down the street.

It is more likely that Charlie, given the chance, would head to a place he'd been to before and, most likely, a place offering preferred food items (the bagel place, the supermarket, McDonald's----Charlie's biked past them all). And so far, given his adherence to routine, it seems unlikely that Charlie would initiate an entire bike ride on his own, as he's so used to Jim being with him at every stage of his bike rides. While Charlie did take the car key once, he left it in the car door (overnight, as I recall----yikes), rather than trying it out in the ignition. (That would have been double yikes.)

Weaver's story and Charlie's riding further ahead of Jim remind me these two boys, and many children like them, are growing up. And with growing up comes a greater desire for independence, for doing things on one's own----and yet, certainly for children with the challenges of my son, "doing things one one's own" is a limited proposition, especially when those things involve being out in the community. "Independence" for Charlie isn't going to mean quite what it does for many, but that doesn't mean the urge in him to "do it on by himself" is any less.