"Boy of mine...as you sort among the stories you've been told, if some pieces of the picture are hard to find and the answers to your questions are hard to hold, take good care of your mother..." Jackson Browne

It's like Where's Waldo, or maybe a crime scene.
It's like Jackson sings, "some pieces of the picture are hard to find."
In this case, the piece that is hard to find is the rest of the boy.
This is how I found my boy, sleeping in my bed, his body all the way across it. I knew he was in there somewhere, buried under comforter and covers and pillows Then I found it, a piece of my little boy.

These days, when I find a piece of little boy, it is delightful. He is not so little anymore. His world is bigger than I would like it to be, and he sometimes carries the weight of it. He experiences stress I can't absorb for him. He is tender and loving and kind, and I have to remind his teacher that he is just a little boy.

Sure, he looks tough, and he certainly acts tough, but under all that hair, he is still beautiful, soft, and sensitive. He can be those things and still be all boy.

We push our boys to toughen up. We expect the bumps and bruises they take to become calluses when they should still be tender feet. We expect them to sit still and walk in lines, to be more organized than their mothers. We've got it all wrong. We send them to play on playgrounds with signs that say No Running. We send them to schools that take out the swing sets because swing sets have become a liability issue.

"When did swing sets become a liability?" I asked.  "Well, one child broke his arm when he jumped from the swing set," they told me.

Of course he did! When I was in elementary school, that happened about once every two years. Do you remember the year the kid in your class broke his arm?

When kids jumped from swings, our principal didn't consider it a liability. He considered it a learning experience. The howling boy would pull it together and act strong while the principal gently wrapped a magazine around the arm. He put an icepack between the arm and the magazine, and he taped it so that it stayed the way he wanted it. The magazine provided stability while the boy waited for his mother to take him for an x-ray. As the mother drove away, the principal told the other students, "Looks like a pretty good break. He'll be in a cast for a long time. Won't be able to play ball, or get it wet. No swimming," and everyone would be a little more careful when they jumped. We still jumped. We ran, leaped, fell, and smacked our heads and banged our knees and had fist fights, even us girls.

They removed the swings on which my boy loved to play. The boys started playing football at recess. They told them no tackle football, and the boys tried to keep it to touch, but they are little boys. Touch didn't last for long.

The first time a child fell they banned footballs at recess. Their footballs all confiscated, they took to the woods, and began playing the same game, only using a pine cone instead of a ball. It was easier to throw, harder to catch, and much more likely to put out an eye than a ball.

Sixth grade is hard. It was hard for his sister, too. I can't help but think it doesn't have to be, and it should not be.  Our system makes it that way. They want to toughen them up before sending them to middle school. Schools used to provide more stability than stress. It used to be a place where the larger community kept an eye on you. They expected you to be a kid. I don't see that anymore. One sixth grade teacher told the parents on orientation night that she had never had a group of boys like this one, and she didn't know what to make of it. They are always hugging each other. Hugging each other! Not that there is anything wrong with that, but she finds it strange, and is not quite sure what to do about it. Harrison's other teacher said to me that she has never had boys as tightly knit as this group. I think when they get a glimpse of the soft little boys who aren't afraid to hug, it seems wrong. We have to make them afraid to hug. Make them feel ashamed.

My son is not habitually late with his assignments, but last week his teacher thought he needed to focus more on his reading, and kept him in from recess.  I have asked her not to do that. Boys need recess -  fresh air, sunshine. They need running and laughing without restraint. They need footballs and swings.

He is growing up too fast, as they all do. He watches the Jets with his dad, cooks with me, and drives his sister insane with his Nerf guns. Much to my horror,  he is listening to Kanye West, while his sister is living Taylor Swift's Fifteen. She is a pretty good sister, and she loves him, but sometimes I have to remind her, "Take good care of your brother..."