Last night while making my son’s favorite cheese and salsa dip, I looked over while he watched me eagerly and noticed his eye. He had a black eye, that he passed off while in the “just red” stages as a bug bite that his father believed and put bug bite stuff on his eye. I didn’t laugh at him for buying that excuse since I was too tired to notice it myself until this moment. My little almost tween had lied about what it was, yet that wasn’t the top of my concern list.

I will warn you that my first concern might make me seem like a bad parent in most minds. I was concerned about my son and whether he was hurt but since he obviously was fine my concerns went to a different thought. This concern should be a statement more on the state of our society than my job as a mother. I was concerned that some overzealous school employee would see a black eye and automatically assume that my husband or I had hit him. Every time he falls down or hit his head and it leaves a mark, I could only come back to this worry. I know I don’t abuse my kid. The school doesn’t and are hyper-vigilant to avoid issues involving liability tells child services about it. I appreciate the concern, it has its place. They do need to catch abuse and children are too afraid to say something. I’m not opposed to the schools being involved, I’m more concerned about the high prevalence of child abuse.

I told my son before he got on the bus to make sure he told the truth if a teacher asked. Lying would be caught by the teachers and they’d think he was harmed. It did make him come clean how it happened, so there was a bright side. Apparently he was playing football with his bigger cousin, and got a ball to the face. I laughed, all I could think of is when Marcia Brady received a broken nose from a ball to the face. I told him it could be worse and not to lie next time because head injuries are serious and he needs to let us know when he hits his head. We’ll see what happens today and hopefully someday people will stop seriously harming their children.