I'm faced with a dilemma. Mr Charging Towards Adulthood (CTA) called me from school on his cell a couple of hours ago and asked me to call him in sick tomorrow for Senior Skip Day. It seems that the 12th graders are all planning to go to a nearby amusement park tomorrow.

Now, I'm not aginst fun, and I know that skip day is a very popular custom in some parts of this great country of ours. The temptation for kids to blow off a day of exam review and do something really fun together one last time must be huge. I was young once, too...back when dinosaurs roamed the then still-cooling rock we call earth.

My initial response to him was "Well, if you want to skip school, you're a big boy and you can do what you can do. You don't need my permission to break the rules." Even as I was saying this, I knew that there are many, many parents here who will call in tomorrow and say that their child has some mysterious "chalk-dust fever." I also know (because I called the school and asked) that if I do what I know in my heart is right, my kid will have consequences for doing what he knows is not right. I can deal with that. What really gets my goat is that the 200 kids whose parents have no internal compass on this issue will have NO consequences.

So now my kid, CTA, has the choice. I have a pretty good idea which one he'll make. And I also know that he's not a big fan of the negative consequence--there will be much stomping of size-12's and slamming of six-panel doors at my house tonight. My explanation that this is called Making One's Bed and Lying In It will be met with sneers and a look of incredulity at my apparent stupidity. I will be pitied for my integrity, not admired for it. He will try to martyr himself for having the Dumbest F'ing Parents in the World. He will attmept to make me feel guilty for Ruining His Life. He will characterize me as the Only Mom in all of Town-By-The-Lake who really, truly Hates Her Kid.

CTA will likely not thank me when he's thirty. I can live with that...I have another kid in the house who is entering high school next year, who is still impressionable, and who I know is watching to see what I do in this situation. I might as well give her four year's advance notice.

I feel as if all the little moral lessons I tried to teach my kids along the way, every chance to show them right from wrong, every attempt to help them become people who will choose integrity over expediency will be for naught if I lie for my kid now over something stupid.

Or maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill...