Parents: Try Not to Lose It

By Kent McDill

“You would lose your head if it wasn’t attached to your body!”

That’s what my Dad used to say to my two sisters and me whenever we would lose something around the house. It was meant to be funny, although when I was young it did cause me some psychological stress as I examined just how precariously my head was attached to my body.

Most parents can laugh at themselves when they repeat a line delivered by their own parents, but I can truthfully say I have never repeated my father’s words to my own children. That’s because my reaction when I am told one of my four children has lost something of value is, “YOU DID WHAT?!”

I hate when my kids tell me they have lost something. For one thing, the item usually isn’t lost; it’s misplaced. Or not even that. It’s somewhere where my child left it, and my child forgot where that was, and rather than look for it, they tell me they lost it.

But the second concerning point of a lost item is that I expect me kids to be more careful with their stuff.

Let’s get the serious points out of the way first. I know why it bothers me. It indicates a passive attitude my kids have toward items of value, and that upsets me. It’s not like I grew up in poverty, but I believe I had a decent appreciation of my own things, and I am dismayed when my kids treat their own games and clothes and books and electronic devices in such a careless manner, thinking that anything that gets lost can get replaced.

As my kids get older and their toys (read: electronics) and clothes and shoes get more expensive, replacing lost items is not a procedure willingly pursued.

But let’s get off the serious points, and move on to just how the situation is dealt with in our home.

When my kids lose something of value, invariably their first reaction is that one of their siblings stole it. Lip balm, mints, money, anything of teenage value is spirited away by brothers and sisters out of sheer spite, until such time as those items are found behind the dresser or under the bed.

If it is determined the items were not stolen, the children then turn to me for assistance, but I cannot believe my kids ever come to me for help with their lost items, because I lose stuff all the time. I don’t freak out about it, because I know my lost items aren’t really lost, but I’m at that age where I’m never quite sure where ANYTHING is.

My cell phone is the perfect example. I spend hours weekly looking for the thing, and often find it in my back pocket, where it has accidentally dialed my kid’s orthodontist. I once searched my car for a full minute looking for my cell phone and I was talking on it at the time.

One of my parents’ “lost item” search techniques was to ask, “Where did you have it last?” It’s a brilliant question, and should serve the purpose to help find the item in question almost every time. Except my kids always respond with “I don’t know!” making me think maybe they have lost their mind as well as their eyeglasses.

All four of my kids “lose” clothing, and they always blame me, because I do the laundry. What’s funny is that they suggest I have some nefarious reason for losing their soccer socks, or their favorite pair of jeans. Honestly, I don’t have time for nefarious schemes involving laundry. Most of my nefarious schemes are pointed toward getting them to use words like “nefarious.”

I’m sure every family has the “lost item” problem, and some deal with it rationally, and some deal with it irrationally, with yelling and screaming and such. But we are lucky as a family, because we actually have an easy solution whenever something is lost.

We call Lindsey.

Lindsey is our 15-year-old female twin. She is our computer expert, and she is our finder of lost treasures.

“She’s kind of spooky,” her older sister Haley told me once when Lindsey found the TV remote from the family room.

Lindsey truly can find anything, and even when she loses stuff, and claims everybody in the house stole it, all you have to do is leave her alone for a minute, and she finds the item. Having a “finder” in the house is a wonderful asset, even it is a little creepy.

The absolutely best “lost item” moment came a few years ago when one of the boys, Dan or Kyle, obviously much younger than today, found the ball he was looking for. “How come you always find things in the last place you look?” he asked.

My Dad would have loved that one.

Ÿ Kent McDill is a freelance writer. He and his wife, Janice, have four children, Haley, Dan, Lindsey and Kyle.