What's My Leverage With Mike? His Cell Phone

This fatherhood thing is tough.

Actually, it's not so tough with Meggie, who just graduated from the University of Richmond, Summa Cum Laude, and has already started her business career.

With high school freshman-to-be Mike, though, it's different. There's that male macho thing going on. It's kind of funny. He actually thinks he might be able to kick my ass.

Of course, there's no way, and we'll never know, but I can't legislate what he thinks, right? In fact, unless you're a law-and-order dad, you kind of lose control at this point as they enter high school. You can't legislate much anymore. You're kind of already cutting the cord.

You see, I'm too easy-going to start grounding him for mischief that is mostly manageable. (At the same time, I'm petrified because we're less than two years away from Mike and his friends driving cars. OMG!) Still, you have to maintain some kind of leverage. That's what makes it tough.

This "Letting go so they can fly" thing is weird. Like every father, I'll never forget the day I took him to the neighborhood sleighriding location, populated by kids his age but many older boys too, and leaving because he and I both knew it was time for him to operate on his own.

Thanks to 21st century technology, though, I do have an ace in the hole on the legislation/discipline/consequences front. His cell phone.

I first began to realize how indispensible it is back when he was 11 and his mother told me he needed one so he could always call to let us know he was okay. I was hitting fly balls to him in preparation for little league season that spring when every now and then I'd look up and see him in the distance turned away from me looking down - I thought - at his glove.

After about three such episodes that day (I'm a real quick study, right?), I realized that he wasn't adjusting his glove or tending to a bruise on his hand. He was texting his friends! Excuse me? I couldn't even grasp the concept of him having the phone in his pocket while chasing outfield flies, never mind making me wait while he prattled on with his pals about meeting later at the mall.

Last year, while coaching our team in rec basketball, I reached to give him a congratulatory pat on the backside as he came to the huddle for a time out after scoring on a fast break. Off target, my hand caught him on the hip -- you know, near where the pocket would be if your basketball shorts had pockets -- and collided with a rectangular piece of metal/plastic alloy or whatever those Godforsaken things are made of.

Astoundingly, he was playing the basketball game with his cell phone in his pocket. Here was my son, in a game I was coaching, competing against older, taller players with a mini-computer in his pocket, buzzing distractingly and weighing him down, no small matter, since he is, after all, white.

I outlawed that practice but we had another little issue this year at a rec game being played at Cabrini College in suburban Philly, the gym location furthest from our home (but not far from my office). Of course, Mike brought his phone but forgot to give it to me or put it in his bag by the time the game was about to start. So, he pulled it out of his pocket and placed it under a chair on the sideline, next to all the other bottled drinks and articles of clothing that clutter the floor around the bench.

Through four quarters, it got kicked around and was not readily noticeable as we left the area at the end of the game but that didn't even matter, because Mr. Absent-minded didn't remember to look for it anyway. Then, when we were almost home, he realized he had left it behind. He begged me to go back, but I said no, promising to call the next day to see if it was recoverable.

That following morning, he made me promise again to check on his phone and then he called me at work from the home phone later in the day - anxiety in his voice -- to see if I had any news.

I did get ahold of the wonderful people at Cabrini by mid-afternoon and we confirmed that the lost-and-found cell phone from the previous night indeed belonged to the 14 year-old kid with the long hair. (So that's why they have their pictures on the LCD screen - to validate ownership!)

Empathetic guy that I am, I immediately called Mike that Tuesday afternoon to say that they had found his phone. I heard a sigh of relief on the other end of the line and Mike was about to hang up when I added, "So I'll head over there and pick it up at the end of the week."

Biting my tongue to avoid audible laughter, I waited through a long, quizzical (I'm sure) pause before hearing that half-pleading/half incredulous intonation of "Daaaaad. You're kidding me, riiiiiiight?"

Though it didn't last long, I had had my fun and promised Mike that I'd go to Cabrini and bring it home that night so that he could recapture his life.

Thus, I remain in control because I know that if he pulls any wiseguy antics, I don't have to take away his basketball or his baseball or his XBox or his social life.

I know - and he knows I know - what truly matters.