Fr. Kevin Drew: The Threat of Family Hierarchy

About forty-five years ago, my mother took my sister Molly, age five, and my brother Matt, aged three, into Little Folks clothes store at the mall in Quincy, IL.  When they went to the fitting room, all three of them couldn’t fit in it because it was little—Little Folks.

So, Matt sat at a small picnic table outside the room and played with stuffed animals. Then he got confused.  He saw a mother and daughter walk out of the store, and thinking they were his own mother and sister, he followed them out into the mall. He walked behind them for a while until he realized they were the wrong people.  In the meantime, my mother opened the fitting room door to find Matt gone.

So, put yourself in a mother’s shoes.  What do you do?  Your child is not in the store, so you venture out into the mall.  Your eyes dart around, and then you start walking very fast up and down the mall with your five-year-old daughter hanging on.  Someone calls mall security.  Then concerned people start helping you.  But your son cannot be found.  Anxiety turns to dread, and there’s a knot in your stomach.  It all starts to become surreal, like a bad dream. …

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