Fortune: Who's in charge here, anyway?

We turned left onto Shallowford Road to head over the ridge and into town, only to find the road blocked by a rush-hour traffic accident on the rain-slick road.

"Well, now what?" I wondered aloud. "Turn around and take 153? That'll cost us like 20 minutes. We're all going to be crazy late."

"Hang on, I think I know what to do," my 14-year-old son said, grabbing my phone from the center console. He tapped a few times, then announced, "Yep, turn left at that little road up there."

I promptly obeyed. I've learned by now to follow Jack's instructions.

We wended our way through a neighborhood of small ranch houses and narrow roads, making several turns that felt to me completely counterintuitive, then dropped back onto Shallowford Road two blocks up from the accident.

"Thanks, bug."

"No problem."

Six months ago, I would have argued. That residential street looked like a straight shot to nowhere. Those turns felt all wrong. And, by the way, kid, aren't you supposed to be 4?

I learned my lesson, though, the day this past spring when a wreck had shut down Amnicola Highway and I was musing aloud about the best way to get around it.

My son had a plan, and my phone confirmed it. I thought his plan made no sense, and I (insanely) doubted that he was accurately reading that map.

I won't recount the details of the argument because they make me look very foolish. But when I eventually relented and made it to town on my son's instructions, I apologized and dubbed him Family Navigator.

"You're in charge of destination actualization," I mock-somberly informed him.

"Excellent," he said.

It's not just roads, either. He can find his way anyplace, with or without that phone. In June, he hatched a plan to hike every inch of the pedestrian trails at Enterprise South Nature Park. He and I set out early with the dog, a crumpled little paper map, some snacks and water.

It was a roughly 8-mile proposition, some hills, lots of looping turns, an endless canopy of trees that look exactly like all the other trees. In others words, I was lost 10 minutes after we started.

We had a mighty fine time, but a few hours into the trip, he abruptly stopped walking and looked around.

"Something's not right," he said, pulling out the little map. "Yeah, this is a spur in the trail and, if we keep going, we'll dead end at the road. We need to go back a little bit and find the split."

I looked around. Trees. Trails. Rocks and hills. Just like all the others I'd seen for the previous few hours.

"How did you know that?" I marveled.

He shrugged. We corrected our course and finished back at the car an hour later, tired and happy.

Most of the people who know me best would say I like to be in charge - though they might not put it that nicely. But very little in life has made me happier than knowing we've raised someone I'm content (and wise) to follow.

Contact Mary Fortune at thirtytensomething.blogspot.com.

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