My daughter’s first real college vacation started with a bang — she passed her road test and got her driver’s license. To celebrate, she immediately took the car out by herself for the first time.
A week later, the rain came, pouring in buckets from the sky, causing flooding and generally awful conditions. That night, she wanted to take her sister and a friend to the movies. I looked out the window, then at my girl, 18 years old with only a week behind the wheel and no experienced driver riding shotgun. The correct course of action seemed obvious.
“You can drive but I’m coming with you.”
She immediately understood the impact of my decision, that I would take the car home and come back for them when the movie was over.
“I’ve just gotten this freedom and you’re already taking it away from me,” she accused.
From my self-righteous, parental perspective, that wasn’t what I was doing at all. In my mind, it was all about safety, my presence providing an added level of support for this new and potentially hazardous adventure she was about to embark on. The temporary curtailing of her liberty was a minor consequence. I was still going to let her drive, wasn’t I?
From where she stood, glaring at me, trying hard not to say anything that would cross the line and really lose her some freedom, the issue was pretty simple. She was being treated like a kid.
There is, perhaps, no greater symbol of adulthood than driving, even for a city kid who’s been riding the subway alone since at least eigth grade. In movies and books, the mythology of the road and the culture of cars represents attaining independence, travel, owning the world. Drinking is something sneaky teenagers do (aren’t they all sneaky?) and voting only happens every few years, but once you have your license, you are not a child anymore.
My daughter had her first sweet taste of the road’s magic, and her father was already reining her in.
As we drove towards the theater, wipers swishing at high speed, visibility mediocre at best, I wondered what I really was doing there. I realized that when driving, you don’t always know what question to ask until you’ve already faced a split second decision, a sudden situation you never anticipated, and at that point, having an experienced driver sitting next to you only means you have someone to turn to after the moment has passed and, hopefully, say, “Glad that’s over.”
What I may have accomplished was to make my girl feel I didn’t trust her ability and maybe to diminish her self-confidence. Who am I to doubt the good judgment of New York state, which bestowed upon my child the privilege of operating a motor vehicle?
She did her work, practiced for her test, got her license. It was time to step back and trust in her preparation and responsibility. Riding in that car was really for me, not for my daughter.
We made it to the theater without a problem.
She drove beautifully and gave me a different sort of driving lesson.
