Demotion: Mother to Chauffeur

According to Wikipedia a chauffeur is “a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine.  Originally such drivers were always personal servants of the vehicle owner, but now in many cases specialist chauffeur service companies, or individual drivers provide both driver and vehicle for hire.”

Well, my luxury vehicle isn’t exactly a limo, but it is a convertible, so fairly luxurious I guess.  But I am definitely not being paid for my job as a chauffeur.  No, no, no I definitely feel like a servant…to my sons.  Their own personal driver.

It seems like all I do now-a-days is drive my boys around and drop them off at where ever it is that they need to be.  School, nightly school functions, birthday parties, pool parties, pick up and drop off friends, hockey rink, ice rink, roller rink, etc, etc, etc.  Ugh!  And it doesn’t help much that five years ago, in an attempt to buy an affordable house, we moved into an area that is quite the distance from their school and friends.  So you can imagine my fricken gas expenses!

This has become more of a problem over the last 6 months now that my youngest is beginning to do more “hanging out”. Prior to that I was really only chauffeuring one child around, so I suppose I didn’t notice it very much.  But noooowwww, it’s  a totally different story.  The only silver lining to all of this is that the majority of my older son’s friends have siblings the same age as my younger son and they are also friends.  So more often than not, they all hang out together.

The whole situation leaves me wondering though, how many other parents out there feel the same way?  Are my husband and I allowing our boys to participate in too many of these activities and doing this to ourselves?  Should we say “no” more often?

Honestly, I am looking forward to the day my older son can get his license and drive.  Is that being lazy of me?

The summer I turned 16, I rode my bike about 5 miles every morning from my house to one of the local high schools to take drivers ed.  As soon as I got my license my godmother handed me the keys to my own car (a little white Pontiac Sunbird).  I paid for my own gas and my own car insurance.  I think I was a responsible driver.  After all, the three accidents I got into before I turned 17 were NOT my fault. :p

Anyways, I expect my boys to be driving at 16 as well.  I have several mommy friends that are completely opposed to it and will make their children wait until they are 18.  ^o) Really?

Besides the fact that it will alleviate my own inconvenience  of having to drive them around, I think there is value in a young adult taking on the responsibility of driving, having a vehicle to take care of, expenses to account for, and safety lessons to be learned.  Never mind the independence and freedom that comes along with it and the opportunity to go somewhere other than where you told your parents.  LOL!  C’mon now, we all did it!!  “Mom, I’m going to the library.  I’ll be back in 2 hours.”  Yeah right, you’re ass was off to see your boy/girl friend!! 

While there is definitely an addition of potential issues and/or problems that come with a teenager driving, it would seem that this much awaited milestone should be viewed as just another opportunity for parents to teach a lesson. For example, I have been teaching my boys about defensive driving for the last year and a half.  While in the car I show them how to pay attention to the drivers in front of us, behind us, and on the side of us.  To pick up on the behaviors of other drivers and to learn to stay away from particular drivers. To keep all the guy friends in the car behaving appropriately so as to not to distract me, the driver.  And other types of lessons.

Yeah, I think I’m ready for my son to get his license.  Only a little more than a year and he can apply for his restricted. Hmmm, pretty exciting stuff!!

If you have a teenager and would like to share your stories of when they first started driving and your opinions on the topic, please do so in the comment section.  Also, what are your thoughts on the age restriction?  Should it be raised to 18?  Will you allow your child to get their license at 16? Is there a difference between girls and boys and our decisions as parents to let them drive?  I’d love to hear from you!

Peace Out!!

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