I've Had It Up to Here with Teenagers (15 page)

“How did you know he was going to pull out, Mom?” my son asked me one day.

“I'm not sure,” I told him. “I just felt like he was going to do that, so I slowed down and left him some room.”

“This is part of that witchy thing you have going on, isn't it?” he asked, staring at me with that speculative look in his eyes, like
he was secretly wondering how I found out about the party he had gone to a few weeks before at a friend's house when the parents were out of town. What can I say? I had a feeling. I decided to do a drive-by and check out the party. He got busted.

“Probably. God gives moms a third eye to keep people like you in line,” I said.

“Hilarious, Mom,” he replied.

I know it is popular these days to tell kids that everyone can do everything equally well, but that is just a lie, and you and I both know it. Some of us are going to grow up to be astrophysicists. Others are going to work at the Jiffy-Mart. The good news is that we need all kinds to make our society work, so there's a place at the table for everyone, as far as I'm concerned. Some people are going to be better drivers than others. That's just the way it is. My husband is a better driver than I am. I hate to admit that because it's such a gender stereotype, but it happens to be true in our case. Teens realize quickly which of their friends are good drivers and which are not. I secretly use this information when working out carpools. It's very helpful.

Teenage drivers are on the steep side of the learning curve. They're going to bump into trash cans, mailboxes, and, unfortunately, other cars. It happens with frightening regularity. One of the smartest kids I know left his car in drive rather than putting it in reverse and plowed right smack into the back of his mother's car in his very own driveway
while she was sitting in her car
. I'm sure she wanted to beat him with the front bumper (which had fallen off during impact and was therefore quite handy), but the point is that she didn't. Every parent's hope is that any wrecks will be merely matters of property expense, rather than something worse. I promise you that every mother of a teenage driver checks her
cell phone on a regular basis. We're all afraid. It comes with the territory.

I tell my children all the time, “Everyone can learn to drive defensively. It's simply a matter of education and experience.” We are big on both of those virtues at our house. I also tell them honestly that some success in life is a matter of genetics. You play the hand you're dealt at birth. If you're five feet tall, there's no point in planning an NBA career. Pick another dream. That one is not going to happen. Driving isn't like that. With practice and a modicum of natural intelligence, anyone can learn to be a good driver. Well … almost everyone. There are exceptions to every generalization, of course.

You know what scares me most of all? Almost everyone has a driver's license. I am astonished by the variety of humanity that successfully passes the state driver's examination. How low can that bar possibly be? The next time you get your driver's license renewed, take a look around the DMV. Judging from the sea of humanity standing in line to get a new or renewed license, there is no requirement that a driver must be able to see through his or her hair. When my older son got his license, we stood in line behind a teenage girl who appeared to have only one eye. I suspect she had another one under those long bangs of hers, but I never actually saw it, so I can't say for sure. In my opinion, all that hair in the face would be a serious distraction. It was all I could do as a mother not to offer her a ponytail elastic from my purse. You need to be able to
see
to drive a car safely. That seems fairly bottom-line to me.

Most states do not have upper age limits for driving. That is a good news/bad news kind of thing. This means that it is up to each individual citizen to decide voluntarily when it is time to hang up the car keys. I was a little bit disappointed to find out about that
when I was writing this chapter. Personally, I can't wait to tell my kids, “I'm too old to drive! One of you will have to come and get me!” Lord knows, I have schlepped them around for enough years. Even now, it is not uncommon for me to spend three hours a day in the car transporting my kids to and from their activities. I'd like a personal driver. I think that would be delightful. I don't know why Miss Daisy got so worked up. I'd volunteer to be driven around by Hoke right this very minute.

From my church pew on Sundays, I point out the wide variety of legal drivers in the general population to my kids: “See Mrs. So-and-so? She's still driving. She's ninety-two and has four cataracts. She's shrinking, too. There is no way she can see over the steering wheel. I know for a fact that she sits on a 1979 telephone directory for the city of Chicago. She's taken out every trash can on her street at least once. Watch out for her. And just so you know, you're taking your life in your hands if you park in front of the beauty shop where all the old ladies get their hair done every week.”

I warn my kids that accidents often happen when people are in a hurry. Once when I was fifteen months pregnant with my youngest child and could no longer see my feet, which slowed me down considerably, I was loading groceries in my trunk in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly when a man leaned on his horn after deciding I was taking a little bit too long with my business. When the bag boy and I stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment, he went to town, hammering on his horn some more. He wanted my parking space, and he expected me to hop to it. I wondered what on earth he was in such a hurry for. I could only assume he was a brain surgeon and some poor soul was lying in mortal danger on the operating table unless he snagged my parking space and got what he needed at the Piggly Wiggly in one big hurry.

“There is no reason in the world to fight over a parking space,” I tell my kids. “You're healthy. You can walk. People who fight over parking spaces to avoid walking an extra twenty yards are often the same people who have pricey gym memberships. And never allow yourself to be drawn into an argument with another driver, which can lead to road rage.” My teenagers seem skeptical about that one. I can tell they think I made it up. “Happens all the time,” I assure them smugly.

Teenagers and old people share the highways. If that doesn't put the fear of God in you, then nothing will. I can't think about it too much or I'll break out in hives. In addition, some people think nothing of sliding behind the wheel when they're exhausted, angry, depressed, or just plain drunk or high. Every single day, those drivers sail along the freeways alongside my teenagers and yours. It's enough to make me tell them to take the bus.

Distracted drivers are dangerous, too. For example, mothers often look back to minister to their children strapped into safety seats in the rear. I've certainly been there and done that. You've seen drivers engaged in heated arguments with passengers or someone at the other end of a cell phone call. You can easily recognize distracted drivers if you know what to look for. Anyone trying to eat a hamburger, smoke a cigarette, talk on a phone, and apply mascara simultaneously while driving a motorized vehicle falls into the unsafe driver category. You cannot expect those people to signal when they are turning or changing lanes because their hands are otherwise occupied.

As Professor Mad-Eye Moody urges Harry Potter and his friends, “Constant vigilance!” It's the only way to share the road with imbeciles and death-eaters, I suppose. Darwin was right, you know. I tell my teenagers that I do not want them to be involved
in an accident caused by a human being weeded out during the process of natural selection.

No matter how many scary stories you cut out of the newspaper, forward from the Internet, share from your own youth, or make up on the spot, nothing will convince teenagers that driving is dangerous for them personally. That's because they can't imagine a world without them in it. I can't imagine that either. My mind goes totally blank at the thought of losing one of my children. It is my deepest fear. We grownups know too many real-life stories about teenagers losing their lives in car wrecks—the most likely way for them to die.

In young people's minds, the world really does revolve around them, so they can't foresee that making one bad choice while driving—failing to wear a seatbelt, texting, drinking—could cost their lives or someone else's. This is the reason that perfectly sane parents become hysterical when their kids are late for curfew or fail to check in when they arrive somewhere.

When a teenager cruises in at the last minute, oblivious to the agonizing hours his parents have been wondering whether he is dead or alive, he is also likely to say the one thing that will further inflame an already tense moment: “Chill, Mom. It's no big deal.”

I have been known to say—and mean—“Lord, when that boy gets home, if he's okay, I may kill him myself.”

You really must have lived through one of those long nights to appreciate that sentiment.

 

1.
“I'm not speeding! I'm going exactly the speed limit.”

2.
“That dent was already there.”

3.
“I'm not too close.”

4.
“That car needs to stay out of my lane.”

5.
“I know what to do. You told me that a hundred times already.”

6.
“I did come to a complete stop.”

7.
“This is harder than it looks.”

8.
“That was close!”

9.
“Merging is hard.”

10.
“I forgot about crosswalks.”

11.
“I'm never going to parallel-park, so I don't need to practice that.”

12.
“You don't have to yell at me!”

13.
“Sorry. Is that expensive to fix?”

14.
“I drove well this time, didn't I, Mom? You didn't throw up once.”

 

T
he first time I realized that my kids' world really is different from the one I grew up in started out like any other day. I began my morning by wading through debris in the basement in an attempt to get to my washing machine. My kids were out of school for the summer, and my basement looked like homeless people had been living in it for a couple of weeks. It smelled like it, too. I made a mental note to track down the odor of rotting meat and do something about it. I picked my way carefully through computer game disks (which cost fifty bucks each and were left scattered on the floor like chicken feed for kids to step on and crunch with their big teenage feet), candy wrappers, dirty socks, sofa pillows, wet swimsuits, headphones, magazines, empty water bottles, beach towels, and other trash. It looked like the day after a fraternity party or something you'd see on CNN after a tornado roared through.

By the time I reached my washer, I was already mad at my
teenagers. It wasn't even 7
A.M.
As usual, the little trolls hadn't bothered to throw their half-eaten candy bars in the trash can. Someone's retainer was perched on the arm of a sofa. Gross. The television had been left on all night, of course, since my kids never turn it off when they leave the room. I run around after them every day turning off lights, stereos, and televisions. They waste enough electricity every week to power a small Caribbean island. They don't voluntarily tidy up after themselves ever. They don't clear away the half-empty soda cans, fluff the sofa cushions, or return their smelly tennis shoes to their rooms.

When my teenagers move on to other activities with their friends, they simply abandon their current trashed location like drug lords fleeing a narcotics raid. They just get up and go. It's inexplicable to me. I can track their activities throughout the day by walking from one mess to the next.

As I used both hands to randomly point, click, and wave the buffet of remote controls (which I found wedged between the sofa cushions) toward the television in search of silence and sanity, I realized that the screen showed a computer game in progress. It wasn't a television show at all. Then I noticed something unusual. In one corner of the screen, the names (pseudonyms, obviously) of the players were displayed. The bright blue screen said, “Afghanistan.” That couldn't be right, could it? Was it possible that my kid was playing a computer game with the Taliban? If so, this was definitely bad. It would be a new low for us as a family. I decided I better look into the situation immediately.

“Son?” I called out at the top of my lungs in an effort to be heard in the kitchen upstairs, over the sound of ESPN's
SportsCenter
.

No one answered me, naturally. Teenagers have very selective hearing. They hear only what they want to hear. It's maddening. I
picked up a broom, banged on the ceiling, and tried again.

“Son?”

“What?” a long-suffering voice responded.

“Ma'am? You mean
ma'am
, right?” I prompted for the millionth time.

“
Ma'am
?”

“Come here, please.”

“What do you want?”

“Just come down here, please.”

“Why?”

“Come. Down. Here. Now.”

“I'm eating breakfast right now. I'll be down in a minute.”

“
Get down here right this minute!
”

“
Okay!
You don't have to be such a grouch! What's the big deal, Mom?”

I pointed to the screen. “What is this, son?”

“I'm in the middle of a game,” he said, as if any half-wit could have figured that out without help from him. “What did you think it was? I wasn't watching HBO! What are you mad about now?”

“Are you playing a live computer game with someone in
Afghanistan
?” I asked, incredulous.