Letting Them Drive Alone
David Graves May 8th, 2017
I can still remember one of the most terrifying moments in life as a parent, the day my son turned 16 and received his official driver’s license. We could handle the learner’s permit, as we could sit in the passenger’s seat and at least feel like we had some control of the situation. But when he arrived home after getting the official license and asked to go out without us, terror hit us hard. Even with his younger sister as a co-pilot, my wife and I were still terrified of what might happen. But being good parents, we held back our tears and our fears and allowed them to head off on the longest 8 mile drive of our lives. My wife and I hovered over our iPhones, tracking every turn and stop, wondering why the map was taking so long to refresh their location. And you know what? They arrived safely. Amazingly, they even made it back home alive. And as the days and weeks went by, we started tracking him less and less, and instead we started celebrating the end to our child-chauffeur days. Occasionally, there would be the small bump in the road, from the dead battery to a minor fender bender, but everything turned out just fine. Our fears of major accidents, our kids getting lost without us there to help them, and the unknown of who else is on the roads with them started to vanish. I even survived my daughter’s spontaneous road trip through […]