Oren is learning to drive. This is the second and final kid Brian and I will have to have this experience with, and I’m finding myself feeling very reluctant to get in the car with him. Very. Reluctant. For some reason, teaching Oren to drive feels different, scarier. Maybe it’s him or my impressions of what kind of driver he will be. Maybe it’s because I am almost three years older, and I still feel tired from the first go round. Before I continue, I do need to say this. Oren is fine as a new driver, he’s not worse than Seb was. Seb was a little more driven (ha!) to get good as fast as he could; or truly, to get fast as good as he could. The difference in their styles of driving is the difference in what kind of climbers they were as youngsters. Seb was much more precise and meticulous, figuring out a lot of things in his head, and then executing them in real life. Oren was haphazard, a little more ragdoll— he liked dangling and swinging on the rope more than actually climbing— less meticulous and stressed.
I am realizing that my ambivalence to being in the car with Oren while he learns to drive is this: teaching a kid how to drive is the closest to actually being afraid for my life I have ever been (this may be more a comment on how cushy my life is), and have had to somehow let go and allow it. Here, 16 year old kid, here is my life. Please do your best not to kill me. It’s terrifying. I see my life flash before my eyes every time he veers towards parked cars or makes a left hand turn or other cars come towards us. Honestly I think I am scared even when he starts to pull away from the curb in front of the house. I don’t want to feel this way, but I do. It’s a defense mechanism. A survival skill. The question is, how can I stifle the desire to screech like bloody murder,
OREN-PLEASE-DON’T-KILL-ME!!!!!
and instead be a non-anxious presence in the car and facilitate a calm learning environment. I’m trying. Instead of yelling, I find myself repeating things three to ten times. Like the word, stop. Or the gentle command, slow down now. Or the suggestion, don’t forget what gear you’re in. Okay, that one I only say once, every time we come to a stop sign or light and Oren hasn’t shifted back down to first gear. I have also tried to encourage him by saying, It’s not you, it’s me, meaning, I’m the nervous one, it’s my problem, it is nothing you are doing to me. I don’t know if that helps. I think I have been categorized as the annoying presence in the car, which may be only slightly better than the anxious one. I have come to believe that, as the mother of a sixteen year old boy, It’s as good as it’s gonna to get. At least I’m not the angry voice in the car, right?
Oren’s best friend, who recently got his license, took a short ride with us the other day to experience Oren driving. I sat in the back seat with him, and I kept saying, I’m not going to say anything. And then I would say something (back seat drivers are the worst), and have to say again, OK, now I’m really not going to say anything. Oren’s friend looked at me at one point and said, Miss Jen, I think you should stop saying that. Touché. But at another point he also said, Now I know why my parents were always yelling at me. (I may be stating it stronger than he said it, but that was the gist.) These, now-I-know-how-my-parents-felt moments should happen earlier and more often. It’s nice to be vindicated, even if by someone else’s kid.
