Car Conundrum
All the current literature tells us that the century of American heavy metal has come to an end. With 47% fewer 16-year-olds getting their driver’s licenses over the past three decades and autonomous vehicles coming on strong, the right of passage is quickly shifting off of getting a car and its respective independence. I’m not sure what marks the passage now, but whatever it is, I hope my kids handle it better with their kids than I did with mine.
Unlike many parenting decisions, the car decision was one that I spent some time contemplating. I had very clear views. I did not believe that giving a sixteen-year-old suburban kid a brand new ride was a good idea. It offended my sense of what was best for my kids. When I first thought about the issue I recognized that if I kept my current car for five years it would be ripe to give my son for his first car. It was a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which was perfect for a teenage boy, but it was white, which was less than perfect. The solution was to get a black racing stripe painted down the mid-length of the car, making it acceptably cool for said teenager.
He found it acceptable, but was never very enthusiastic about the car. I figured it was all about his not caring about cars. In any case, life went on and the car faded into obscurity as it was replaced by the focus of going on to college. Where a car was a status symbol in high school, it was just transportation in college. White car, black car, white car with a racing stripe…it was all the same. Funny how quickly priorities change when you’re young.
When my daughter was a few years from the car-zone, her cousins went off to college where my son went. Given that they were from the west coast, they needed a car. Who to turn to other than their friendly uncle? I decided to buy them a used car on the condition that they pass it off to my daughter when she started college. My daughter didn’t seem to care one way or the other. She was all about accommodating her cousins. It never occurred to her to consider that two cute co-ed girls might wear out a used car in two years. That’s exactly what happened and after a year, my plan had to be modified to buy her a car that actually worked. So much for careful car planning.
By the time my youngest son got into his teens, I bought a car that I liked, a Toyota FJ, which was the modern equivalent of a Jeep. It would be exactly five years old when he came of age. By then it would be an almost like-new car since I didn’t plan to drive it much. But then my oldest son had some problems which had him hanging around his old college town, which was where I was keeping the car (I had a home up in that upstate college town). Naturally, he needed transportation and that FJ was just sitting there. So the mileage wracked up on the old odometer. By the time my youngest was of driving age (unlike my older kids, he was raised a city boy and had little use for a car as a high school status symbol). Status symbols for his posse were more about his band and where they got gigs. He was playing drums at places like the Bitter End in the Village or the Iguana in midtown. By the time he got to college, having a car was more important. In fact, unlike my older boy, most of his college friends were carless. His car became a sort of group vehicle. At least it lasted him his four years of college.
That car now sits back in the parking area of my upstate house, where it started life. It has 77,000 miles on the odometer, which is actually pretty low for a twelve-year-old car. Strangely enough the FJ is just as popular a model today as it was twelve years ago, so it has retained its value. I still consider it my son’s car, but it has always been in my name and my insurance ticket (kid’s car insurance is like kid’s cell phones….they never seem to leave the Bank of Dad account).
My oldest has a hand-me-down Mercedes I have given him (still on my insurance). My daughter (married with children) drives her own micro-mini. And my youngest has reverted to the urban youngster of his youth, living in Brooklyn and borrowing Dad’s car for the occasional Vermont ski trip. Meanwhile the FJ sits idle at its upstate home, gathering dust.
I’m out of the kid car business in one sense, and feel like I’ll never be out of it in another. It was all so well-planned yet badly-executed. One day when my oldest and I were having a heart-to-heart, he confided in me that lo those many years ago, he was mad as hell at me over the car. He felt that I was one of the fathers in his suburban life that could have afforded to buy him a new car and I hadn’t. He felt unfairly treated. Go figure. All my best plans of frugal parenting up in smoke.
Thank God for the trends towards autonomous vehicles. I’m not sure my kids even think about cars anymore. But cars may get easier and parenting will always stay hard.