Teaching My Son to Drive (and Barely Surviving) via LaurieJStone
I swallow hard, trying to work up courage. My car sits in the garage and I take the passenger seat, feeling like I’m climbing onto an unsafe carnival ride. I look to my seventeen-year-old son who’s driving and make sure my seat belt’s fastened. “Okay, let’s go,” I say, trying to sound chipper. Patrick shoves the gearshift in reverse. The car jumps. Off we go, backing out too fast. The first “Slow down!” comes out of my mouth.
Today we leave our driveway. Patrick pulls onto our windy Connecticut road. Already I’m on full alert. A jogger is coming up on the right. A car’s coming toward us on the left. The road’s narrow. We’ll all meet at the same time. Patrick’s going too fast. “Slow down,” I repeat like a mantra. “Slow down, SLOW down, slow DOWN…” Phew. We make it.
I thought I’d be like my father who was calm and reassuring. And God knows he had his challenges. “Laurie, stop checking your hair in the rear-view mirror,” he had to keep saying. My husband’s also a good teacher, but travels a lot. So this task, which requires confidence and steeliness, is left to the most skittish.
We arrive at the drug store where Patrick takes a few passes getting into one of the parking spaces. While he’s inside, I think of Bob’s calm, competent mother. She let her son drive to Massachusetts? I can barely handle a two-mile outing.