The Joy (Terror) of Teaching a Child to Drive
And the importance of exercising our trust
Our third child is now of driving age, and the responsibility of teaching her to drive has fallen to me, as it did with our oldest two. It’s one of those strange things about parenting: you can be getting up with a child in the middle of the night, or holding them close after they’ve fallen, and the next thing you know you’re walking out of the DMV beside a 16-year-old with a huge grin on their face.
Maile once gave a driving lesson, five years ago. She took our oldest out to practice on the road after he had received his permit, and when they returned, she looked at me, shook her head as if she had met her match, and said, “Well, I’m never doing that again. Sorry. This is all you.”
I still haven’t gotten used to it. There are few things on earth that give me the same completely helpless feeling as sitting in the passenger seat and setting forth with a driver who still isn’t completely sure how to use their turn signals or what an appropriate speed is for going around a turn.
I try to be patient and calm (this was Maile’s problem—if anything went wrong when Cade was driving, she would just straight-up scream). But I’m pretty sure if someone recorded my face during these driving sessions with my daughter, the grimaces and flinching would be hilarious.
Still, I have this suspicion that teaching my kids to drive is making me a better person. Could it be? Calming myself, remembering to breathe, to be patient, to control my reactions.
Perhaps most importantly, it’s an exercise in trust.
I was working in the bookstore one weekday last week, and we went most of the morning without any customers, so my old friend stopped in for a visit—fear. We go way back, the two of us. Have I mentioned that before? We’re besties. All the way back to when I was afraid of the fire ants in our Laredo driveway or the lightning that struck around the farmhouse or the mysterious snapping turtle down at the creek that constantly ate our bait and snapped our fishing lines.
Fear is interesting. If I hadn’t been at all afraid of the bull in the pasture, it could have stomped my little 7-year-old body into a pulp. But if I was too afraid of the water, I would have missed out on a lot of great times playing in the Pequea Creek with my childhood friends.
So how can we know when fear is keeping us alive and when it’s keeping us from really living?
I opened the front door to our bookstore Nooks on that quiet morning, just to let the sounds of the city in, and I picked up James by Percival Everett. Remember Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn? Well, James is an incredible novel told from the enslaved Jim’s perspective. It’s painful and insightful and heart-breaking and inspiring. It captured me.
It’s about a lot of things, but one thing it’s about is fear, and realizing the things we fear don’t have to have power over us anymore.
And as I sat there reading and watching the traffic go by, I thought about this fear that pops up every so often, this fear that our bookstore will fail and it will be a financial disaster for our family and no one will want to buy books here. And, again, I came to grips with that outcome. It could very well happen.
But that wouldn’t be the end of me. And we would figure out the next step. And the next.
What I found much harder to contemplate was the scenario in which Maile and I had the opportunity to own a bookstore and we didn’t do it. Is that how we want to live the rest of our lives, playing it safe, saying no to new opportunities, rejecting the possibilities that come up even when they are so clearly aligned with our identity, our interests, the things we love?
What kind of life would that be?
What kind of life is it, when it’s manipulated by fear?
My daughter grins nervously as we glide down the road, windows open.
“You’re doing a great job,” I tell her.
She’s holding tight to the wheel, staring straight ahead.
“Thanks, Dad.”
I continue reading and there is the sound of traffic on Prince Street. People come into the store and we talk books and I sell a copy of I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down. Then Cloud Cuckoo Land. Then I a copy of The Hobbit to a little girl who had never read it before.
Imagine reading The Hobbit for the first time.
Afraid or not, this is why Maile and I do it. This is why we introduce people to stories. It’s who we are.
Is there something that fear is keeping you from doing?
I recall a time when we ventured off to a new state, new life, with very few plans in place. Yes, fear kept touching my shoulder--but looking back, I remember that as one of our best times in life.
"So how can we know when fear is keeping us alive and when it’s keeping us from really living?" Thank you for this reminder--and you wrote it so eloquently and inspirationally. I have a feeling your shop is going to do just fine. But your contemplative thoughts and resulting peace are rich gifts for us all.
I did the main bulk of driving training with our first son but was more than happy to let my husband take over for our youngest! If nothing else, it does make you braver, a good point you make. Isn’t it amazing how, when we do our best with the everyday things God places on our laps, everything else seems to fall in place? From what I can see, you and Maile are doing such a great job. Cheering you on.