Some day I’m going to buy myself a big fat present--whatever I want--as a reward for teaching 4 kids how to drive.
I’m on the 4th and last. Today was his first time ever behind the wheel. It was different on several counts.
For one thing, the first 3 were girls. I realize this doesn’t apply to all girls, and I can name a few exceptions, but I find that--in general--girls are predisposed to not want to crash into things. There is, very often, just this primordial sense of caution in females which Y chromosomes, apparently, eradicate. So, as we’d lurch to a halt 3 inches from a sapling, he’d guffaw instead of freezing with that deer-in-the-headlights mien. So I would point out--again--that the consequences of not keeping your vehicle clear of other objects are generally negative. And he would laugh--again--and speculate about what you’d do if a full-size house suddenly burst through the pavement in front of your car.
We are starting out in a stick-shifted Soobie. Before, I have taught the girls basic driving in an automatic before we’d tackle the manual transmission learning curve, but I decided to jump into the frying pan right off the bat this time. After all, if kids prior to the 60’s did it, why can’t Gabe? Right. And he did very very well. Honestly. In 30 minutes of driving around the Community College parking lot there was only one instance of that lurching jerking stall-out that so characterized the girls’ early trials. And there was absolutely no discernible frustration. But here’s something that hadn’t occurred to me before today. When you are so focused--in your first lesson--on acquiring the moves needed to start, shift to second, shift to third...there is less cranial capacity available to allocate to basics such as gauging turning radius, lane position, comfortable U-turn velocity...the sorts of things which are pretty much all you’re thinking about in your first automatic transmission experience. So it may be this as much as gender which precipitated our close encounters with several trees and stop signs.
At any rate, 30 minutes was about all I could handle for today, but taking it slowly and steadily over the next year seems a prudent approach anyway. Driver’s ed is scheduled for October, and it’s entirely likely that the kid will hit his 17th birthday, next April, before we actually ink the license deal. And therein lies one more difference between Gabe and his sisters. He himself is as indifferent as he could be. Not that he didn’t enjoy the experience--I think he did. But there is quite obviously no fire in his soul to acquire the license, hence, there is no tugging on the reins required of me. Taking it slowly will suit everyone as far as I can tell.
In fact, I will pretty much have to blackmail him into taking the online practice theory tests 30 or so times until he knows every question inside and out. Because when we go to the DMV to score that learner’s permit, there will be no chance of his flunking the test and my having to appear in that mob one time more than necessary.
I have a fantasy called “drivers’ camp.” You’d send your teenager to...I don’t know...the middle of Nebraska, where’d they’d spend a month or more being taught by professionals who’d send them home trained, licensed, and ready for the Washington Beltway. Or at least Severna Park on a Saturday.
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