My evil half brother’s kids are 20 (as of tomorrow), 18, and 17. None of them have a license. My dad GAVE them a CAR. It sits in the driveway with flat tires. He also sent them to driving school. They just don’t care.
<head essplodes>
The research I’ve seen about the current generation and driving is that they don’t care as much because they basically carry their social lives around in their pockets. You don’t need to go to a friends house to hang out with them. Snapchat, instagram, etc. You can see and talk with your friends about stupid stuff for hours while enduring lectures from your parents over dinner. So a car, which for a teenager was always a way to get away from something at least as much as it was a way to get to something, is less important now.
Enjoy,
Steven
Parents come in all shapes and sizes; I quite like my parents, and never really “hated” being under their yoke as much as some friends of mine did. I suspect it was because my parents pretty religiously segregated everything into 3 categories- the “we don’t give a shit” category, the “Hell no” category, and everything else.
The “Hell No” category were the actions on my part that weren’t at all acceptable and about which there would be no negotiations- drugs, crime, knocking chicks up were the big 3 I remember.
There were a lot of “We don’t give a shit” items- my haircuts, my clothing, my friends, my music, my video games, whether I played sports or not, any other extracurriculars, etc…
Everything else was decided through negotiation and compromise in some fashion. They wanted a new chore done? I got to negotiate the timing and degree and other factors. I wanted to borrow the car? There was a negotiation and usually some compromise on my part, like I had to be back at a certain time, and I’d fill it up with gas, or get it washed or something.
This went a LONG way toward making me feel like I had a fairly high degree of control over my life, and also gave me the feeling that my parents cared and were involved in my life.
In my experience, most of the problem kids I knew were on one end of that spectrum or the other- their parents were regulating what they could watch, listen to, wear, and how they could get their hair cut, etc… or their parents had basically turned them loose and provided what amounted to a hotel room for them to stay in, and didn’t really care about anything otherwise. Both of those extremes for whatever reason, tended to cause a lot of wild behavior from the classmates who fell into those categories.
That’s essentially my parenting style. There’s a list of top 5 things that will force me to end your life on the spot. Then there’s everything else that I have either no opinion about (clothes, music, fleeting trends) or things I do have an opinion about but not so it keeps me up at night.
Just yesterday, I picked up my son and as we were heading home, he sat in silence for the first 10 minutes or so. I figured he was in a bad mood or tired so I let him be. Then, completely out of the blue, he turned to me and was all, “I love you, dad.” I was all, “I love you too, little man”. And then back to silence for the rest of the trip home.
That was nice. Gave me hope.
As a Millennial, I agree; car ownership and driving doesn’t seem to hold anywhere as much appeal for this generation than it did for the Baby Boomer generation. Different era, different attitudes.
I hear what you’re saying but has reality changed? I mean, you still have to get to and from school/work… right?
They get there the same way they got to school when they were 15. Outside of very rural areas, most kids are within walking distance of school, and while public transit isn’t great in the US, even suburbs often have enough for short trips on a regular schedule, and transit organizations plan routes account for the needs of students.
Jobs have changed A LOT. Colleges (and funding) are MUCH more competitive than when we were young, and students need stronger resumes and grades than ever- and McJobs don’t provide that. Students are more likely to focus on their academics and extracurriculars than work service jobs. And without a car to pay for, of course, a job isn’t quite as alluring.
Which is fine, because the economic crisis means the McJobs are mostly filled by adults anyway. Look around, and you’ll notice there are a lot fewer kids in service positions.
Teen car culture was a product of a particular age - an age where American kids weren’t competing globally and had ample free time to earn money and to spend large amounts of time driving here and there with their friends. It was a time of more abundant unskilled job, and a time where popular recollection is focused on suburban life.
Lots of time has passed, lots is different.
There are lots of really harsh people in this thread. Parents shouldn’t give up on their kids. Stepping back from forcing them to do stuff like Dangerose did is not giving up, it’s just stepping back.
In any case, this boy has held a part-time job down for a while and it’s not a bad part-time job either, so he’s clearly not a hopeless case.
I also think Quicksilver has been taking on a lot of the suggestions, far more than people often do in advice threads. And he’s in a hard situation, one he’s trying to resolve, so merits sympathy, not condemnation.
Agreed. I really can’t see what harm it could do.
Counselling for the two of you together might be an idea too; it’d be harder for him to sit there and say nothing if you’re giving your side of the story. It’d be like couples counselling but for a parent and child.
I might look into it myself for me and my daughter, too; the difference is that it’s very likely to be beyond me financially whereas for you it’s not. I really think you should do it.
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more sense it makes to take him to a counselor for a few sessions for a start. Can’t imagine what harm it would do and it may actually do some good.
So I will admit to reading most of this, but kinda skimmed through the last 30%. The only bit of advice I have is to clearly and completely disclose to your son the decisions you are making and the reasons behind them as the process goes on. Whether these problems are a result of power struggles or any other reason, by inviting him into your thought processes you will give him the opportunity to better understand why you are making certain decisions, and should he choose, give him an opportunity to intervene in the events that are unfolding.
If perhaps he wishes to ‘be taken seriously’ then here is an opportunity for him to have that happen. And of course any opportunity to establish a trusted basis for communication is useful for a lifetime.
Regardless, good luck in whatever you end up doing.
Up until age 22, pretty much all college stuff was walking distance or I could carpool.
I have two boys that are essentially in the same boat as yours, Quicksilver, and from similar backgrounds.
My oldest was offered a car as an incentive when he was 16. Nope, not interested. We live in a community where a car is pretty much mandatory if you want to see/do anything. To this day he doesn’t even have his license , which I will admit aggravates me. He managed to scrape through to graduate. He had a lot of anxiety about what happened next, and the only advice I could give him that resonated was to choose a course of study that he liked, to remember there were no wrong answers, and he only had to decide what he was doing for the next two years; It was not the Rest Of His Life. He chose Graphic Design and got his diploma, and a job in another city where his online girlfriend lives (That is another source of aggro and a tale for another thread). He spent the first four months living in his gf’s parent’s basement and I was losing it. Now, he has his own apartment, and his work is a five minute walk away. If he’s happy with this life , I can make peace with that.
My 18 yo has just barely (and I mean barely) graduated, got himself a job in industrial insulation and will be pursuing a career as an ndt tech if he can get an apprenticeship. He is still living at home, but I have given him a deadline of this Sept to get pointed in the general direction of a life. He bought his own car, which I contributed some cash and help him non-monetarily with carrying out repairs. He is rapidly learning that cars are great but cash holes.
I started putting money aside for both of them for post secondary when they were born and had hoped that they would pursue a degree. That hasn’t happened, but at the end of the day I would rather see them choose something they can both like doing and make a living at then be rich and miserable doing something they hate.
Tldr: Have faith, be patient and keep talking. I think counseling may help, it did for me when I was going through my divorce, and I believe it would be beneficial in this case…
Well, this teenager is in a totally different situation when it comes to his relationship with his parents so it may not have any harm in his case, but if my parents had decided to force me to go to a therapist that would’ve been the end of it. They would have obliterated any iota of trust I had left in them. Instead of actually talking to me and treating me like a human being they would’ve shipped me off to some stranger to “figure out” - nuh-uh, not happening, eff you, etc. My schoolteacher sent me to the counselor once when I was six or so and I felt completely betrayed. So the possibility of harm is there in general but I very much doubt there would be any in this particular case. I just want people to realize that counseling or therapy isn’t always the answer for everyone 100% of the time, that’s all.
I took some time to really think about this instead of just posting off the top of my head, because it really is a good question. Like I said, it’s a pretty huge cultural shift that happened rapidly. I think it’d be good to separate reasons specific to me/my situation from more widely applicable ones, so the next post will be more relevant to the thread as a whole.
A potentially important bit of context is that I went to an all-girls high school sponsored/run by the Sisters of St. Joseph. Because of this, students come from many different cities or even counties, compared to most public schools (a friend of mine lived 45-60 minutes away by car). We had a couple of buses, but the vast majority of students didn’t live along the limited routes.
Some of the reasons others wanted to get their licenses right away:
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Getting to/from school, since it could be a pain in the ass for parents to drop their kids off before work (sometimes literally doubling back to get to their job).
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They were sick of waiting in the caf after school until their parents came by after work and didn’t live near their driving friends.
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After school jobs. If their parents worked, they couldn’t be picked up at the end of the school day. Also, their jobs tended to be closer to home than to school.
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Some had younger siblings who went to different Catholic (grade) schools, so they’d take care of that trip for their parents, too.
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The reasons many other teens have had: Independence, reaching a milestone, closer to adulthood, etc.
Some reasons I didn’t care:
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After freshman year, I had friends who drove and I lived right along the route between their home and school, so it wasn’t even out of their way.
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I got a job at a garage/gas station that was also a convenient stop along friends’ routes, or I’d give enough gas money so they’d make money on top of what gas they used. I also had a convenient place of work, since they could get gas right there.
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My brother worked at the same place part time and we lived close enough that it wasn’t a big deal for mom to pick me up, either (also see:convenient for gas, cigs, etc).
I think it’s worth considering that License Mania only seized a generation or two of teenagers. I have no idea if my great-grandparents drove or owned a car; I suspect not. My grandmother didn’t learn to drive until she was an adult. I believe my grandfather learned shortly before he enlisted. My mother (born 1948) got her license in her late teens, and was the one with the car in her circle of friends. I (Born 1974) got my license the morning I turned old enough, and was one of a few with a car in my circle of friends. My son? Totally uninterested at 22. So two generations (mom and me) were teenaged drivers.
Of course, we live in a city with a fair public transportation system, so there’s not much motivation for him to get his license. That is a legitimate difference. Of his circle of childhood friends, the three that have gotten their licenses (and cars) are the three who moved away from the city to go to school. The three that stayed here haven’t.
But it seems from what I read on this board and others that it’s not just a city kid thing, this reluctance getting a license and/or car. I tend to agree with the “smartphones killed the teenaged driver” theory. (Um, that sounds like a PSA, but I think you know what I mean.) They’re not so concerned with getting together with friends, because they’re always together with friends on their phones. When I was on the phone with friends, my mom could come find me, listen, bug me to clean something, etc. And I could only talk to one friend at a time. With Chat, now you can carry on a conversation with your whole applicable social group at once. The social/peer group development that we needed a car to do, they do via text.
another thing to consider is that even used cars are expensive now. In 1993 I bought my first car for $150. It wasn’t even a piece of junk; the seller thought the engine was seized and just wanted rid of it; turns out it only needed a cylinder head (another $150) and it was roadworthy thanks to my mechanic dad (and my budding wrench skills.) But that car was one made at the tail end of the carburetor era; it was relatively simple to work on and keep running (as long as you were interested in banging on it like I was.)
nowadays, I don’t know if I’d trust any used car cheaper than $2500 or so, and for a lot of kids that’s not something they can come up with nor can their parents just duke them that amount. Plus, if something goes wrong they can’t be fixed just by staring at an iPhone screen so kids have no interest in keeping them going.
I received some recent progress updates for my son and he is currently failing all core subjects of math, science and history. Naturally concerned I contacted the vice-principal to ask him to look into my son’s academic standing and advise me on possible actions the school can recommend, including the possibility that he may be held back a year. This was his response:
Mr. QuickSilver,
Please find attached your son’s transcript from 9th grade. His GPA (1.7) that is represented on that transcript is just that of his Freshmen year not his sophomore year. You will see that his first semester grades of 10th grade are also represented as you requested. This is by far his best year. While his English 10 grade is a D+ he has been maintaining that grade successfully. His Geometry semester grade is a D, but he successfully raised that grade from an F first quarter to a D+ second quarter. He has been doing really well. His counselor, Mrs. B. can talk to you about counseling options. Holding your son back a grade level is not warranted at this time as his grades indicate that he is performing successfully. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.
Signed,
Assistant Principal
Top Rated Public High School
I am rarely one for a loss of words but I did pause to count to 10 before firing off a response asking him to clarify why he considered a D a measure of success.
Good grief. With allies like that, who needs enemies?
I think I speak for us all assembled here today when I say…what the fuck?! :dubious: