After so many trips to the DMV I expected a bench in our name,
my fifteen-and-a-half year old daughter, Chloe, finally passed her driver’s permit exam;
For her, that white sheet is a ticket to ultimate freedom, adventure set to the soundtrack of booming bass on a rap song.
It is not quite that thrilling to me.
The day after she got the permit we asked if she would like to drive the mile to school.
She climbed in beaming, and I watched the clock, nervous over time, as she adjusted the mirrors and her seat for so long I started to feel one with the car.
We were now common-law married, that passenger seat and me.
We learned a good lesson on that day: New drivers and time-frames do not mix.
The pressure she felt to be at school drop-off in a certain number of minutes apparently did not pair well with a car full of people writhing and screaming, “YOU’RE GOING TO HIT THE BOULDER” at her.
We all barked at each other, flustered.
We had made it a sum of 6 feet.
We decided we’d best start trying when she didn’t have to be somewhere at a certain time.
This was fine. It was all fine.
*insert nervous laughter and trading seats*
Maybe it would work better later in the day.
The next day, with a calmer pace laid out before us, we made time to tour some back roads around our city.
Within 8 minutes my husband was permanently banned to the backseat forever due to his panic stricken, shouted commentary.
He obviously has no chill around sharp embankments at all. Amateur.
He hasn’t at all mastered the fake break/hand-grip/outward calm smile/very aggressively clenched teeth thing like me.
My friend, Jamilah, texted that day that she’d seen us pulling into the Starbucks lot, saying she had to laugh at the look on our faces.
When we parked and Justin came around to my side before we went in for our coffees, he muttered a sarcastic,
“Yeah. We’re DEFINITELY making it into old age.”
I told him we were lucky to be only “Mostly dead,” like in Princess Bride!
He couldn’t bring himself to smile.
He was too busy trying to walk without letting on he was trembling.
So, now it is just me left to teach this girl to drive,
and hopefully to not maim or injure anyone permanently.
(1 like= 1 prayer)
I am happy to report my spirit has only fully left my body twice, and that was fairly early on.
Now it stays mostly in, with just some light hovering.
Now we are working on things like her learning that just saying “OK! OK!” means nothing unless you are actually DOING the instruction your parent is giving.
We learned that one alongside a ditch by the dairy the other night as the cows looked on stunned.
“Hi, Ladies!”
We learned that one the hard way.
She’s doing pretty well so far, except for the fear the driving instructor gave her on her first lesson about not crossing her hands over each other when she does a turn.
I don’t know what he said to her, but he must have put the fear of God in her,
because now she scuffles her hands along in little baby movements, shuffling the wheel like an arthritic 90 year old, terrified of her hands somehow even coming CLOSE to meeting.
The result of this is that we’re taking very wide turns that could almost be considered U-turns at times.
An old man made the effort to hand-crank down the window of his Impala to flip her off with a shaking fist just yesterday.
Also, a shout-out to Whole Foods Market.
I’m real thankful they sell those herbal anxiety drops.
I bought two bottles with droppers that are now in my mouth so often it looks like I’m chain smoking those bad boys, but the driving instructor casually said that next time they’ll do some “Freeway work.”
My heart just cannot handle the thought of such a thing.
This is a child built out of dandelion fronds and bird bones.
Do you see how her hands are scuffling?!
The thought of just shoving her out there with semi-trucks and road rage?
It is do-or-die time to get her ready for such a day.
It’s time I put my game face on.
We teenage parents do not get nearly enough support these days.
We need some kind of government services or something. A massage fund, maybe?
Free group therapy where I’ll stand and tell all about the incident when she tried to pull out of D’s Diner with her scuffle hands.
“Hi. My name is Kerri….”
My hair was already thinning because of the stress of the pandemic and having to log multiple kids onto their zooms every day.
Does anyone understand the pressure it takes to maneuver first break-ups while trying to convince a kid to do CHOIR CLASS from their bedroom on their computer during a global health emergency?
I really could have handled a few good months of sitting somewhere peaceful near some water and some trees without some new challenge,
but instead I got tossed directly from holding a Covid swab to gripping an Emotional Support hand-grip bar in a vehicle that a fifteen year old is now driving straight for a ravine.
You guys, teen moms right now need to be swaddled, and have their adrenals tested.
We need a “Hug a Teen Mom” campaign.
We have SEEN THINGS these last few years that cannot be described here because of the ratings they’d require. Just trust that many of us have been tossed all around, wildly, kicked in the gut, and we are now, quite possibly,
careening rapidly into a thing.
These have not been normal years.
They’ve already been wrought with strife,
and to put it in the words of my new driver’s younger sister when she was two years old, and we let Chloe drive her around for the first time in their new battery-powered Barbie Jeep:
“I want to go home. I scawed for my life.”
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
