I know that when you have a child, you want to protect them and keep them safe to the ends of the earth.
I know that I will from Day One. (Hell, I have since the day we found out we were pregnant!)
The thing that I am most fearful of is the day our boy turns 16.
Yes, I know it’s early to be worrying about this, but I can’t help it.
We all know teenagers and college students aren’t always the most careful, smart people on the planet. Boys, especially so.
My fear is that my kid might do some of the things I did in high school and college. I know I can’t prevent him from making some of those not-so-smart decisions, but maybe he’ll be a little smarter than I was.
My best friend from when I was 3 years old was killed in a car accident our junior year of high school. He wasn’t the reckless type, neither were the other kids in the car. The accident was most likely the result of a brief moment of bad decision making and possibly some black ice.
Lois’ nephew, let’s call him Boy Wonder, just turned 17 and while he doesn’t make the smartest decisions, he lacks the motivation to be overly reckless.
He joined his local volunteer fire department, so he’s already had a pretty good dose of reality as he’s been on accident scenes of fellow students who have tried to drive their cars 80-100 mph in 30 mph zones. Less than 2 weeks ago, he had to see a friend of his who didn’t survive a 110 mph collision with a tree.
On Friday, he sat in our living room telling us how he had learned from what he had seen.
Last night, Boy Wonder totaled the car we gave him.
He’s okay. So is his 14-yr old brother who was in the passenger seat. They are both probably feeling a little banged up today. The other driver refused medical treatment, so thankfully, no one was seriously hurt.
We gave Boy Wonder a 1999 Kia Sportage convertible that doesn’t go fast enough to be overly dangerous and is worth about $500.
The accident wasn’t due to speeding or reckless driving, it was due to a 17 year old inattentive driver making an “unsafe turn.”
We were hoping that despite his lack of attentiveness or full awareness of what is going on around him, that he was experienced enough in his firefighter role to be more cautious than the average 16-17 young man behind the wheel of a car.
I know you can’t control the decisions your children make. My mother probably never wants to know about the bad decisions I have made in my life, and somehow lived through.
But you do hope that you can impact your kids enough that they think a little, respect themselves enough to be concerned about consequences and respect others enough to consider how their actions might impact other people.
We have time to try to ingrain some common sense into Andrew’s head in the next 17 years. Hopefully, some things stick in there.
