“Are you an Uber driver now?” I asked. “Your answer to them is ‘No.’ I’ll be the bad guy.”
We had explained ahead of time that just because she has a license to drive does not make her an “experienced driver.”
“I heard the drive to the (away) game isn’t that bad,” she said. “(A friend) said she would ride with me so I’m not alone.”
I paused thinking, what part of “no passengers” did she not understand?
“No. Not negotiable,” I said followed with the canned go-to statement of, “It’s not you, it’s everyone else on the road.” (Which is mostly true.)
All of the freedom that comes with a driver’s license was squashed into a 5-mile radius around our house.
No passengers (without explicit parental permission and a good reason), no highways and no driving after dark (although with shorter spurts of daylight coming we will have to loosen the reins a bit on this one).
In a brief momentary lapse of reason, I second guessed our driving rules struggling to remember from way-back-when if her brothers had the same rules. They did, in fact, so why should she be any different?
While I contemplated whether we were being too strict though, I received a text from another mom whose child became a licensed driver literally the day before our daughter.
“I heard you’re not letting Lani drive to the game tonight either?” the message read. “Mean Moms unite!”
I tripped over myself running to our daughter’s room.
“See?” I said, showing her the message. “It’s not just me!”
I audibly heard her roll her eyes.
The state laws in Ohio did help us set the driving parameters. Legally, she is not allowed to have more than one passenger outside of family and driving between midnight and 6 a.m. is also a “no-no.”
Her curfew is way before midnight anyways because I am a “mean mom.” (And proud of it.)
And I am selfish, if I am being honest. I can’t sleep when our kids are out driving around — mind you, the boys are 20 and 21 now, but some things never change — and I like sleeping.
But I also think she gets it: driving is a privilege. She wants to earn more “freedom,” so she hasn’t pushed back too much while we adjust to this new reality of not being needed for rides to school, practice, the farm or anything else for that matter. Unless of course it’s more than five miles away.
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