As suggested by this blog, I have spent many hours over the last few years worrying about my son. I have been lucky that this has been an easier school year for him so my worry for him has definitely receded (although it is always lurking in the background, like theme music you can make out if you listen closely). Before I can achieve complete calm, however, reasons to worry about my daughter have emerged in full force.
My daughter is a 17-year-old high school junior at one of Philadelphia's most competitive schools. She is currently taking 3 AP courses, 2 honors courses and 1 advanced course while navigating the world between the old SATs and new SATs along with all the SAT subject tests required by some colleges. In addition, she recently got her driver's license and inherited her father's beloved Toyota Rav-4, which she has christened "LeBron" after the basketball legend.
Last weekend, she asked if she could go to a party in a different section of the city and I told her she would have to get a ride there and back from her father. Mortified, she convinced me she could handle the drive by showing me the route she would take and promising to be home by 9PM. Fate was against both of us that night: it started pouring rain before she left the party and I was uneasy waiting for her to arrive back at home. Eventually my husband got a call from her: she had hit another car making a turn and was at the side of the road waiting for the police. No one was hurt but there was noticeable damage to both cars.
Up until now my husband and I have not encouraged our daughter to get a job because she works so hard at school and helps us out by watching her brother; plus we have enough money to pay for the car. Now looking at how much this accident is going to cost us, I am singing a different tune: time to get babysitting/nannying jobs to earn some money. My daughter seemed upset when I told her this, not because she didn't want to work - she has always been interested in getting a summer job and I have told her to stick to volunteering because of her schedule - but because she is scared that she won't be good at it. I reminder her of how little children always love her, including family members, children from her elementary school, and children from the morning camp where she volunteers in the summer. She says she is upset that I never made her work when she was younger so she would have more experience with working.
I am reminded of the book David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell in which he quotes a so-called "Hollywood mogul" who asks, "How do you teach 'work hard, be independent, learning the meaning of money' to children who look around themselves and realize that they never have to work hard, be independent, or learn the meaning of money?" The truth is, my daughter has wanted to work and be independent, and of course she will need to work in the not too distant future, but she knows we can afford to pay for the damage to both of the cars. So now what? The key, according to Gladwell, is to tell your children that you are not going to pay for or buy something not because you cannot afford it, but because it does not fit in with your family's value system, so if they want something, they will have to work for it. This is probably what I should have done with the car in the first place: have her earn money to pay for gas and insurance.
What is the lesson? Let's face it: parenting is a hard job, no matter who your child is. Your children need different things from you depending on their personalities, strengths and weaknesses, and where they are in life. All you can do is figure out what kind of parent they need at a particular moment in time. While my son is currently coasting, my daughter needs the parent who says that being smart doesn't mean you have the experience to drive a car in all situations, and that there are consequences when things go wrong. My son will now see his perfect big sister isn't perfect after all.
