Hallelujah

The heavens have opened up. I can hear the choir of angels and they are singing, “A job! He got a job!”

Yes, my friends, the teenager will soon be slinging sandwiches with the best of them. There is hope in the world.

Is it that our constant nagging finally paid off? Did he suddenly see the value in earning his own money? No, I broke down and told him we’d give him our 11-year-old second car if he would please, please just get a job. The truth is, we planned to give it to him eventually anyway, but rather than being a gift, it turned into more of a bribe.

Given our economic woes, it might seem pretty stupid to be giving away cars, so let me put it to you this way: If someone showed up at my door and asked me, “How much would you pay to have your teenager be independently mobile?” I have a feeling that the price I would name would be much higher than what our beat-up Honda is worth.

My husband and I have differing opinions on this car issue. He had to buy his first car. I didn’t. My dad had a penchant for automobiles, so he always had a spare to let me drive. I actually think I took better care of his cars than I would have my own because, due to some psychological mishap, I feared disappointing him by doing anything as egregious as not changing the oil every 3,000 miles.

Side note: When I was 17, I accidentally backed into an old woman’s Bonneville in a parking lot and ended up secretly paying for the more than $500 in damages myself to avoid having it reported to my dad’s insurance company. Yes, apparently I believed that my alcoholic, mostly-absent father did not make mistakes.

My husband and I do agree that the teenager has done nothing to deserve a car. Quite the opposite, really. My argument, however, is that we deserve for him to have a car. (And given the amount of time my husband spends out of town, I really mean ME – I deserve for him to have a car.) If it has the side effect of forcing him to find out what it’s like to earn his own money and pay for his own gas, insurance and car repairs, well, then I guess we can add “learning experience” under the pro’s column as well.

Irrational rationalizations? Probably. But raising a teenager is not all rational. Sometimes it’s just about preserving your own sanity.