Driving Miss Daisy

Erma Bombeck said….

“I’m trying hard to understand this generation. They have adjusted the timetable for childbearing so that menopause and teaching a sixteen-year-old how to drive a car occur in the same week.”

Donovan at 4 years old

Donovan at 14 years old in front of the school he attended at 4 years old.

I feel like I am experiencing Erma Bombeck’s words this week. My fifteen-year-old is learning to drive and I am experiencing many emotions. I am excited that he is maturing, learning independence, and that he will soon be able to help me with errands. However, I am still working on building up my confidence to let him drive with me (grandma is better at this than I am).

 I haven’t yet let my son back out of the driveway, parallel park, angle park, nor put the car in reverse. I am working up to that. Well, the first time I let him drive was what I call my, “Driving Miss Daisy” experience. It didn’t have anything to do with the personality of anyone in the movie by this name. The experience related to the fact that I had to give him constant direction.

 I wasn’t as calm as Miss Daisy, when Donovan’s size 14 shoe barely fit on the brake pedal as he prepared to put the car in drive. He appeared to be calm. I, on the other hand, had a death grip on the armrest. My feet were planted on the floor like a pole in cement. I think I prayed before he drove off.

We drove along a four lane road so I was pretty comfortable with Donovan’s initial driving. Obviously he was too because his speed increased. “You can slow down a little,” I told him.

“I’m only going 45mph.”

It was true, he was doing the speed limit. It just felt like we were on the autobahn from where I was sitting. We made it to our destination safe and sound, only two miles from the house. When we got back home I sang a stanza from the Marvin Sapp gospel song, “Never Would Have Made It.”

The lyrics to the song say, “Never would have made it, never could have made it, without you,” referring to the Lord. As I make light of Donovan’s driving skills, I really do have to stop and pray. I give thanks for how far he has come and pray for the distance he still has to travel along his path to adulthood.

 Donovan was successful in Driving Miss Daisy (me) to the store and back home safely and I only lost a small piece of my sanity. What experience have you had with your child that made you think of a movie or a song title?