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Am I still a good parent if I can’t drive?
I feel like it’s finally time I got my license — but I don’t want to.
The only car I should be driving is a driverless one — and I’ve been saying this for as long as I can remember, and long before, I imagined it would be a real possibility in my lifetime. They’re overdue now — the Guardian predicted we’d all be “permanent backseat drivers” by now. Regardless of whether or not driverless vehicles will be hitting the market any time soon, it’ll be a while before I can afford one, and in the meantime, as plenty of people remind me, I should really learn to drive. The ‘really’ is important here. It’s all the difference between a hot tip and a slap on the wrist. As a grown adult human and a mother, it’s not that I should learn to drive, but I should’ve done it a long time ago. Though I’m 35, in terms of adulting, I’m somewhere between 17 and 22.
I grew up with my mum and three siblings — and my mum couldn’t drive. A good portion of my childhood was spent at the local bus shelter, in the rain, waiting for a bus that never seemed to come. The weather probably wasn’t always bad, but I’m cold in my memory, and the rain is horizontal — whipped in off the sea, a mile away. The fact that we were poor, in addition to not having a car, meant that our use of public transport was rationed too. My mum would count out the single fare she’d need the following day to catch the bus to the supermarket. Forget about holidays, then — or exploring a country famed for its natural beauty. You need a car to do that. And you need to know how to drive.
I pulled out suddenly into oncoming traffic and narrowly missed hitting an old woman in a blue mini.
When my mum finally learned in her mid-thirties — and had the money for a car — I was a teenager. I’d already moved in with my grandparents and didn’t have to endure nerve-wracking ‘adventures’ with her at the wheel, except when I came to visit. She kept a vial of holy water in the glove compartment, and every journey — even to the local shops — began with her sprinkling it over us and praying a quick Hail Mary. This did not inspire confidence. In addition to this, the task of having to look right and left was well beyond her capabilities, so…
