Find The Middle Of The Road
Q. Most teen-agers in our community, when they get their driver’s licenses, are presented with new cars by their parents. As a consequence, our daughter, who will get her license within the next six months, takes for granted that we will do likewise. To us, this is a completely unnecessary extravagance. To date, we’ve refused to discuss it with her, but we’re leaning toward just letting our daughter drive one of the family cars. What do you think?
A. I think whether buying a new car for a teenager is an “extravagance” depends largely on two factors:
The car’s cost. Presenting a teenager with an expensive import, luxury car or flashy sports car is, to me, absurd. Given that automobile accidents are the leading cause of death during the late teen years, the primary consideration when it comes to a car for a teen should be safety, not status. Check out the issue of Consumer Reports in which cars are ranked according to their safety record. You’ll find it doesn’t necessarily cost an arm and a leg to buy a car that provides reasonable protection in case of collision.
The extent to which the teen is expected to assume responsibility for the ongoing cost of the car. It’s a mistake, I think, for parents to buy a teen a car and tote the ongoing costs of insurance and maintenance as well. The more the car costs the teen, the more responsibly he or she will behave behind the wheel.
Willie and I bought our children new, moderately priced cars when they earned their driver’s licenses. We didn’t actually want to; but then, we didn’t want our children driving one of our cars, either. We decided against used cars because we didn’t want to run the risk of buying someone else’s problem. The “deal,” however, was in three parts:
1. We paid the insurance, gas and maintenance for two months, at the end of which the kids had to assume those costs.
2. In order to assume those costs, the children had to secure after-school jobs. If that meant eliminating other activities, so be it.
3. They had to maintain good grades. If not, the jobs had to go, in which case they wouldn’t be able to support their cars, and the cars would have to go.
We also told the children that the car in question was the last car we’d ever buy them. (Actually, we bought them each a car upon college graduation.) We hoped this would motivate them to take excellent care of their cars. It worked!
In fact, the entire plan worked. The kids got jobs, organized their priorities, maintained good grades and were, from all indications, responsible drivers.
To tell the truth, Willie and I would have preferred not to have bought the kids cars for several more years. In fact, given the power to implement one, and only one, new law, I would raise the minimum driving age to 18, as it is in most European countries, and require a high school diploma. The fact that some states now restrict driving privileges of teens under 17 is a step in the right direction, but in my estimation, that doesn’t go far enough.
But in a less-than-perfect world, one must make certain compromises, and this was one compromise Willie and I somewhat reluctantly made. Furthermore, given that all our children’s friends were getting cars along with their driver’s licenses, we felt it would be next to punishing not to buy a car for our kids as well. They didn’t deserve being punished for having conservative parents, so where cars were concerned, we took what we felt was the middle of the road.
John Rosemond is a family psychologist in North Carolina. Questions of general interest may be sent to him at P.O. Box 4124, Gastonia, NC 28054 and at http://www.rosemond.com/parenting on the Internet.
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