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A Car
To Give or Not to Give,
That Is the Question By Tim O'Brien
That Is the Question
We shouldn't complain. We got ourselves into this situation. Less than five years from our own teenage years, my wife and I bought our first house in this suburban community, where sidewalks are as rare as children actually walking.
To be sure, for me suburbia was a step up from where I spent my childhood in the city, where I could open a window and actually touch my next door neighbor's house. The yard around our family's house was so small you barely needed an extension cord to cut the lawn with an electric mower. There was no garage, and parking on the street was tight for our one used car, which served our family so unreliably.
Yet that neighborhood had something that this one does not sidewalks that provided the major thoroughfare for the community, young and old alike. We found it less of a hassle to walk to our destinations directly, rather than circle blocks looking for a vacant parking space not "reserved" with vintage dinette chairs, a common practice in Pittsburgh considered nostalgically charming by everyone but the driver in need of both a rest room and a place to put his car.
So here I am, 21 years later, with a 16-year-old who's tenaciously begun to lobby for a car to call his own, one to drive 1 1/2 miles to school and then let it sit in a parking lot all day, until he would use it to take a couple of buddies home or to the nearest Wendy's. On the way, of course, he'd use the cell phone we bought him to call all his friends, but more than likely, he would not use it to let us know where he is. And we'd still love him.
My position has been clear from day one. I planted the seeds long before he came of driving age. I don't believe a 16-year-old should be given a car of his own.
His arguments are predictable. "Only the freshmen and sophomores ride the school bus. All my classmates have cars. You wouldn't need to worry about picking me up and dropping me off all the time." And the classic-but-true, "Everyone thinks it's lame that I don't have a car and have to ask for rides all the time."
