The brilliant daughter and I were riding home from Mass yesterday morning in her car, and we began discussing the idea of her taking the car when she leaves for college next weekend. Her mother and I have our reasons why she shouldn’t take it. She, naturally, had one dozen counter reasons for each one. However, I wasn’t prepared for this one:
Father: I’m telling you these things from experiences that your mom and I both had going away to college.
Daughter: (Sighing) I know.
Father: The thing that worries me is that you have good heart. You’re generous to a fault. I don’t want people you barely know taking advantage of you by asking you for rides here and there. I just don’t want you to turn into a taxi service for your dorm mates.
Daughter: (Getting slightly indignant) Okay, fine. Then how am I going to come home on weekends when I want to if I don’t have my car? I only know one other person who’s taking their car.
Father: Once you get to know a lot of people, I’m sure you’ll meet a bunch of people who live near here. You ask them for rides; you know, offer them gas money. This way, you can come home and your car will be sitting here waiting for you.
Daughter: (Getting more indignant) I don’t believe you just told me to do that!
Father: Why? What do you mean?
Daughter: You tell me to leave my car here so people won’t mooch rides off me, but you think I should go to other people I hardly know and mooch rides off them. That is such a double standard.
Yes, folks, I have turned into the world’s most whipped father. I am now being lectured by my nearly-19-year-old on the moral concepts of double standards. The problem is that I can’t really tell if she’s sincerely insulted that I would ask her to act in that way, or if she’s cleverly playing me with her incredibly adept brain.
I’d like to think it’s the former. But if it’s the latter, I guess she learned from the master.
Maybe not the best argument, but I certainly back your decision to not let her take the car. That first taste of total freedom can be overwhelming, and even the best kid raised by great parents under ideal conditions can fall victim to poor choices.
Like most other things in life, its a privilege that has to be earned. Once she brings home good grades and stays out of trouble after the first year, she’ll have a better argument.
And I can personally attest to the whole taxi service problem. I DID take my car my first year of college, and EVERYONE was my friend when they needed to go to Wal-Mart, or the ATM, or Taco Bell at 2am. Apparently I went to school with a lot of budding democrats as well because they felt not only that it was my duty to drive them around (I guess as the person “wealthy” enough to have a car as a freshman), but they were ENTITLED to be driven whenever they felt the need. To tell them no would be to deny them their right to food (see Taco Bell above), or the chance to pickup their latest “welfare” deposit at the bank from mom and dad.
See…I can turn anything into a political struggle. I’m sick.
Well, I agree with you, but we’re going to cave on this one. However, I’m going to take a slightly altered approach to what you suggested. If I see her grades (typically all As) fall at all after one term, I drive to Tallahassee with the spouse and take the car back home. She’ll be able to use it when she’s here, but she has to earn it back at school.
In my first year (way back in 1973), I had already blown the engine on my old car, so I was one of those leeches who bummed rides down to Long Island once a month. I always helped pay for gas, but we would frequently hitchhike down. Not something you cannot do today, especially if you’re a female. We were pretty daring back then.
Hell, you’re not sick. I think you and I maight have known a few of the same college classmates.