Will We Survive our Teenagers?
I mentioned yesterday was a rough one. We received one of those phone calls. You know the calls that are too early to be anything but a wrong number or bad news. It was the JayP. He lost control of the car and skidded off the road into a hillside in the canyon on the way to school. The car was nearly, if not completely, totaled. Thank God the boy was completely unscathed. I credit his guardian angel and the intercession of Saint Joseph.
Many of our dear friends with larger families do not give their children cars to drive, nor provide their insurance or gas. We've just not been able to do that. Having spare drivers in the family has been a great convenience and living as we do in the country, the JayP did not get a job this last summer as I didn't want to be stuck driving him 40 miles or more roundtrip to and from work. We did that all last winter for him to go to school. So, out of convenience, we have provided our teens with a family car, insurance and fuel once they have their license.
This great privilege does not come without strict guidelines. They have to act responsibly and wisely when driving. We have told our teens that if they receive a speeding ticket, they are grounded from driving anywhere other than school or work. We have also told them a single accident will result in complete revocation of driving privileges. We cannot afford an increase in our insurance premiums and we cannot afford to pay a $1000 deductible every time one of our vehicles is wrecked.
What this means then is the JayP now owes us $1000. He is banned from driving until he can buy his own car and pay his own insurance. He will have to get a job, and unfortunately that means we will be providing transportation to and from said job. The poor guy is really in the hole right now.
This also means we are shackled to his schedule and will be driving him to and from school for the rest of the year. Once I had recovered from the worry of the accident itself I found myself completely ticked off at the boy. Is he trying to kill me? He's certainly driving us to the poor house. Ugh. Good for him he was in school all day yesterday giving us time to cool off and let go of the anger. Good thing for him too, it seems he actually gets most of the gravity of his and our situation. He mentioned he needs to find a job fairly close to home. Hopefully one can be found.
Thank God for protecting our son. It really could have been so much worse.
Many of our dear friends with larger families do not give their children cars to drive, nor provide their insurance or gas. We've just not been able to do that. Having spare drivers in the family has been a great convenience and living as we do in the country, the JayP did not get a job this last summer as I didn't want to be stuck driving him 40 miles or more roundtrip to and from work. We did that all last winter for him to go to school. So, out of convenience, we have provided our teens with a family car, insurance and fuel once they have their license.
This great privilege does not come without strict guidelines. They have to act responsibly and wisely when driving. We have told our teens that if they receive a speeding ticket, they are grounded from driving anywhere other than school or work. We have also told them a single accident will result in complete revocation of driving privileges. We cannot afford an increase in our insurance premiums and we cannot afford to pay a $1000 deductible every time one of our vehicles is wrecked.
What this means then is the JayP now owes us $1000. He is banned from driving until he can buy his own car and pay his own insurance. He will have to get a job, and unfortunately that means we will be providing transportation to and from said job. The poor guy is really in the hole right now.
This also means we are shackled to his schedule and will be driving him to and from school for the rest of the year. Once I had recovered from the worry of the accident itself I found myself completely ticked off at the boy. Is he trying to kill me? He's certainly driving us to the poor house. Ugh. Good for him he was in school all day yesterday giving us time to cool off and let go of the anger. Good thing for him too, it seems he actually gets most of the gravity of his and our situation. He mentioned he needs to find a job fairly close to home. Hopefully one can be found.
Thank God for protecting our son. It really could have been so much worse.
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