One thing I never thought about when I fell pregnant for the first time, 16 years, nine months and two weeks ago, was that one day I’d have to sit terrified in the passenger seat of my own car and let my inexperienced offspring take the wheel.
While I, this human who isn’t quite sure she’s equipped to do such a thing, teach him how to drive.
Yet here we are.
This is perhaps the biggest adventure I’ve taken throughout motherhood (and no doubt for him, up there with his most notable life events, too).
I don’t recall a time I feared this much for our safety, and while there have been many head-shaking moments highlighting just how brief our children’s childhood is from a parent’s point of view, it really drives it home when your firstborn gets their learner’s permit.
No pun intended, but if the shoe fits the foot that presses the accelerator — or slams on the brake (!) — let’s go with it.
Milestone moments have been coming so thick and fast I feel like I’m on a train that’s barrelling along the tracks so quickly it fails to stop at stations.
I enjoy the adventure of raising kids — I truly do — but why is it so fleeting?
If he’s gone from a teeny squirming baby to a moustache-growing 16-year-old taller than me, who can be instructed to chauffeur me around in the blink of an eye, then just how quickly are the next two years going to pass into adulthood?
Maybe the trucks coming towards us that indicate they’re turning yet fail to make those turns will slow these two years down? Maybe the impatient P-platers who tailgate and then overtake on the inside, in bike lanes in 60km/h zones, seemingly forgetting their own plates were yellow not all that long ago, will make them seem agonisingly long?
Everything looks so different from the passenger seat with driving eyes. I’m no longer just a passenger when I’m in that seat. I’m a driver with no control of the vehicle.
Distances have to be recalculated, reading traffic requires relearning, and sometimes I genuinely feel we’re going to sideswipe parked cars (even though on inspection in the mirrors, I can see he has plenty of room — it just doesn’t feel like it from that side of the car).
Despite my fears and despite my suburban-living son having never taken the wheel of a farm vehicle or a vehicle on a farm, he has taken to driving like a duckling to water. Not yet duck status, because these young’uns need plenty of practice driving supervised before they become as savvy, co-ordinated and confident as the duck.
Many things have changed since I was a wee learner myself: I had to sit my test inside a VicRoads (and it cost money), now you can do it online before you’re even 16 — for free — and wander into VicRoads with your ID on your 16th birthday and pick up your permit.
I didn’t have an app (we didn’t even have mobile phones at 16) or a logbook to record hours.
I didn’t even have to complete a minimum of 120 hours of driving to be eligible to obtain my licence, and while I was grateful for that then, now the shoe is on the other foot, I am thankful my children do have to.
I was slightly concerned about how we’d fit at least an hour of learner driving in each week, every week, for two years — especially when my three kids will overlap as learners.
I needn’t have worried, though, because, in just two weeks, he’s already racked up eight hours, including more than two of the required 20 hours of night driving.
The short incidental drives here and there help the slightly longer intentional drives accumulate substantial learning hours quite quickly. (And with diesel prices, it helps the fuel bill rise substantially, too — ha!)
Because it’s been more than two decades since I learned to drive, I’m the first to admit I’m probably a little rusty on some rules. There are possibly some rule changes I’ve missed along the way, too.
Which, among other reasons (including to save myself at least a few more grey hairs), is why I’ve also enlisted the services of a professional driving instructor to take him for a few lessons early on in his learning journey before I teach him anything incorrectly that becomes too ingrained or before he develops any of my bad habits.
I’d also be more comfortable with this if he remembered to message me once he’d arrived safely at school after his first hour-long driving lesson through back-to-school traffic.
Trying not to panic, I sent his instructor an SMS half an hour after I had expected to hear from my son to ask casually how the drive went. Reasoning that his instructor was probably already in the car well into another lesson with another learner, I knew he wouldn’t be able to respond quickly either.
Increasingly worried and only just short of desperate for an answer from one of the two people who’d been in that vehicle (and growing those grey hairs I’d saved sending him for a drive with someone else anyway), I headed to my son’s driving app to see if more time had been logged.
When I saw it had, I exhaled with relief.
This is my life now. And with two more to go, this will be my life for the next five years.
I’d better strap myself in and let my quickly multiplying grey hairs flow with the whiplash.