Back seat driving at its finest

 

I’m stuck behind a car and can’t help noticing the bumper sticker. “Teens!” it reads, “Respect the right to drive!” I can almost see the wagging finger, and, like the age group for whom the sticker is meant, I want to thumb my nose at it. No bumper sticker has ever convinced anybody of anything. Besides, if you drive around with that on your car, you simply must obey every single traffic rule yourself, and who does that? Murphy’s Law dictates it: if this driver ever gets into an accident, he or she will be at fault, and the victim will be a sixteen-year-old with a learner’s permit with still-wet ink.

Of course there are plenty of teenagers on the road who drive like maniacs; especially that certain kind of boy that cannot help but see every yellow traffic light as a personal challenge. It’s annoying and it’s dangerous, but I’m too old to actually care. I have bigger worries: I have backseat drivers.

There are two of them, they like to talk a lot, and comment on my driving. “Come on, drive!” four-year-old Mendel yells when I’m sitting in front of a red light, “You can do it, mommy!” It’s hard to say why he thinks I need encouragement; does he imagine traffic rules are optional? Is he just impatient because we are standing still? Even better is when he releases his seatbelt, and expects me to turn around in the middle of the intersection and refasten him.

My daughter’s comments betray a more critical attitude. “Why are you turning here? Why don’t you go that way? Why did you stop? Why don’t you change the radio station if it irritates you so much?” And the kicker: “Don’t you think you’re going a little fast?”

Things get truly hairy when they are both cranky and get into an argument. The other day, Mendel had a new toy: a violently purple-orange ball that giggles and bounces every time you shake it. My daughter, who had just come out of school and felt tired, wasn’t pleased.
“Your new toy is stupid,” she announced, simultaneously crushing his spirits and giving him an excuse to hit her. She, of course, hit back, and before I knew it, a full-fledged fight broke out on the back seat.

“If you guys don’t knock it off, I’m going to get into an accident and it will be your fault,” I told them. “I can’t afford a new car and you will have to walk to school from now on, rain or shine.” This, they did not buy. Isabella met my angry eyes in the mirror, and stated that was fine, she would go to school on her roller skates. My son just laughed and undid his seatbelt, in order to reach over and smack his sister again.

Maybe I should get a second hand limo, so I can close the partition and just ignore them. Imagine the blessed peace I would feel without having to listen to the constant bickering. Or even better, a used police car with one of those grates. I could hear them, they could hear me, but they can’t get out and I could hold them hostage once we get home. I bet sitting in the driveway for an hour or two, without being able to get out, use the bathroom, or whine about snacks, would cure them of their shenanigans once and for all.

For more info on making it through long car rides with your kids on the back seat, go to about.com, newsday, or try greatschools.net