EMPHASIZING UTILITY

YOU DEVELOP AN INTIMACY WITH ASPHALT.

We had to face it:  our kids were going to be driving at some point.

I've always had an uncomfortable feeling about cars that strive to make us forget what they are.  It's easy to start believing that a car is a living room, a wi-fi cafe, a La-Z-Boy, a snack bar, or a mobile office -- and forget that it is, to borrow Tom Wolfe's memorable phrase, a 'hurtling piece of machinery.'

How are young drivers supposed to pay attention to the actual driving part when the entire experience clamors with so many competing identities?  "Hit the cruise control!  Turn up the music!  Put a drink in the cupholder!  Tilt the seat back just a little more..."

In a culture in which the very act of being present, of living in the moment, seems positively revolutionary, how do we teach them to be present while piloting a hurtling piece of machinery?

Add to this problem the issue of coolness as perceived by high schoolers, and you've got yourself a humdinger.

And then what about the constant temptation to check on texts, SnapChats and the rest?

To the early owners of telephones, every call was a spectacular event.  But before long, everyone was investing in technology to help them avoid having to answer the damn thing, and even having to hear it ring.

We're still in the infancy of social media and texting, if you think about it.  My kids and their peers considerate it a serious offense if they don't respond right away.  They haven't yet felt the exquisite pleasure of practiced avoidance!

So this, then, is my terrible and flawed advice to parents of burgeoning teens:  

Find an old, 2-door, standard-transmission Jeep Wrangler.

Here's what we've discovered:

1. They're classic, and defy trendiness with some kind of eternal coolness.  Other kids will be jealous.
2. They don't look right without some dents and scrapes.  It makes your first couple of fender-benders considerably less traumatic if you only have to worry about the other car.
3. They seem like they were designed by the same people who made Erector Sets.  You can take them apart in good weather.  (See #1)
4. Everyone should know how to drive a standard transmission, because, well, you never know.  And guess what?  It requires two hands at all times.  The phone stops being an issue.
5. The visibility all around the vehicle is inconceivably good, unlike any other vehicle.  You can actually see what you were just about to hit.
6. You can't forget that you're piloting a hurtling piece of machinery.  The numbing of the senses that naturally occurs in a traditional cushy car doesn't have a chance when you have such a tactile experience of the road beneath you.  Everything your tires experience, you experience -- you can feel your speed; you can feel precisely how close you came to rolling the vehicle by taking that corner too fast.  You develop an intimacy with asphalt, as a partner in getting you where you need to go.

But really, it's an age-old question.

Should we make absolutely certain that our children never take a spill at the playground, or should we presume that tumbling off the jungle gym once or twice is critical to developing good coordination?  Some say that a father will traditionally tend to see value in those scuffs and scrapes, and that a mother will traditionally try to get through parenting without seeing any blood.

Of course, playgrounds are now made of recycled rubber particles and bark, so they don't bite like they used to.

But I figure my kids will be driving cushy cars soon enough; while in my care I think they should have an aggressively reality-based experience of driving to get them started.

We all need to feel the asphalt once or twice to get our bearings, don't we?