On the Road Again

Week beginning 25 September 2005

Well, we've taken the L-plates out again, dusted them down and applied them to the car. Yes, number two son is behind the wheel on the open road, and I've been relegated to the passenger seat.

There are some things that bring home to one that one is definitely growing old -- and taking one's children out in a car is one of them. Last year was a great adventure, co-driving the heir and successor about everywhere. Now we have moved on to the next potential driver, and the fun begins all over again.

I do find myself planning ahead a bit, and anticipating arguments over who gets the car. That's started already, of course, and the strange thing is that I hear no arguments over who pays the latest garage bill or fills the tank with petrol. It is assumed that the old man, fountain of all economic resources as well as all wisdom, will foot the bill. Do they not know what a poor preacher I actually am?

Of course, in the case of our number two son, I'm not sure that 'L' plates are entirely appropriate, or even that he knows what it stands for. It doesn't really make much difference that I've been driving for quarter of a century; I obviously have a lot to learn. Driving with him is not so much a matter of me teaching him anything, but of being told how I could be doing things a lot better than I am.

Oh dear -- it's in these father-son bonding sessions that one realises just how much of oneself has been duplicated in the offspring. I can hear my control-freak genes coming through every time he insists that I don't know my gear changes; every natural inclination I have to tell others what to do is reproduced each time he tells me how it ought to be done.

Of course, sometimes (do I not mean all the time?) he is right. In the world of the driving lesson, some things have changed over twenty-five years. Techniques are different, assessment methods are different. But what a dinosaur I am, signalling EVERY time I turn a corner, whether anyone is there to see me or not.

Yes, the rising generation has different values to us, and we are as well to admit it. I thought that the most important procedures for driving away from a stationary position were to check mirrors and signals. I now learn that more important still is to look in the mirror, adjust the hair, and find a suitable CD. I thought that one learned to drive to get from A to B. How wrong I am. One learns to drive in order to be seen, acknowledged and admired. One has one's reputation to think of, after all.

Who needs in-car entertainment when one is co-driving one's teenage son? Of course, one is always conscious that the geriatric in the passenger seat is what makes the street-cred plummet to zero. Dad wants son to pass so that son will enjoy independent motoring, and perhaps even chauffeur dad for a change. Son wants to pass so that he won't have to be seen on the road with dad any more.

Talking of which, isn't it amazing how learning to drive suddenly makes them want their parents again? Is it just me, or do other parents go through these periods of wondering whether their children actually prefer other people's homes to their own? Of course, one forgets how cool every other parent is, and how superior every other form of accommodation is.

But come seventeen, and the need to get out on wheels, and suddenly we are needed again! Suddenly number two son is coming straight home from school, just like he used to. Suddenly he wants his dad's company, presence and wisdom (well, company and presence). It's a necessary evil; but we don't mind.

In fact, it's all part of the thrill of being a parent. We go through all these different moments with our offspring, hoping that one day they'll experience for themselves the highs and the lows of looking after a life which they helped bring into the world.

I read rather a moving quotation on the web the other day, by a woman who had just had a child. She happens to be in Africa, and when her daughter was born a friend said to her: 'while you are expecting your child, her heart beats inside of you; when your child is born, your heart beats outside of you'.

Sometimes, indeed, it misses a beat; sometimes it gets torn with emotion; sometimes it gets stretched to its limit. But it continues beating outside of ourselves, with every advance, every step, every new moment in the lives of our children.

That is part of the reason I'm a paedo-baptist; it seems to me that God, upon whom all fatherhood is modelled and imaged, has a special place for our children too. He includes them in his church, and wants the church to build them up, encourage family life and strengthen the bonds that bind us to one another. He is the God of families; not just the God of inviduals.

Knowing my son as I do, he's probably planned the next fortnight meticulously, working out those points at which dad needs to re-schedule and fit in a driving lesson. Dad only works on Sunday anyway, so that shouldn't be too difficult, and this week is the communion, in which other ministers do all the work for him.

I'll probably oblige the new driver. Give us a wave if you pass a small blue car sporting L-plates with a handsome guy and a geek in the front. I'll leave you to work out which is driving.

And I'll also leave you to work out which is learning the most from the experience.

iaind@backfreechurch.co.uk