On Mothering a Teenaged Driver

Last week a 17-year-old Winnipeg girl died. She was riding in an SUV with her friends at 1 o'clock on a weekday afternoon, when the vehicle hit a tree. She was ejected from the car and was killed. Her friends were all hurt, and charges have been laid against the 17-year-old driver.

This story would have made me cry anyway - I have become much more susceptible to any sad tale involving children since becoming a mother. But it really hit me in the gut, because my 16-year-old is learning to drive.

He's a good driver, although not yet ready to take his road test. His reflexes and mechanical control of the vehicle are excellent - years of playing video games are apparently good for something. The mistakes he makes are a direct result of inexperience, and he is a quick learner. More importantly, he loves to drive and asks to do it as frequently as he can, accumulating as much experience as possible. These are all good things.

Nevertheless, I am putting my child in charge of a lethal weapon. Right now I sit next to him and remind him to slow down if a light up ahead is about to change, call out warnings if he is drifting in his lane and tell him what to do about obnoxious guys in macho trucks who are trying to get him to move faster than is wise or legal.

But some day soon, he will be out there by himself. I tell myself that he is a good and cautious driver with a healthy respect for the powerful machine under his hands and for the speed limit and seat belt laws. I teach him everything I can so he and everyone around him will be safe. I have to let him go out and learn to be an adult.

But last week, a 17-year-old girl died, and a 17-year-old boy was left with a burden of guilt he can never, ever lose, regardless of what his friend's mother says and how genuine her forgiveness is.

We all cry.

On Guilt

So this is one theme Rabbi Sommer didn't put in her list, but it has been on my mind lately.

Last night I had the strangest dream. I dreamed I was visiting one of my March96 friends, except that rather than being on the East Coast where she really lives, it was in California. The details are vague, but what I remember most clearly is that we had agreed to do some things together, and for various reasons I decided to do something else. I think my family was there, but the decision was mine. Of course my friend had made arrangements and even paid money for some of the things we were going to do, and she was very sad and upset that I had just let it go like that and abandoned her and her family.

I woke up because of the feeling of crushing guilt that was smothering me in my dream. Of course this is the time of year that we are particularly sensitive to guilt - we are supposed to make amends for any pain we may have caused anyone in the past year.

I've been trying to understand this dream and what the real guilt is that I'm dealing with (I've done many things, but not this particular one!). Fifty years on this earth give plenty of opportunity to hurt and abandon people, so I guess I get to choose which one was really behind this dream.

As we move into the Ten Days of Atonement, how have you been handling your guilt? Have you found ways to atone that satisfy both you and the person you have hurt? These are hard questions we prefer to run away from, but when we do that, they intrude on our dreams.