Henrietta Hay's Column

Several years ago Gail Sheehy wrote a book called "Passages." It was an excellent book and discussed "the predictable crises of adult life." But she started too late. The first predictable crisis is the one between childhood and beginning adulthood. Many cultures have a special ceremony that each child goes through when he or she reaches puberty. In the Anglo culture there is nothing to mark this rite of passage -- except the DRIVERS LICENSE.

The rite of THE DRIVERS LICENSE is usually the first truly adult responsibility our child faces. He ceases to be the center of his universe and must be concerned, not only for himself, but for everyone else on the road. It is a major life step for the child. It is also a major trauma for the parents who are both trading our kids in for adults, and risking our own lives.

In Colorado 15 1/2 is a number far more important than 1492 or 1776. Fifteen and a half is the age at which this small child of ours, barely out of diapers, is allowed to menace the population by driving two tons of metal down the public streets. He thinks he is grown up. We parents know he isn't.

I have only vague memories of this passage in my own sons' lives but enough of them remain that I always think of learning to drive in the masculine tense. Fortunately, as parents we are allowed to forget this critical time in our lives for the same reason women forget the pain of childbirth, in order that the species may be continued and future generations will drive automobiles. Driver Education in the schools came along after my youngest graduated, so teaching the kids to drive was a parental chore. I use the word chore deliberately.

My grandchildren are just approaching that magic age of driverhood, but they don't live here, so I will be spared the emotional pain of going through it with them. But my expert on teen age matters is right here in River City and is now 15 1/2. I am beginning to think that watching the parents go through this passage is worse than watching the kid.

I have been listening to mothers of teen-agers discuss their feelings, and it is not a pretty sight. I have it on good authority that the first time a mother ventures into the car with her neophyte driver, her hair straightens and starts to turn white. Her pulse jumps and her fingernails cut into the skin of her palms. She shakes with a major anxiety attack. Her life flashes before her. She looks straight ahead, eyes shut or open but unseeing, and if she is so inclined, she prays fervently. But, being the brave soul and good mother that she is, she says not a word. This child of hers, this baby who is six feet tall but surely not old enough to drive, is herding her car down the street and she has absolutely no control.

I don't know how fathers feel but I suspect they have the same reactions. Of course, they'd never admit it. The learners' permit is new since my day as an active parent. I suppose it a valuable addition to the process, but it adds some complications. It means that for those six months of the prospective driver's life, every time an adult, and I mean any adult who is related in any way by blood or friendship to the kid, goes near an automobile, the kid is not more than 12 inches away, panting slightly. He reminds one of a hungry cat in the kitchen at dinner time or a dog standing at the door with leash in mouth the second you come in the house.

Fortunately for our sanity, we struggle through this rite of passage, the kid learns to drive and the mother can head for the hair-dresser's and get her hair back to its original color.

A final word of comfort from those of my generation to those who are going through it now: we survived. You might, however, listen to Erma Bombeck, a very wise woman, who says, "Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth."