I spend a lot of time in my car. Between work and the kids activities, I am always driving somewhere. I used to be so jealous of other drivers. I always noticed how happy people looked while driving their cars. I would see people rocking out to their favorite songs, laughing at something funny, talking to friends, or even peacefully looking at the road. Not for me! My time in the car always sucked! I was never alone in the car. I always had the kids with me. I have an SUV with three rows of seats. Usually the teenager sits in the very back row, the elementary kid and the preschooler sit in the middle and next to me in the passenger seat is what I call “operation central” – it stores snacks, school forms, my purse, my phone, and any toy item I had to take away from one of the kids in the back. Unlike those happy drivers around me, this is what I would hear from the front seat:
- Why do you sit on the left side of the car but drive on the right side of the street?
- That’s a stupid thing to say while mommy is driving.
- Oooh! We don’t use that word!
- That’s right! We don’t say the word “stupid”. Mommy! She said the word “Stupid”.
- You just said “stupid” too.
- You aren’t the boss of me.
- Yes I am, girls are the boss of boys unless you are a grown up and married.
- Mommy, do we HAVE to listen to the news?
- Stop telling me what to do!
- No!
- Stop looking at me!
- I am not looking at you, I am looking out the window!
Finally out of frustration, I would say something like: Everyone, just stop! You are distracting me from driving! Just face forward keep your hands to yourself and be quiet (’cause yep, that would be all I could think of to say). Of course things would quiet down until the next random question and the cycle would start all over! By the end of the car ride, I would be so irritated that I would need to have some time alone to sit and get myself together! Now does that sound like a happy fun ride?
One morning, it was so bad that I snapped at a co-worker when I got to work. Since that was uncharacteristic of me, she was concerned and came to talk to me. I told her about my drive and she asked me why I didn’t let them use their tablets or something. I told her about my rule: No digital devices in the car. I explained that I wanted us to have conversations and connect as parent and child. After she picked herself up off the floor from laughing hysterically, she asked me “How’s that working for you?” She was right, it wasn’t working at all!
So, I broke my own rule. I let the elementary kid use his tablet in the car. I found some kids music stations (that I could tolerate) on my phone to stream in the car (man, whoever invented Bluetooth was a genius!). Guess what happened? I became one of those smiling drivers too! In fact, we now have more interesting conversations, we laugh more in the car, and we really do connect (in between games and songs). I am glad I did it! So, next time you are driving around town, look at the person driving next to you. If you see a brown girl with locs smiling and singing, wave Hi, because it might be me :-).