Mother of a Man-Child

The boys are now 16 as you know.  Which means they can now get their L-Plates, or “Learners”, i.e. a permit to allow them to sit behind the wheel of a car and DRIVE!  Gulp.  I don’t remember being 16 when we got our L-Plates.  Help me friends – weren’t we 17?

Naturally there was enormous pressure to get their L’s on the day of their birthday – but thankfully with Rowing Nationals immediately after their birthday it was just too hard to organise and we just couldn’t get them to Vic Roads.  So it will be next week – a whole two weeks after their birthday (you would think we made them wait TWO YEARS the way one of them carried on).

As you can imagine, I am just thrilled at the prospect of being a passenger with a 16-year-old man-child driving.   One of the boys tells me his mate got his licence and drove the car home straight from Vic Roads – What!!  The same one got all excited about driving us to rowing up at Nagambie in a few weekends.  Not on your Nelly I said.  It’s a two-hour drive, with your grandfather, me and your father in the car, and your brother’s girlfriend.  I don’t think so!  Let’s get a few kms (like more than two) under your belt before we go for the long distance drive.

He rightly predicted that I will be the panic-stricken mother every time one of them drives, and that Father of a Man-Child will be as cool as a cucumber, with complete faith in their driving skills.  To be fair one has done a bit of driving on a friend’s farm – let’s hope he can still remember what he learned.

I assume the reason they now get their L’s at 16 is so they have plenty of time to clock up the mandatory hours before they can get their full probationary licence, a practice I fully endorse.  For the twins, I’ve already enquired to find out about getting their mandatory hours reduced, on the basis there are two of them, and it will take us a long time to get them the hours they require.  It’s quite legit to apply apparently, provided you can demonstrate you have made as much effort as possible to get a lot of hours logged for each of them.

Yes, I know, some of you will be saying why did you let them know about the get-out clause, what a great excuse to keep them “practising” for years!  There is upside and method in my madness – when they have their licence, we can call on them to drive us around – they get the hours now, we get a cheap taxi later.  Bring it on!

So, anyone up for offering them driving lessons? 🙂

The boys started talking about getting their licence six months ago.  Read more here: Men-Children in motor cars – yikes!