TYLER MERCHANT
Parents of the young and lazy adolescence, look alive; this one’s coming at you. You’re doing it all wrong. Look outside, you see that brand new car you bought for your kid just sitting out there? Sell it. Yeah, you heard me. Buy them an old car, or better yet make them buy their own car. One last thing, make sure it’s stick shift and hear me out. Kids these days no longer do their own work or know how to deal with adversity. In a new world plagued with “mom buy me this” and “dad buyme that” how do you expect your kid to be ready for the real world?
What’s the best way to actually prepare them—make them buy their own stick shift car. It’s the best taste of the real world. They don’t get your nice luxurious car that rides easy and shifts its own gears, oh no. You’ve earned that, they haven’t. Seriously, the next time I see a kid, equally spoiled and self-centered, with a brand new Mercedes Benz or BMW I might just spontaneously combust. My body is not made to handle those type of kids, especially those of them who still have the audacity to say that their life is so hard.
Many kids these days are babied into adulthood. Parents overprotect and shelter their kids. Put them out there; make them dive stick. Everyday is a day of learning with a stick. Some days go smooth, others are filled with unexpected and sometimes scary events. When a kid can deal with these weird quirks that stick shift has, then they are more ready for the real world. I see so often now that parents think it’s necessary to live vicariously through their kids. Seriously parents, you’ve already been a kid once, it’s time to let your kids handle their own lives.
I don’t think that parents know how to be parents anymore. They take all of the well thought out and intricate tactics used by their parents and just toss them strait out the window, the entire time they sing to their melodious motto of “you learn the most from experience,” but never allow the opportunity for experience.
It’s true that the best knowledge is obtained from the hardships that the common day can throw at you, so let it keep on throwing. Sometimes you see it coming a mile away, other times it hits you like a ton of bricks. But sometimes it’s best to be hit by a ton of bricks. Okay…that one may seem a little out there, but just hang on. Sometimes it really is best to be hit by a ton of bricks not because of the feeling, but rather the mark that it leaves—the bruise on your life that you will carry with you throughout your entirety. Knowledge of things that you should and shouldn’t do. Kids need to feel this for themselves, but all too often this is just sadly not the case.
Parents embody a new type of sprit animal know as the shield, absorbing all the things that come towards their precious privileged child. Just recently my mom was talking about her friend that drove up to her daughter’s college to talk to a teacher for her. Come on now. You’re in college, it’s about time that you lay off the parent protection and live life, have fun. Unfortunately, it all started when she was young. She drove an automatic car…
I can no tell you all the things that I have learned just being close to people that drive stick shift. Nothing builds more character than popping out of gear or stalling while trying to make a seemingly harmless U-turn. But how do you manage it when this happens, there is no mommy or daddy around. I’ll tell you what you do—you turn the motor back on, pop it back into first and get it going again. You can’t be reliant on what your mom and dad will do for you, just what you can do for yourself.
Ultimately I think that this needs some major change. In Europe, and pretty much any other country, it’s not even a rare thing to see there. Every single one of them knows how to handle the seemingly infamous manual transition there. The problem is that Americans are becoming increasingly lazy with mindsets of “Why should I have to shift gears when the car can do it for me? Why should I do things why my parents will so it for me?” This laziness needs to stop, and it starts with one change: our cars. Force your kid to drive stick. Force them to lean how to deal with adversity. Force them to step into “real world.” They are the future and it really grinds my gears the way that they are being raised nowadays.
