My Mom and the Invisible Braking Pedal
This blog is all about me. It is the only thing on this planet that is purely about me. This is my little place to be selfish. This is the place I can say where I can say what I want to say, and as previously stated, if you don't like what I am saying - feel free to bugger off.
I have been reminiscing this past week about my experiences while learning to drive. It was a beautiful time in my life - although there was quite a lot happening otherwise. I was a 17-year old boy at the stage, I was in my 12th grade, or matric as we call it in South Africa.
My dad, at the time, was living in another province due to the run of events. He was retrenched from his job at the end of 1994 and had purchased a business in Humansdorp, Eastern Cape province, some 1200 km's distant from where we lived. It was, thus, largely up to my mom to handle my driving training. As a consequence, I am much more, in terms of driving style, my mother's child.
Any parent who has taught a child to drive will understand the stresses involved. I have never been a parent, but as a teacher, dealing with kids every day, I think I can relate to the experience. And I've had other people driving my car while sitting next to them - maybe that is the greater factor in my understanding and sympathy.
My mom would always sit next to me, watching the road ahead with a keen eye, and the speedometer from the corner of her right eye. In South Africa we drive on the left side of the road, consequently our cars are right-side steering and the passenger sits on the left-hand side of the driver.
She was a great driving teacher, never making undue comments and advising only when asked to - most of the time anyway. The strange thing, however, was the invisible braking pedal at her feet, because whenever she stepped on that brake pedal, the car would seem to slow down. Because my foot was, initially anyway, connected to hers. Later on it became a joke - I would remark that there was no brake pedal down there.
The funny thing is that, so many years later now, my mom still seems to believe that there is a braking pedal down there, and I would only smile - part of it about the memory, part of it appreciation. And also in knowing that I, more than once, stomped on the old Invisible Braking Pedal.
I have been reminiscing this past week about my experiences while learning to drive. It was a beautiful time in my life - although there was quite a lot happening otherwise. I was a 17-year old boy at the stage, I was in my 12th grade, or matric as we call it in South Africa.
My dad, at the time, was living in another province due to the run of events. He was retrenched from his job at the end of 1994 and had purchased a business in Humansdorp, Eastern Cape province, some 1200 km's distant from where we lived. It was, thus, largely up to my mom to handle my driving training. As a consequence, I am much more, in terms of driving style, my mother's child.
Any parent who has taught a child to drive will understand the stresses involved. I have never been a parent, but as a teacher, dealing with kids every day, I think I can relate to the experience. And I've had other people driving my car while sitting next to them - maybe that is the greater factor in my understanding and sympathy.
My mom would always sit next to me, watching the road ahead with a keen eye, and the speedometer from the corner of her right eye. In South Africa we drive on the left side of the road, consequently our cars are right-side steering and the passenger sits on the left-hand side of the driver.
She was a great driving teacher, never making undue comments and advising only when asked to - most of the time anyway. The strange thing, however, was the invisible braking pedal at her feet, because whenever she stepped on that brake pedal, the car would seem to slow down. Because my foot was, initially anyway, connected to hers. Later on it became a joke - I would remark that there was no brake pedal down there.
The funny thing is that, so many years later now, my mom still seems to believe that there is a braking pedal down there, and I would only smile - part of it about the memory, part of it appreciation. And also in knowing that I, more than once, stomped on the old Invisible Braking Pedal.
posted by Nico at 5:11 pm
1 Comments:
The bad thing about the invisible brake pedal is that it is about as effective as it is visible. Stomping it has no influence if the is no “telepathic” link to the driver.
Teaching some-one to drive is not so different to raising children. Many a parent has stomped on the invisible brake pedals of children’s lives apparently gone out of control, only to discover that a link was missing somewhere. Many have bailed at that point, only to watch the child go over the cliff – or at least so from their perspective. Someone standing on the other side of the cliff may often observe a broadside or two, after which a safe, but poorer, journey follow.
Those parents that have faced their terror – or were paralyzed by it – and stuck with the ride are the ones that are often awarded with new vistas and insights, new perspectives on lives they thought familiar. They may observe and appreciate growth, flowers and fruit unwittingly seeded.
The need to stomp the invisible pedal may never disappear though. As the Mom in the passenger seat, the view is never the same as that from the driver’s seat. However, it remains a privilege, for Mom and driver, if she remains in the front seat, and is not relegated, nor chooses to take the back seat.
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