King of Schlep No More

On my daughter getting a license and emancipating me.

“I passed!” My 18-year-old daughter texted me, and suddenly she can drive. I was relieved because she had failed the test twice and was getting increasingly cranky about it.

I was also relieved because I have spent the last 18 years as the primary child-conveyor/transporter/sherpa. When she becomes friends with someone on the other side of the city, it is me who transports her tiny and then less tiny and then full adult-sized body to the doorstep of the friends who also, over the years, have increased in height. If she is performing in a play in the suburbs, it is me who drives 45 minutes suburb-ward…and then sits in the parking lot until the suburbs are done with her to transport her back to her rightful home with all the cats, because driving another hour and a half round trip is even more unpleasant.