My Teenager Thinks Cars Grow on Trees

We have a daughter who is soon to get her permit. She is already lobbying for her own car, a Mustang no less. Oh nevermind, now it is a truck. Understand that we are the kind of people who drive our cars until they are dead, at least too expensive to fix. Both of our cars have well over 100,000 miles on them. The minivan is looking a little tired, and my husband's car needs some work, but we are content. Our oldest teenager, however, has a different opinion about our means of transportation. She says she wouldn't be caught dead driving the minivan!

Our oldest has an interesting view of what parents should do for their children. She believes that when you turn sixteen your parents buy you a car. We never told her this or would ever subscribe to that kind of indulgence. If we buy her a car, it will be out of necessity, not want. But many of her friends who are from wealthier homes do get cars for their sixteenth birthday. I still think that just handing a kid a car on their birthday amounts to giving them a very unrealistic understanding of how big tickets items come into our lives, even if you are wealthy enough to fork out the dough. I just think that our children need to understand the value of waiting and saving, or at least having a job that will pay the gas and insurance.

I never dreamed that my parents would buy me a car in high school. Sadly, too many kids are being spoiled this way, and I hate the jealousy it produces in my progeny. Thanks a lot! Oh well, our daughter will understand someday that her parents weren't mean or stingy, just frugal, well at least trying to be frugal. Frugality is something that has eluded me in the past, but that's for another post.