Sep 24, 2015 3 min read

My daughter turns 16 today. Sixteen, can you believe it? It’s not so much that the time went by quickly – it does, and it did, and that’s a parental cliché by now.

No, the shock of this day, for me, is that the young woman going out the door to high school each morning is the same person as the elf I walked to preschool. You mean, that skinny imp with the short curls is one and the same as this tall, strong teenager with the long, straight hair? It’s as if my brain failed to write down the visual memory of the intervening years that brought her here, to this birthday.

We’ll take her to get her driver’s permit. She’s been talking about it for months, and I’ve been listening, with the usual maternal anxiety. I don’t remember being this nervous when her brother started to drive. He’d been driving toy cars and bikes for years, and so his getting behind the wheel didn’t seem like such a stretch.

A few times a week, we let her practice in the driveway. She goes through the drill of seatbelt-ignition-adjust mirrors-put in reverse-look behind you-gradually press the pedal. I sit in the back seat, wringing my hands and giving unsolicited advice.

She’s as smart as her brother, and as careful, but something about the sight of her with the steering wheel in her hands brings an eruption of anxiety in me. My baseline has been a bit on the anxious side for a couple of years, probably triggered by my son’s departure for college and now exacerbated by the new driver.

The thing is, they are good kids, and in enough control of themselves that they have earned their right to tease me about all the “warning” talks I have with them. They are lectures, really, about the usual: drinking, drugs, sex, texting while driving. As my son has pointed out, not every moment needs to be a “teachable” moment.

I finally went to see a therapist about this anxiety, when I found myself getting ridiculous. I was watching a news program about technology for the future, and an expert said it is likely that in the next 50 years, humans may colonize Mars or other places in the galaxy. It was explained that because it would take so long to get there, it’s likely those who make the move would never return to Earth.

For a mother who worries about her son at college 10 miles away, this Mars thing is troubling.

After watching the program, I called my son to tell him to please not move to another planet. I really said those words. He laughed, and then said, “OK, Mama.” He always says, “OK, Mama.”

Today, as my youngest child puts one foot into the grownup world, I remind myself that all mothers of teenagers go through this – maybe not as goofily – but we all worry.

And so Happy Birthday to Grace. Enjoy your day, have fun with your friends, show off that driver’s permit.

Oh, and just a few more things: Don’t drink and drive. Don’t text and drive. Don’t speed.

And please, please: Don’t move to Mars.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.