The story below is from our March/April 2020 issue. For the full issue Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
You can get the goods on your kids while you shuttle them around town, if you turn down the noise.
Christy Rippel
With multiple kids in multiple activities, I spend a lot of my waking hours behind the wheel of my minivan. We crisscross Roanoke heading to soccer, violin or art class. Meals are eaten on the fly (and the evidence is between the seats and on the floor), and homework is scribbled out while waiting on a sibling.
I used to dread this time in the car, and sometimes I still do. When my people are feeling prickly, they irritate each other, or pinch and yell and then I’M yelling and pulling the car over saying, “If you do that ONE more time…” (Are you really a mother if you haven’t pulled the car over and threatened your little darlings? I think not.)
The conversation can be maddening when you’re the only adult. Ten-year-old: “My friend at school thinks Donald Trump is going to get elected again.” Six-year-old: “Donald Trump’s getting an Alexa?”
Misunderstandings and pinching wars aside, being trapped in that steel cage together is when I learn the real nuggets of my kids’ lives. When they were smaller, I’d pick them up from preschool and elementary school full of questions. “How was school? (Fine.) “Who’d you play with at recess?” (Everyone.) “How was lunch?” (Fine.) “What was your teacher like today?” (She was the same.) I peppered them with questions, but I never got anywhere.
A few years ago, I learned to bite my tongue. I stopped asking questions, and only then did I get some answers. I turned down the radio, and shut up and drove. It was then, on some days, that the stories came out. The anxieties, the friend troubles, the bad grades that made them feel inadequate. Good stuff, too—how they felt when a coach complimented them or they finally grasped a math concept. A lot of stuff comes out in the space of silence and a listening ear.
I’ve found the shut up and drive technique especially helpful with my 14-year-old son. There is no harder nut to crack than a teenaged boy. They aren’t forthcoming about much, but a Dunkin’ Donuts or 7-11 run on the way to school or practice is helpful. Give a boy a donut and some quiet, and they might tell you something about their day.
But there’s another trick for the teenaged set—act nonchalant. Don’t offer a lot of advice (save that for later). Just listen and file it away. Your enthusiasm or prodding can be annoying enough to shut them up for a week. Nod and smile, but don’t smile too big. I’ve been told that can be annoying, too.
The only thing better than one teen for information gathering is a bunch of teens, so bonus points for driving carpool. Stick a bunch of raging hormones in the back of the van, and you’ll find out who’s dating who, who made what team, which teachers are mean as snakes and which ones are awesome, what’s on “Insta” and so on. You’ll know everything without asking a question. The longer you are silent, the faster they forget you’re even there—or have ears.
There’s a saying about parenting that “the days are long, but the years are short.” It’s an annoying one when a silver-haired grandma says it to you in the grocery store, with your toddlers acting like animals.
But years later, it rings true. I feel it now, with the oldest. Only a few years left together for the day-to-day, and only 18 months until he’ll drive himself more places than I take him. I’ll say yes, most of the time, to those Dunkin’ Donuts runs, a chance to keep that thread of connection a little longer. To shut up, and drive.
So enjoy the odyssey in your Odyssey, moms and dads. Turn down the radio. Turn off the entertainment system. Make them take one AirPod out, and see what happens.
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