Conversations With My Driver

Those of you who have been reading, know that we have had difficulty with our drivers. Earlier this year we decided that we had no other choice but to employ our own full-time driver. And, really, the problems that we had had with the driver's prior to new-new driver have vanished. Our current driver is reliable and likes the children and is nice enough. But, at the end of the day, I have had a problem with the basic idea of having a driver and the reality of having a driver.

I am not so put off by the fact that I am not allowed to drive here. As long as I get from point A to point B I am happy. Having a driver, however, means that there is always an extra person in the car, an extra set of eyes, an extra set of ears. This has been irritating to me. I have come to realize that the time in the car in the past was a time that the kids and I could talk, and be silly. My daughter and I love to car dance. Now I feel forced to watch my behavior as we are always in the company of a non-related man. It was either old-new driver or new-old driver that made me aware of this.

Over the past seven or eight months I have been hating having a driver. But something happened over the summer. We came back from summer vacation and all of a sudden having a driver wasn't the most irritating thing in the world. We have adapted. And recently I have realized that my driver is a wise man:

"Madam, I am learning things from you every day"

"Really?"

"Yes, you know you have one child on one side of you screaming and complaining and another child on the other side crying and screaming. And you, you never get upset. You do not hit your children. I see many parents hitting their children. You do not yell. This I see all the time. You are calm and you explain to them. When I have a wife, I will talk to her, I will tell her that that is the kind of parent I want to be."

This after what I would call the most challenging week of being a parent! Maybe having a driver isn't a bad thing...maybe an extra pair of eyes and ears isn't so bad. I think I'm keeping this one around. He's good for a little pick me up!