I think there’s an argument that it’s OK to give the kid a car. I tend to think the kid’s job while in high school is to go to high school, not flip burgers. Summer job is fine, but I wouldn’t want my kid to be leaving school early to go to work (they call this on the job training, which is only true if the kid envisions a career at McDonalds) or leaving school on time and working all evening instead of doing his homework. As such, it’s pretty doubtful the kid will make enough only working summers to pay for a car, and the upkeep/insurance/gas for it.
That said, I also tend to think that despite how cool the kid thinks the Audi is, it’s the wrong car. Kids, even the brightest and most conscientious kids, are new drivers, and drivers ed almost universally sucks. This means kids are extraordinarily likely to screw up while driving. I’d much rather him screw up in a 100hp Civic than a 300hp sport sedan. The magnitude of the consequences are likely to be lower.
I was the last of 4 children with a 17 year spread between me and the oldest. By the time I came along, the rule was that I could get my driver’s permit at 16 (not 15 as was legal in Vermont) and that I couldn’t get my license until I could buy and maintain my own car, including insurance. Many of my friends were getting cars, often new, at the age of 16 as a gift. It sure didn’t feel right at the time, but my parents knew 16 was too young an age to hand the keys of a car over to to be driven unsupervised. I’m not mechanically inclined, so unlike my brother who can fix anything mechanical and did get a car at 16, I couldn’t buy something to fix up as he did, it had to be a decent car with a decent history. Consequently, I didn’t get my license or a car until I was 18 and at college…the car was $350.00, but did have a nice history, albeit rusty and priced by a nice family that knew I was just starting out and needed a break. It took me through college and it taught me that if I wanted to go from point a to point b, I had to take good care of it. The next car I bought was much nicer, 3 years old and one that I kept for 25 years. I don’t have children, but if I did, I’d follow that simple rule my parents had to give my child/ren enough time to mature. It made a difference with me in how I cared for what I had to work for.
“I tend to think the kid’s job while in high school is to go to high school, not flip burgers”.
I agree with you. Too often, the students who work during the school year only acquire a surface knowledge in their courses. As a college professor (now retired), I have had these students in mathematics and computer science courses and many of them have no knowledge of topics that they should have mastered in high school. Some 25 years ago, I was the statistician on a substance abuse survey that involved over 4000 high school students from affluent school districts. Students who worked during the school year were five times as likely to be involved in drugs and alcohol abuse. The grades of these students were significantly lower.
This country needs more professional people, particularly those with technical skills. I think it is time that being a high school student is viewed as a full time job.
I agree with the idea that a teen’s job while in high school is to go to school.
I think that’s kind of where I was coming from anyway suggesting to let him get it. I used to take that hardline approach and say to myself and others that when I have kids they will have to work for their car and the such and learn “responsibility” and the such.
I don’t take that approach anymore. The idea that we live in this egalitarian society where anyone can work their way up to super stardom is something that I find more and more laughable all the time. Additionally, I find the idea that flipping burgers at McDonnalds instead of focusing on gaining skills that will be more useful in the long-run is a little ridiculous. Sure, if you want the kid to grow up to be the type of guy that’s willing to take all kind of abuse from a mildly retarded manager and the average type of clientele that show up at a fast food chain then by all means keep him working a side job. If you want him to have truly valuable skills in the long term and to be successful keep him in the math and science classes and give him enough free time to actually enjoy his life.
For me, the idea that a parent will be occasionally picking up the tab for a repair, gas, or insurance is a foregone conclusion, because if your kid is going to own a car and go through school focusing on picking up valuable skills, that’s the way to do it.
Sorry if any of this sounds a little “elitist” or whatever, but looking back on my life I was living the same thing the kid is living now. Sports, academics, working, and I did make it, but looking back I could have done so much better, learned so much more, and been so much farther by this point if I had skipped the whole work business. The “responsibility” of bringing home $50 bucks a week and not getting enough sleep while living at home with Mom and Dad… err rather Mom wasn’t much when considered in balance with what my salary is as an actuary now and how much earlier I could have been making that money and how much earlier I could have passed certain exams if my focus had been completely on school.
So I still say let him have the car, but only if he has the fall back positions mentioned above.
He who pays get’s their choice. If You are paying then You get to choose the car.
I got my choice of cars when I bought mine (with my own money) and my son did likewise. My daughter got hers (my wife’s old car) but that was payment for great grades.
When children have to work for what they get, they tend to make better decisions. Both my kids managed to get by with older not cool cars, but they both managed to not only graduate from collage, but do so without asking dad to pay their way.
The specific car is less important than the life experience.
“I tend to think the kid’s job while in high school is to go to high school, not flip burgers”.
My two oldest both had part time jobs when in High-School. Didn’t hurt them too much…Daughter was accepted to and graduated from MIT (now in Harvard graduate school working on her Doctorate.)…My son was accepted to Harvard and MIT. Went to Harvard for one year…then gave it up to go to a small School in the mid-west to play baseball.
My youngest is still to young to work. But he probably will. My wife and I both encouraged it. Learn good time management now before your forced to when your in college or in the work-force. If either of my kids were struggling in school then I’d probably have made them give up their jobs and concentrate on school.
Having a job as a high school student is not a bad thing. It’s more the student’s personality that determines their “extracurricular activities” that just having a job. The job may provide more opportunities to befriend people that engage in unsavory activities, but they get plenty of opportunity to meet Those People and many others during the school day. What about the families that actually need the money the kids earn from these jobs? And when I see statistics that say teens employee after school are more likely to abuse drugs, I wonder if it is just the fact that they have jobs, or could it be something else? Maybe their niche in society is more important. Drugs could be more prevalent in their neighborhoods, and more accepted even among adults. I don’t doubt that the statistic exists; I do wonder about what the reason for it is.
My logic when deciding what car our son would drive was based on safety. Being a teenage driver is the most dangerous thing he’ll ever do (that’s legal), aside from those who serve in the armed forces. He’ll have plenty of time to buy his dream car, on his dime, after he’s on his own and has several years of driving experience. Until then crash ratings are my guide.
“I see statistics that say teens employee after school are more likely to abuse drugs, I wonder if it is just the fact that they have jobs, or could it be something else?”
jt–One factor might be that the drug dealers know that the students who have a job would have the money to buy drugs.
Drugs do seem to be a big problem in every region of the country that I have visited. But whether or not a high school student works seems to have little effect on the situation. But that’s a different topic. As for working, it has seemed that there is a great deal more to learn than what is on the curriculum and part time jobs are often a good classroom for some of the best lessons that life has to offer.
I had a summer job when I was in high school, but during the year I had to concentrate on my classes. If a high school student who has academic ability can hold a part time job and take college prep courses including four years of mathematics, four years of science, a foreign language, as well as the required courses and participate in at least one extra curricular activity, that’s great.
There is a lot to be learned from a job. However, this shouldn’t take the place of classroom learning to have something to bring to a profession.
More and more, in recent years, it seems that there is a growing sense of “entitlement for the privileged” that is more insidious and loathsome than the sense of entitlement among the poor.