Driving Miss Daisy

The article below appeared on a Nashville TV station’s website on October 7. Please read it and keep up with how many times you flinch.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- For a second time in a few months, a 9-year-old girl took a relative's car on a joyride from police. Police said the girl took her mother's keys early Wednesday morning and drove off with her 1-year-old sister, who was unrestrained in the front seat.

The mother woke up when she heard the girl leave the apartment where they were staying, according to police. The mother's boyfriend then saw the car leaving the parking lot of the complex.

When the girl took her grandmother's keys on Aug. 21, she took police on a high-speed chase down Interstate 24 into Rutherford County. This time she never got above 10 miles an hour. Police also took care not to scare her, keeping their blue lights turned off.

Neither the 9-year-old girl nor her sister were hurt in Wednesday's incident.

Now, trying not to be judgmental, let’s analyze this story and see if we can determine what went wrong.

• The first thing I notice is that the perpetrator was a 9 year-old. When you were 9 years old did it ever cross your mind to steal a car…….twice? Doesn’t it say something about what’s been going on in the previous 8 years of this child’s life?
  
• If this is the second time this has happened in about a six week period, I’d say we may have a discipline problem. By that I mean that the discipline the first time wasn’t severe enough. There is only one guideline for discipline….it has to be distasteful enough that the recipient doesn’t want to experience it a second time. Obviously that wasn’t the case here.
  
• The sister was unrestrained in the front seat. Just my opinion, but if you have a 9 year-old stealing a car, the seat belt situation of the passenger is probably not high on the priority list of the driver. I wonder if that infernal chime was dinging the whole time?
  
• “The mother woke up when she heard the girl leave the apartment where they were staying……” - Not where they were living, where they were staying. There’s a difference.
  
• “The mother’s boyfriend…..” – OK, here’s where I ask for some latitude on being judgmental. This “mother’s boyfriend” brings on a whole different set of issues. This is not an area where I have any experience, thank goodness, but I don’t know of any scenario where a divorced or single mother and her children living with a boyfriend is a good situation for the kids. Not a one. The fact that she’s living there in the first place is a bad example. I could go on here, but I won’t.

Now, before you say anything, I realize that I’m being overly analytical. I’m dissecting things that don’t need to be dissected. Problem is, things like this are reported and people shake their heads and chuckle like they don’t know how anything like that could happen.

Well, here’s how it happens (latitude on the judgmental part again, please) - divorce, no discipline, live-in boyfriend. What could possibly go wrong there? Then consider this - what happens when the kid is 14? 18? 25? And of course there’s the question of what we should do about it. For me, I think the kids should be taken away from her, at least for a while. Can’t imagine a situation much worse than the one they’re in.

I’m sure some of my more liberal friends would disagree, tell me how narrow-minded and intolerant I am. Well, they’re right, I am. Come to think of it, I don't even have any liberal friends. Surprised?

Till next time……….