Not a nice gift for graduation

CEBU, Philippines - I’m a big fan of cars.  I just don’t like it given as a gift to graduating teens.  Sorry guys, if I’m being a “kill joy” here.  Sorry for killing your dream of finally breaking free from the boring routine of being fetched to and from school by your parents, or from taking the jeepney on school days.

I know how you have been waiting for the time when the key is handed down to you even before you transfer the tassel of your graduation cap from one side to the other.  Perhaps, you may have already some fantasies about being behind the wheel of your first car with the driver’s window fully open, like that of a movie star.  And you put your left arm out of the window with a half-consumed cigarette burning as you blow the killer smoke only through the left side of your mouth (ONLY THE LEFT SIDE, TAKE NOTE) while Bob Marley and the Wailers are setting the mood through your stereo, crooning, “turn your lights down low and pull your window curtains.”  You put more gas to the pedal and you sing along in the spirit of Jah Rastafari, “Oh let Jah moon come shining …into our life again.”  You drift with the music and you start to feel cool.  You pump up the volume so others will be cool, too.  Yeah!  It feels so good ya, nah?  Yeah!  Thanks, to mom and dad.

At the gasoline station, while guzzling a dozen bottles of strong beer with your classmates and friends, you feel awesome looking at your new car, parked just a car away from where you are sitting.  Parked along with your buddies’ cars, your car stands out. No wonder it becomes the topic of the group.  Listening to them and making glances at your car through thick smoke and the intoxicating aroma of beer, you realize how expensive your car is.  You make a mental list of whatever your car has, to approximate its price: 17-inch chrome rims, mags tires, shiny apple-green urethane wash-over, Recaro seats, Xplod stereo, amplifiers, sub-woofer, fuel injection, V-tech engine, under chassis backlights, 3M tint super black, and the spoiler attached to the rear hatch.  You’re looking at a car that’s taken almost all of your parents’ savings.  Bingo!

Then you stand up and tell your friends you need to go home as it is getting late.  One friend suggests having a race but you decline because you don’t want anything bad to happen to the gift your parents have given you.  After exchanging friendly curses with your friends, you get in your car and you start to feel like you’re Vin Diesel a.k.a. Dominic Toretto from Fast and the Furious.  To make the scene look closer to Holywood, you play Wiz Khalifa’s enigma of rhymes as you kick the dust behind.  Then, Wiz takes the mic and says, “I’m on some gin, you on some gin.  I’m moving slow, I’m driving fast.”  As you drive,  while making sense of the road and the streets lamps, you suddenly get a round-house kick from the alcohol that’s been in your veins all this time.  Your eyes involuntarily close.  Your hands drop from your MOMO steering wheel.  Your head hits the seat’s headrest before your entire upper body falls down to the passenger seat.  Thanks to the gear shift knob.  It hits your sternum on your way down and wakes you up.  But things come in late sometimes.

You lazily lift yourself up to hold the wheel, but the car slams right into a figure standing on the side of the road.  Dark curtain falls.  Pierre Bouvier and the rest of Simple Plan immediately start playing in the background: “How could this happen to me?”  My God, what have you done to the gift?  And you have just sucked out the life from a man waiting for a jeepney ride to go to work.  It is still 5:30 A.M. and the junction where your car is wrecked, is already full of people from ERUF and CITOM.  And sorry to tell you this: they’re having a hard time trying to get you out because you’re locked between the dashboard and your seat with the twisted steering wheel embedded now in your face.  You’re completely wrecked, too.  From the sides, you’re car resembles the letter “V” or the tip of an arrow pointing downwards as if telling you: “from dust you came, to dust you shall return.”  You are too young to die but you die anyway.

Don’t worry.  Although part of the blame is on you, most of the blame goes to your parents who have given the car to you at a time when you are not yet ready.  So, to parents out there,  giving your child a car is always your prerogative.  Nobody can stop you from doing so.  However, when unpleasant occurrences come out of this gift, you will also be held responsible, not just your child.  I am neither a judge nor a lawyer, but common sense tells me that you are answerable to the relatives of the man your child hits.  You also answer to your son or daughter and to God.  But if you still insist that you are right, then go ahead!

I do not want to bombard you with the other negatives that are part of the package of giving a car as a gift to your graduating son or daughter.  I won’t tell you about the millions of things teenagers do with cars.  I won’t tell you about what happened to Celine and Margaux in that red car that the grandfather gave to Celine.  Well, you may know it already.  You may even know how we, who are parents, have been taught by our own parents the value of hard work in achieving goals.  That if you give something to your children without them doing the harder part of the work to earn it, they will never grow to become the best that they can be.  Plus, they will never appreciate the gift fully because they have never worked for it.  If you want them to have a car, let them work for it.

Giving cars to teenagers is really not a wise idea.  It can destroy dreams when not handled with care.  God so designed life to be lived in stages.  We cannot skip one stage to go to another stage.  There is always a time for everything.  Be patient and respect this simple rule because the moment you break it, something bad is going to happen.  Everytime. (FREEMAN)