Art & Life Editor Dalila Kahvedzic explores the darker side of sweet 16 and how to avoid it
By: DALILA KAHVEDZIC
Art & Life Editor
While it is normal to get a pretty decent car at the age of 16, many kids forget to appreciate the work their parents do to provide for them.
Sixteen year olds expect a fancy car the moment they get their driver’s license, setting the bar high for parents.
Let us not talk about the show “My Sweet 16” where the Mercedes a teenager just received is not the right shade of red.
It is beyond exhilarating to walk out of the license bureau, holding the little piece of plastic that will launch a social life, but it is also preposterous to expect a BMW or an Audi sitting in the driveway.
According to the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association 2,823 teenagers died in 2012 in motor vehicle crashes, ages 13 to 19.
So does a 16 year old really need a nice, fancy car they have a fairly high rate of wrecking? No.
And they should not be stuck up about it, but rather be thankful for what their parents have to give.
Coming from personal experience, my parents have given up a lot.
They moved from a country they easily learned to call home to America, which was so completely foreign to them.
They had multiple jobs, took their kids to school and raised them in a world they did not quite understand themselves. That is something to be grateful for.
Even if parents have not moved countries, they definitely have shifted their lifestyles.
It seems that parents almost give up their own lives to make a living for ours until we are able to support ourselves, and we should not take that for granted.
So this car may not be the right color, or it may not have a heated steering wheel or tinted windows, but those are all unnecessary luxuries.
If the car runs and goes from point A to point B, then that is all a 16 year old really needs.
Besides, once they have a car, they can go to work so they can save up all the money in the world for whatever car it is they want – all while learning the true value of a dollar they so effortlessly expect from their parents.
Our parents work hard for us so that we do not have to understand their struggles and that really is life’s gift to us.
