Comfort Behind The Wheel of Life

by Fern Kupfer

I remember coming home from my grandparents' on Sunday nights, the smells of the leftovers-sweet and sour cabbage, spicy apple cake- filling the car. My father was driving, my mother at his side; in the back, my brother and I shared a blanket.

In winter, it was dark by the time we left and the traffic back to Long Island, N.Y., was always heavy. The car lights we followed made a ruby stream along the highway. I saw them through flickering eyelashes just as I was falling asleep.

The car was warm; my parents talked softly to each other — although I could never hear what they were saying over the noisy fan of the heater. My brother usually fell asleep before I did, his head lolling heavy until he slumped over next to me. If there was rain or snow outside, so much the better. Then the wipers swished back and forth, a comforting rhythm until I fell asleep as well.

The memory, I think, is about feeling safe. Which is good for most people. Necessary for children. Children are vulnerable. And although we grown-ups are, too, it's not a side of us that needs to be shared most of the time.

These are trying times to be a parent trying to make a child feel safe. The world may be no more tawdry and violent than it ever was, but now because of technology, tabloid-style media and a tendency to up the ante in shock-shlock entertainment, our children have seen and heard too much. Yet the family should still be a place of comfort and care.

When you're a parent — the one who drives — then you also have to know where you're going. I say this metaphorically of course, but as a parent, you're the one who's at the wheel. You're supposed to know how the world works. If you don't know the answers, you need to know at least how to find them. In your child's life, you're the one who lays the structure for the family rules. You determine who is sick enough to stay home from school. You're the one who checks the locks at night, puts out the lights and makes sure there aren't any monsters under the bed.

Still, as adults, our own sense of well-being is often challenged. Jobs change. Or are lost. We move away from extended family and friends. Marriages go through hard times. Many end in divorce. How can we make our children feel safe when we are frightened and confused ourselves?

One way to help children feel that they are indeed being cared for and protected is to establish a sense of ritual, a pattern of constancy. Children like to know what's expected, what comes next. Two stories at bedtime. One drink of water. One special song. A light left on in the hall.

With older children who are going their own way (and often taking your car to get there), the considerations we expect as parents also show that we are responsible caretakers. It helps children feel safe if they know that someone else is looking out for them. In our house, we leave a note whenever we go anywhere. Children know to call if they are late for dinner. Or if they change a destination on a weekend night. "Why do you always have to know where we are?" our teenagers would sometimes complain. "Because we want to know that you are safe," we would tell them.

Having confidence (or sometimes just showing a confidence you don't exactly feel wholeheartedly) can assure a child that you are taking care. As parents, my husband and I are both dependable people. Our girls knew that I was the one who could help them make connections in the world. I understood whom to call and how to ask: how to find out information about camp, about signing up for ballet, about orientation for junior high.

Their father was both nurturer and fixer. The girls knew if they were feeling anxious, that their father could make a sleepy-time drink (warm milk, vanilla, pumpkin spice) to ensure that they would relax as soon as their head hit the pillow. They knew that their father had remedies for leg cramps and nasal congestion. They knew that their father would come to start a car in a cold parking lot.

When I was a grown-up myself and driving with children in the backseat (now all buckled and car — seated and safer than we ever were years ago), I thought about those weekend drives home from my grandparents'. Was my father ever scared? All that weekend night traffic? The bad weather? Was my father ever tense at the wheel, as I often am now?

I never knew. My parents are gone now, so I can't ask. Those Sunday nights remain in my memory as a symbol of a childhood that was good. We might have taken those trips on some dark and stormy nights, but I always felt safe. My parents were sitting up front. My father was driving us home.

Fern Kupfer is a novelist and writing professor at Iowa State University. She is a frequent contributor to Working Moms' Internet Refuge.

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