These Cars!!!

[DawnCt1]

I got my first new car in six years, passing on my 300M with 150K to my oldest DS. I Would have kept it longer but DS needed one so it was a convenient time. DH was reading the reviews of cars in the paper today and said, "now this is the car I want someday". It was a Jaguar convertible. Very nice. I said, "too bad you weren't home yesterday, DS 18's friend showed up in one, he might have given you a ride". Then I thought, if you don't like that one you can ask the kid (21) down the street if you can have a ride in his new SLK (whatever number) Mercedes convertible or "so and so"s (23) Nissan Z (fill in the number) if it doesn't need to be a convertible. I am blown away by these cars that these kids have.

 

[pat fan]

If it helps, my DS's car is an 80's (I believe) Lumina we got wholesale for $900.It has about 130,000 on it, the brakes squeal a little (they are good brakes, they just squeal sometimes) and a little bit of rust, but it get's him to school & work. And he pays the insurance, gas etc...

I also don't get the "buy my kid a new car and pay all the expenses for it" syndrome either. A woman I work with did this. They bought their son a truck, they makes the payments, he has a gas card they pay, they pay the insurance and he has no respect for it and sge doesn't know why He has rolled the truck already (needed extensive body repairs) and they paid for it to be fixed!! I don't get it.

 

[Cool-Beans]

DS was wildly disappointed that he got the 2000 Explorer. Thought he'd get his Uncle's Mustang convertable, but Uncle decided to use it again next summer.

I told him, "You're so flippin spoiled, most kids would be thrilled to get this car, YOU'RE WELCOME!" and he said he wasn't spoiled because he wasn't getting the car he wanted plus his friend got a brand new Jaguar.

So I begin my lecture about how we lived in a tiny apartment in a bad neighborhood and had to take the bus everywhere, with crazy people, drug addicts and perverts - and lugged my dirty laundry onto that bus and hauled my grocery bags home on it, etc. And he laughingly rolls his eyes and says, "and I walked 10 miles to school, uphill bothways..."

The kid is spoiled and it is my fault. I know I should send him to college without a car.

8 more years and they'll all be out of the house!

 

[DawnCt1]

8 more years and they'll all be out of the house!

Maybe.

 

[Mackey Mouse]

When my eldest when to college, she had an old Toyota Tercel, the other kids were driving cars that were our family car.....we are talking big bucks for their cars....I guess if you can afford it, you can buy it.

 

[Keli]

I would never buy my dd an expensive car. Honestly, I think Ashli needs to work and earn the 'nice' car and that mom and dad should only provide the 'reliable' car.

Of course I'm sure my point of view is tainted by the fact that I consider my dd a terrible driver.

 

[agnes!]

My Middle Schooler DD has had some "car" converstions with us already(as have her friends with their parents) . She certainly will NOT have a brand-new car like some, but I have decided when she starts to drive she *will* have a car with a full component of airbags, including side curtains. I've seen one too many TV news reports with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety having a test dummy die in a crash because (sometimes optional) side-curtain airbags weren't on the car tested.

agnes!

 

[DukeStreetKing]

I would have been happy if my mom bought me any car. I had to buy my own, pay my own insurance, gas, repairs etc. I don't see a problem with kids having to work for things they want.