Teen drivers, frustrated at becoming their parents’ personal door dashers, have created support groups at high schools across the country. They are gathering to lament their miserable lots in life. I attended one of these pop-up meetings at Richland High School to hear what kids had to say. “Amy“, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, opened the meeting with a heartfelt plea to her peers. “I cannot believe I’ve been reduced to being my parents’ personal gopher. You’d think, after 16 years of gracing them with my beautiful presence, they’d think more of me. Do you feel me? Bruh?”
“James” agreed and added, “Yeah. My dad made me go to an actual restaurant where I actually had to get out of my car. I literally had to pick up two full bags for our family dinner on my way home from practice. All he ever had to do was walk to the corner and pick up a pack of smokes for his old man.” The stories these kids told got ever worse, each telling how much more they had to do than the previous kid. In the end, they were all in tears, frustrated and angry at how they were all being taken advantage of by their parents.
In the end, “Sandra” vowed to end this modern-day slavery. Her peers immediately corrected her saying that the term slavery was racist and would be better represented as “human trafficking of minors”. At this they all cheered, walked out to the parking lot, climbed into their air-conditioned cars and drove away. I personally was shocked that none complained about how the extra miles they were driving was killing their planet.