The Rights of Man As Perceived By a Child

I think I may have been a singular child.  Certainly, I know of few boys who have so early developed and cultivated into maturity a sense of the rights of the father in the family setting.  I was, as I say, quite young when I first recognized the man of the family’s greatest and most sacred privilege: the claim to the driver’s seat.

The father’s right to drive was something I long considered a certain unalienable right with which he had been endowed by his Creator.  After all, whenever we went anywhere as a family, Daddy always drove.  And, I suppose I reasoned, if something were always done a certain way in our family, mustn’t it be the supreme law of the universe?  Indeed, I could think of few worse infractions against the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God than for the mother to drive the family anywhere.  Of course, when the father was not around, the mother must inevitably sometimes assume the role of chaufferess.  This was no sin.  But for the woman to drive when the man was in the same vehicle was a dreadful usurpation of paternal authority, and I never beheld such an occurrence without grave fears for the souls of the reprobates in question.

I remember one particular time, long ago, when just such a scenario was played out before my eyes.  We were leaving church, I believe, and I spotted some naughty woman driving her husband away – and in such proximity to the very house of God!

“Mama!  Why is … (I can’t remember who the culprits were exactly, so I’ll make this generic) … why is Mrs. Smith driving instead of Mr. Smith?”

“Well, Aaron, maybe Mr. Smith is tired or doesn’t want to drive.”

Doesn’t want to drive?!?  This was food for thought, indeed.  What right had he not to want to drive?  I was perplexed and baffled.  A little crack opened up in the dike of my convictions.

“Well, if he’s tired, I suppose it’s all right…”

I stuck my finger into the crack.  But it kept growing, growing, growing, through the years, and soon all my precocious ideas began to crumble and my youthful, imaginative dogmata were reduced to the ruins of real life.  Just look at me now!  Half a dozen women could drive their husbands by me and I would scarcely blink an eye.