A reflection on my latest song, “I Taught Her How To Drive Away,” written for my daughter AJ’s 17th birthday
Here’s something they don’t tell you about parenting: every skill you teach your child is actually a lesson in letting go. Every “well done” is quietly shadowed by “there goes another piece of needing me.”
AJ turns seventeen this month, and she’s learning to drive. Proper driving now – not the toy car circuits around the lounge room or the wobbly first attempts on her bike down our local street. Real driving, with real consequences and real freedom waiting at the end of a successful parallel park.
Watching her hands grip the wheel, checking mirrors with the methodical precision of someone who knows this matters, I’m struck by something unexpected: I’ve been teaching her to leave me behind since she was three years old.
The Mobility Paradox
Every parent lives this beautiful contradiction. We spend decades teaching our children to be independent, then feel a peculiar grief when they actually achieve it. We buy them toy cars, then bikes, then eventually hand over the keys to something that can actually take them anywhere they want to go. Each gift of mobility is simultaneously a gift of distance.
The song I’ve written for AJ tracks this progression – from that first pink and green bike (tyres black, as I couldn’t resist noting) to this moment where she’s sitting square behind the wheel, windows down, wind in her hair. Each verse captures a different stage of growing away, but here’s what fascinated me as I wrote it: my perspective shifts with each chorus.
“I Taught Her How To Drive Away” – Complete Lyrics
[Verse 1]
She was only three
Walking tall and climbing trees
Then we bought her a toy car
In her mind she travelled far
Through the lounge and round the back
Found her freedom on that track
Never looking back at me
Pure joy is all I see
[Chorus 1]
Moving through her games, moving through her play
Little wheels are spinning, spinning her away
Nothing but joy, I have to say
I love to watch her … drive away
[Verse 2]
She turned six way too soon
In her birthday month of June
Her first bike, she started slow
Then I watched her courage grow
Pink and green with tyres black
Down the street and racing back
To think I once held her seat
Now she’s speeding down our street
[Chorus 2]
Moving through the lanes, moving through the day
Two wheels keep on turning, turning her away
Still nothing but joy, I have to say
I love to watch her … ride away
[Verse 3]
Now seventeen, she takes the wheel
Every lesson’s getting real
Windows down and sitting square
As the wind flies through her hair
Then that pedal hits the floor
And she’s three again, once more
Then she’s gone and I’m alone
All my lessons now outgrown
[Chorus 3]
Moving through the gears, moving through the day
Real wheels are turning, turning her away
Now I feel it shifting, I have to say
I’m proud to watch her … drive away
[Instrumental solo]
[Bridge – poignant, slower, sad, reflective, strong]
One day she’ll feel this weight
Pride and loss combined
Teaching little hands to steer
While leaving her behind …
[Verse 4]
When she packs her things to go
I’ll smile, but she won’t know
That I’m holding back the strain
As she rolls into her lane
In that rear-view mirror’s frame
I’ll blur and vanish with the rain
Every turn we took with care
Leads her now to anywhere
[Final Chorus]
Moving through the gears, moving through the day
Real wheels are turning, turning her away
Even through the tears, I’m proud to say
I taught her how to … drive away
Moving through the gears, moving through the day
Real wheels are turning, turning her away
Even through the tears, I’m proud to say
I taught her how to … drive away
The Teaching Paradox
There’s a moment in the bridge where the song gets uncomfortably honest: “One day she’ll feel this weight / Pride and loss combined / Teaching little hands to steer / While leaving her behind…”
Every parent will face this realisation – that we’re essentially training ourselves out of a job. The better we do it, the more successfully we make ourselves redundant. It’s the strangest career path imaginable: spend two decades becoming an expert at something, then celebrate when you’re no longer needed.
But here’s where it gets interesting (and here’s where my curiosity kicks in, because I can’t help myself): what if we’ve been thinking about this all wrong?
The Unexpected Turn
Most parenting commentary treats this progression as loss – the empty nest syndrome, the melancholy of children growing up too fast. And sure, there’s truth in that sentiment. But what if the real story isn’t about loss at all?
What if teaching someone to drive away is actually the most profound act of love we can perform?
Think about it: every lesson in independence is a vote of confidence in their future. Every skill we pass on says “I believe you can handle this world without me.” When we taught AJ to ride that bike, we weren’t just teaching balance and momentum – we were declaring our faith in her ability to navigate complexity and recover from wobbles.
Now, as she learns to merge onto the Southern Expressway (probably the most terrifying rite of passage any Adelaide parent faces next to the Brittania Roundabout), I’m not just teaching her pedal control and blind spot awareness. I’m saying something much more important: “I trust you with your own life.”
The Time Anxiety Factor
There’s another layer here that keeps me awake some nights. Time moves differently when you’re watching your children grow. Those first few years crawl by – every developmental milestone feels like it takes forever to arrive. Then suddenly you blink and they’re asking for the car keys.
This temporal whiplash is real, and it’s disorienting. One moment you’re teaching them to tie their shoes, the next you’re explaining insurance excess payments. The song tries to capture this – how she can be seventeen and competent one moment, then “three again, once more” when she hits the accelerator with a bit too much enthusiasm.
But maybe this time distortion isn’t a bug in the parenting experience – maybe it’s a feature. Maybe the slow early years give us time to build the foundation, and the accelerated later years force us to step back and trust what we’ve built.
The Adelaide Context
Writing this song in Adelaide adds another dimension. This isn’t a city where you can easily avoid driving. Public transport exists, but let’s be honest – independence here means having wheels. The geography of sprawl means that learning to drive isn’t just about convenience; it’s about accessing adulthood itself.
When AJ gets her licence, she won’t just be able to drive to the shops. She’ll be able to drive to university, to work, to friends’ places scattered across the suburbs, down to the beach, up to the hills, across to Melbourne if the mood takes her. The freedom is genuinely transformative.
And that’s both thrilling and terrifying for a parent. We’re not just handing over transport – we’re handing over agency.
The Rear-View Mirror Moment
The final verse gets to the heart of it: “In that rear-view mirror’s frame / I’ll blur and vanish with the rain.” This isn’t melodrama – it’s physics. As she drives toward her future, I literally become smaller in her perspective. The metaphor writes itself.
But here’s what I’m learning to appreciate: that rear-view mirror doesn’t just show what’s being left behind. It also provides essential information for safe navigation. The good parenting we do early doesn’t disappear when they drive away – it becomes part of their checking system, their awareness of what’s around them as they move forward.
Permission to Feel Complex Things
If you’re a parent reading this, here’s what I want to say: it’s okay to feel proud and heartbroken simultaneously. It’s okay to celebrate their independence while grieving your own diminishing importance. It’s okay to love watching them drive away while also wishing they needed you to hold their bicycle seat forever.
These aren’t contradictions to resolve – they’re the natural complexity of loving someone enough to teach them not to need you.
The song ends with repetition: “I taught her how to drive away” – sung twice, with different emotional weight each time. The first is pure statement of fact. The second carries the full recognition of what that means. Both are true. Both matter.
The Ongoing Journey
AJ hasn’t passed her test yet. She’s still in that beautiful, frustrating stage of supervised driving where every trip to the shops becomes a lesson in spatial awareness and patience (mostly mine). But I can see the competence building, the confidence growing, the moment approaching when she won’t need me in the passenger seat anymore.
When that day comes, I’ll be proud. I’ll also be bereft. I’ll be excited for her adventures and worried about her safety. I’ll miss being essential and celebrate her independence.
All of these feelings can coexist, because parenting isn’t about achieving emotional simplicity – it’s about embracing the beautiful complexity of loving someone enough to let them go.
The wheels keep turning. The lessons continue. And somewhere in Adelaide traffic, a seventeen-year-old is learning that freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same key.
I taught her how to drive away. And despite everything, I’m proud of that.
Listen to “I Taught Her How To Drive Away”
“I Taught Her How To Drive Away” is available now on all streaming platforms. Because sometimes the most personal songs are the ones that connect us all.