"Can I drive?"

My older stepdaughter just got her learner's permit. I'm sure there are questions that strike more fear into the hearts of all parents, step and bio, but "Can I drive?" has to rank up there as among the scariest.

I hand her the keys. She gets into the driver's seat, adjusts the mirrors, turns the car on, looks behind her and begins to back us out of our parking space.

"Congratulations," I tell her. "You just failed your driving test."

She stops, puts the car in park and looks at me. "Sorry," she says. "Is your seatbelt on?"

I put my seatbelt on. "Go ahead."

She won't forget to ask that one again.

I'm (naively) convinced that nothing ages a parent faster than being driven around town by a teenager. I'm measuring her success by my silence. The fewer words I speak, the better job she's doing behind the wheel.

"You're too far to the right," I tell her. Poor kid. She's used to seeing the road from the passenger's seat. Now she has to adjust to being a couple of feet to the left. Worse, she has to adjust to my reminding her of this fact every single time the car veers a little to the right. My wife kindly reminds me that I might be overdoing it. After all, I'm used to seeing the road from the driver's seat. I need to adjust, too.

I think we all do.

"You can step on the gas," I tell her. "It's okay."