My 19-year-old daughter sent me a text in all caps.<\/p>\n
I congratulated her, knowing she had been constantly checking for resale tickets after she had been unable to get them when they were first released.<\/p>\n
As we continued to text, more details emerged. I learned her tickets were for the concert in Cincinnati, 250 miles away from our home in Michigan. My daughter and her friend would be driving 500 miles round-trip in one night to attend the event.<\/p>\n
I was flooded with conflicting emotions. While I was happy that she got the tickets she dreamed of, I also felt anxious and worried. How were my husband and I supposed to be OK with a trip like this?<\/p>\n
My husband was less conflicted. "She's not going," he said, listing all the ways that attending the concert was a bad idea, ways that I agreed with. These included two young women driving alone on a busy highway to an unfamiliar city, making the return trip late at night, and being so far away that we couldn't reach them quickly if something went wrong.<\/p>\n
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Yet telling her she couldn't go was unrealistic. Technically, she was an adult and had purchased the tickets herself. She had already arranged to take the day off work so she could make the drive. And if we didn't let her go now, then when would we consider her old enough and capable enough to make such a trip?<\/p>\n
Our daughter was stunned that we thought we had any say. She saw herself as an adult ready to make her own decisions, while we were caught in the gray area between wanting to protect our child and accepting that she was capable of making her own decisions.<\/p>\n
As I thought about it, attending the out-of-town concert was exactly the kind of experience she was ready for. If we wanted her to become the responsible adult we had raised her to be, then she needed opportunities like this to practice. And when I reminded my husband of the road trips we had taken in our early 20s, before cellphones or the internet even existed, we could not justify telling her she couldn't go.<\/p>\n
So we refocused our energy on giving advice, reminding her what to watch out for while driving and while attending a large event in a city where we knew no one. She was so excited when she left, while we settled in for a night of checking Find My on our phones and hoping for the best.<\/p>\n
We tracked her drive, the little dot on our phones bringing some comfort. I felt guilty at times, as if watching her somehow undermined the faith I should have in her.<\/p>\n
She sent a text when they arrived safely, but then something went wrong.<\/p>\n