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family danielle davies, Family ediToR oF The boaRdwalk JouRnal
Identity Theft: My Life’s been Hijacked
When I was seventeen years old, I drove a black convertible Fiat Spider and,
minus the fact that it broke down every other day, I thought it was the best
thing in the world. The first time I drove it with the top down over the Ocean
City 34th Street bridge, the cover to my convertible top flew off into the bay. I
didn’t care a bit. I was seventeen years old, in a great car, and I had my whole
life ahead of me.
We’re all getting older—it’s a
fact. Sure, we tell ourselves that
50 is the new 40 and that our
generation is aging a whole lot
better than those that went
before us. And yes, we have
access to sophisticated cosmetic
surgery if that’s the route we
want to take. Lots of us take to
the gym, hoping to undo the
natural signature of age on our
bodies. But the fact remains, we
are getting older. We are (sigh)
getting old.
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56 | The Boardwalk Journal | April 2013
Danielle Davies is a freelance
writer and blogger, and the
voice behind rubyandthemoon.
com. A 1996 graduate from
Villanova University, where
she studied theater and
philosophy, Danielle worked for
several years at Jossey-Bass
Publishers, A Wiley Company,
in San Francisco, before
returning to her native East
Coast. After earning a teaching
certification from Drexel
And nothing, nothing shoves this fact in our faces as much as the minivan.
When I was a kid, my dad proudly drove into the driveway with a brand new
Toyota minivan. Not the Sienna. The old Toyota Van, sometimes called the
VanWagon. It had a refrigerator with mini ice-cube trays under the floorboard
up front and a sunroof big enough for a family to crawl out of—together. The
middle row of seats could actually lay back, creating a full size bed for my
sister and I to sleep on as we took family vacations to Florida—safety was
clearly not an issue for us back then. While it may have been the novelty of the
thing (we had previously been a sedan family), we thought it was awesome. It
was the first and last awesome minivan I’ve ever seen.
I have friends who will look you in the eye and rave to you about their
minivans. They will extoll the virtues of the the seats that fold down under
the floorboard, the literal running room for kids, the space they have to put
their belongings, the airplane-like aisle down the middle, doors on both sides
and enough room to get in there with your kid and strap him or her to their
carseat no matter what kind of fit they’re throwing. It’s true. The minivan does
have these things. It is, in fact, a very practical vehicle. And if you are a very
practical person, then maybe you’ve made your peace with the minivan. Or
maybe you’re like me.
Here I am, three years into minivan ownership—and I must admit here that the
idea to get the minivan was mine alone—and wondering, What the hell was I
thinking? There really is no other way to describe it. Picture this. I’m driving
along, listening to the radio, windows down on a gorgeous day. But I’m in a
minivan. It just doesn’t fit. It doesn’t belong. It makes me feel like my life has
University’s graduate program,
Danielle spent two years in
Philadelphia classrooms before
moving her family to her
hometown at the Jersey Shore,
where she happily juggles
many roles—writer, blogger,
editor, and artist—while raising
her family. Danielle is the
longtime copy editor of The
Boardwalk Journal. She welcomes
comments and feedback at
www.rubyandthemoon.com.
That cookie just hit the ground. That cookie is still good.”
been hijacked by some frazzled,
rule-cracking, lady known as
‘mom’. The thing is...I’m her.
For me, the minivan is starting
to feel like some great big life
sellout, akin to the guy from the
old Passat commercial who says,
“The fact that I’m responsible for
the upbringing of another human
being is just utterly ridiculous.
How did this happen? Suddenly,
I’m the one saying, “Don’t touch
the cookie on the ground” when
I’m really thinking...5 second rule.
Sometimes, I think we get so caught up in how we should be parenting...don’t
eat the cookie off the floor or drive an impractical vehicle or curse in front
of your kids or eat this or do that...that we become, a little bit, strangers to
ourselves. And while I’m not urging anyone to stop doing the right thing for
their kids, I do think that somewhere along the way, we’ve forgotten a little
bit about what made us young in the first place. It wasn’t just our age, but our
viewpoint...the carefree and excited way we looked at the world. The way we
thought we would never turn into our parents.
I don’t mind getting older. And I love having a family. And my parents are great,
so I don’t really mind that I’m turning into them. But I’m bound and determined
not to lose (complete) sight of who I was before I had kids. No, I won’t let them
eat cookies off the floor. And I won’t suddenly revert to being a teenager. But I
would like to drive something without the world ‘minivan’ in the name.....is that
too much to ask?