How To Stop Teens From Texting While Driving

I just read about something that I think will put a lot of parents at ease. It's a new application for cell phones that won't allow you to text when you're in a car that is moving 5 mph or more. (Read here.)

The application is called iZup (Get it? Keep your "eyes up!"), and although many adults should probably install this app on their phones, it was really created for teenagers by a mother in Boston who was scared to death about her teenager getting distracted by texting while driving. (You rock, whoever you are!)

Let's face it, teens and driving don't always mix as it is. And when you add text messaging to that formula, well, the combination can be deadly.

My teenager is a few short weeks away from taking the wheel of my car. I plan to download this super-brilliant iZup application to her phone as a sort of "Welcome to the world of driving" gift.

I already gave her the gift of life. So I guess I'll be re-gifting.

Photo by Dan Gill for The New York Times

Miss Independence

Every morning, I roll out of bed like a good little trained mommy and head to the kitchen to make breakfast for my daughters before they rush off to school. Making sure they start the day with a nutritious meal (well, sometimes I make pancakes) is important to me, always has been, ever since they were young enough to nipple-feed.

I usually make their school lunches, too, right after the milk is poured, unless they’re buying that day.

Yep, preparing meals for our children is what good mothers do. But on the way to school today, my teenager shocked me. “Mom,” she announced, “I want to start making my own breakfast. And lunch, too.”

What’s going on here? Lately, she has really been thinking seriously about her future. And I like that. She’s only a junior, but she talks about college all the time and how she can’t wait to be on her own. Out of nowhere, she started getting A+’s. Not just A’s, but grades in the 100+ percentiles. Now, if you knew this text-messaging, iTunes-obsessed, MTV-watching girl like I do, you’d swear that she must be channeling someone else’s spirit. Someone who died at Harvard. Or Princeton.

In the car this morning, she told me that she wants to start doing more things for herself, like making her own breakfast, because she wants to feel more independent. She said she’s going to be leaving soon for college, and she needs to know how to take care of herself.

Isn’t this the moment every parent dreams of, the one that was first hatched somewhere between all the diaper changes and butt-wiping? “Gosh, I can’t wait until this child can take care of herself one day!”

That moment has arrived, folks -- all too soon, I might add. As I turn in for the night, I will happily change the settings on my alarm clock. Since I won't have to get up up bright and early to make breakfast anymore, I'll get to sleep in an extra half hour tomorrow. It will feel like an early Christmas.

But for my teenager, tomorrow will be more like Independence Day.

Photo by Photographer Chuck Felix