Wednesday's Question of the Day: how old were you...

Good morning friends! It's almost the 237th anniversary of America's independence, which makes me curious about other kinds of independence days. 

At what age did you learn to drive? Get your first job, first apartment? Or get married and move away? Or was there another defining moment when you realized that you were on your own?

I got my first job when I was 12 (working for $.99 per hour at Dairy Queen). I was driving all over the place at 14 with my learner's permit (parents didn't care). I left for college at 18 and my parents supported me the first year, but since there were so many strings attached to their money I supported myself starting my sophomore year. After the dorm, my first apartment was when I was 19 with a roommate I evidently did not know at all. She turned out to be unstable and crazy so I worked hard to get my own place (NO roommates woo hoo!) and moved in a couple of months before my 20th birthday. The AC usually didn't work and it was a hot roach-infested tiny one-room studio apartment in Austin but I loved it, it was all mine!

Learned to drive at 16

First job at 15 (Frank's Nursery and Crafts.. I miss that store!)

Moved out of my parents' at 25

and hopefully will be married before I hit 35!

First part-time job at 16. First full-time job at 18 making $7.75 an hour - that was good money way back then!

Moved out at 19.

Learned to drive at 36!!!

Wow, those questions bring back memories.    First part-time job at 13 -- helped clean the Legion Hall with a friend of my fathers on Sunday.  Had no idea guys bathrooms could be so nasty, lol. I made $15 a week from that job and also learned how to run a floor buffer.  Got some strong arms for a 13 year old from that job.   

At 15-1/2 got my first real job.  I was hired as a cashier for a steak house.  At the time I never read the paper or listened to the news.  So I had no idea that the reason there was a job opening was because several of the prior employees had been taken into the cooler and murdered in a robbery.  But I found out quick when customers came in asking to see "the cooler".  I still feel bad about taking that poor dead girl's job.   

First place was a duplex at 16 with a guy I thought was the world but was really just a jerk who played good guitar.  LOL!  First place totally on my own at 18 and I worked as many hours as they would give me at the Braums across the street. 

First car at 16 which I paid half for and my Grandfather loaned me the other half $350 for my step-brother's old GTO, this is the car I learned on, the one that I totally ruined because I thought I was putting new oil in it, but I put it in the radiator instead of the oil chamber ... I learned a lot on this car ... how to make out in the back seat, how to drive over 100 mph, and how to outrun the cops. 

Now I'm so different, I haven't gotten a ticket in decades.  LOL!  They say if you hold back a child/early teen too much once they get independence they just go jack crazy and that's what happened in my case. 

SwampWitch said:

At what age did you learn to drive? Get your first job, first apartment? Or get married and move away? Or was there another defining moment when you realized that you were on your own?

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I learned to drive at 15-16; it took a while.    I blame a combination of my lack of coordination and my parent's vehicles being a stick shift car (which I still can't drive) and one of those vans big enough to hold the Duggar family without power steering.  It was huge. lol

I got my first job at 16, also at Dairy Queen.  

I was married at 20 and moved in DH's place he'd bought a few years earlier.

I guess my defining moment was really a few months after we were married and DH deployed.  We didn't have the girls yet and I was finishing college that year.  It was a lonely 4 months; even with my mom and step-dad being just a few miles away.

At what age did you learn to drive?

I've been driving since I was 9 years old. I was allowed to drive in the country when we went to visit my aunt and uncle.  When I was 12 years old I was allowed to take the car by myself to the store that was a couple miles away (we lived in the city at the time) and I was allowed to drive most of the way home from school which was 14 km or 8 1/2 miles.

Get your first job, first apartment?

I've been working since I was 10 years old. My first jobs were babysitting.  My first actual job was when I was 15 years old and taking inventory at various stores.

Or get married and move away?

I moved out of the house when I was 19 years old.

Or was there another defining moment when you realized that you were on your own?

I've pretty much been living on my own since I was 14 years old, and self supporting since that time.  I realized I was on my own after my mother died 2 weeks before I turned 16.  I moved in with my brother but it was like a Cinderella and wicked step sister type scenario. I was built in maid, housekeeper, babysitter and bank. The more money I earned at all of my part time jobs after school, the more money my brother and his wife wanted from me for room and board.

Never drove, got  married when I was 16 and left home,didn't finish school. Got pregnant at 17 and had my daughter  1 month after I turned 18.

My father got me a job as a kitchen serf at our local hospital when I was 14 years old. It was to wash dishes and such after school and on weekends. Back then, the hospital used real dishes, not disposable, so we had to run them through the dishwasher and put them away. And we had to take the carts of food trays to the various floors for the patients. 

I turned 16 in January and married Rick (who would turn 20 in May) that April. And that October our son was born. All in 1971. By that time, I knew it was sink or swim!

I got my drivers license when I was 18. Rick was too nervous to teach me how to drive, so my SIL taught me. Passed on my first try; my dad took me down for my test and I had to drive the Maroon Marauder....our name for our 1971 maroon Mustang. It was a fastback and it was all I could do to see out of that rear view window. But I passed.

Winchester said:

I turned 16 in January and married Rick (who would turn 20 in May) that April. And that October our son was born. All in 1971. By that time, I knew it was sink or swim!

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Wow, Pam, you're a wonderful testament to the power of a long and loving marriage. 

I know it sounds corny, but I get all teary when I read these stories.. how many of us meet our life partner at 16?

Getting my driver's licence at 16 was SO liberating!  I spent the day just ferrying friends around

And, after getting all teary over long marriages, I have to say that my marriage break-up was a huge 'liberation'.

Then buying and setting up my very own home (many years later) was also a time when I truly felt myself.. it may be just a material thing, but it felt like I'd come home on lots of levels.

Good question, Swampwitch!

I got my drivers license at 24, I have a horrible fear of being in cars

First job at 18

Moved out at 18

Got an apartment at 19

Married at 21

Mani said:

Wow, Pam, you're a wonderful testament to the power of a long and loving marriage. 

I know it sounds corny, but I get all teary when I read these stories.. how many of us meet our life partner at 16?

Getting my driver's licence at 16 was SO liberating!  I spent the day just ferrying friends around

And, after getting all teary over long marriages, I have to say that my marriage break-up was a huge 'liberation'.

Then buying and setting up my very own home (many years later) was also a time when I truly felt myself.. it may be just a material thing, but it felt like I'd come home on lots of levels.

Good question, Swampwitch!

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Thanks, Mani. I'd like to say that it's been wonderful the whole time....but I'd be lying. It was difficult and there were times that we knew we'd made a terrible mistake. But it's worked out and I wouldn't give that man up for anything.   I actually met Rick when I was 12 and he was 16. I've known him forever.

I got my license at 19. . .I knew how to drive before that but my mom said I'd have to pay the increase in insurance if I wanted to get my license. So I didn't :lol3:.

I babysat when I was 12-15, and then we moved to the US. I still would babysit occasionally, and had a paper route. I was happy with the amount of money I made so I didn't get a "real" job until I was 18 or 19.

I lived with my parents until I was 23, but I had nearly the entire basement to myself--almost my own apartment? I bought my house and moved into it a month or so before turning 24.

I still don't feel like an adult, so I'll let you know when that happens! :tongue2:

kittymommy: OMG to the steak house job! For the rest - I respect that, lol. You and I could probably talk for hours. 

SwampWitch said:

At what age did you learn to drive? Get your first job, first apartment? Or get married and move away? Or was there another defining moment when you realized that you were on your own?

Click to expand...

Learned to drive at 14 (got my learners permit at 16) since I grew up in the country we all knew how to drive pretty much as soon as you were tall enough to reach everything.

First job was when I was 13...I was a library page earning $6.15 an hour. 

First apartment was when I moved out for university at 18.

Married Mike when I was 24.

The point a really realized I was on my own was when I was doing my grad degree (half a province from home) and broke a tooth...discovered that my coverage under my parents health insurance had ended when I turned 23 so I had to find the money to get it fixed...I could have asked mom and dad, but figured if I was old enough to no longer be considered dependent, I was going to be independent, darn it!