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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: October 27th, 2024

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  • I begged my (extended) family for motorcycle licence money when I was 16 (eq of 2500€ now) and I was fairly content with that, because it allowed me to gain early mobility and some limited autonomy in a very rural place in Germany. When I became 18 my parents hard-pressed me into aquiring the car licence and they paid half of it (eq of 3800€ now) - ostensible reason was that I could drive my sibling to places, but now I think they came from the rural mindset that has to ensure the mobility of offspring or doom them to a class downspiral.

    I really didn’t want to aquire the licence, because it was hard, expensive and I hated cars as “annoying halfbreed” (my mindset then was gatekeeping roads to motorcycles or large trucks/utility vehicles), but in the end I got it.

    From the POV of ten years later, I have moved to a major city where I don’t need a car in the everyday, because the city is walkable and has functioning public transit. I’m still glad I have the licence, because it allows me to rent vans for moving big or heavy things for me or friends, but I would also survive without it.

    If you can aquire the ability to drive, but choose against it, you lowkey need to figure out or choose your life goals and income options geographically, because transportation is a basic need of life. What I mean by that are questions like these: Where do you live or where do you want to live? Do you or will you have access to public transit or other alternatives to driving? Do you have or will you have a dependable social environment that you can rely on for transportation (regularly)?

    In the end I would focus less on parents and more on your own needs and wants, because your parents won’t be there forever. If they continue to harass you after you made a reasoned decision, that is a them problem, but I also get that if that is, were or will be the case that it is hard to accept emotionally.

    (English is not my first language).