A letter to my son on his 17th birthday – and to any young person, or parent, standing at that same line
Happy Birthday! (2006)
For some reason, the thought of you turning 17 is scarier to me than when you turned 16. At 16, you gained some independence by getting your driver’s license (it took some getting used to watching you drive away out of sight with dad’s truck), but now, at 17, you are only one year away from being an adult in full. In our society, turning 17 signals the age of reckoning. 18 is the age at which you can legally vote. 18, in our province, is the age at which you can legally drink. 18 is the age at which you finish high school and leave home to work or attend university.
For me, 18 was the age at which I could get my commercial pilot’s license and earn a living as a pilot. The specific thresholds differ from country to country and generation to generation, but the shape of the line is the same: on one side of it, someone else is mostly responsible for you; on the other side, you are. Turning 17 is scary because you have exactly one year to get ready to cross. But this is not a “Crossing the Rubicon” moment because you have no choice. It will happen. There is no turning back. It could also be called a “watershed moment” or “tipping point”, but with some preparation, it could be a “milestone,” a line you are stepping over decisively and not a waterfall where you are cascading out of control.
Becoming an adult, or emerging adulthood, is no longer a matter of physiological changes. You’ve gone through that in your early teens. It’s more about a psychological transitional phase. And that never becomes more real than after your 17th birthday, when the days begin counting down to when you finish school and start a new, independent phase of your life. The summer will go quickly, Christmas will come and go, and before you know it, you will be celebrating 18, graduating from high school, moving out and becoming your own person.
For me, the year I turned 17 was just a blur. It happened so fast. Luckily, through all the drama of my parents’ divorce and my subsequent failure in high school, I made the critical decision to become a commercial pilot. More than that, however, I actively decided to be good at whatever I chose to do. To me, being a good pilot meant also being a good student and a good worker. I had to prove that failing high school did not define who I was.
Becoming a good worker is more than being a good person. I was already a good person. My mother and father, while they were together, saw to that. I was raised right, and I certainly knew right from wrong. Being a good person is the foundation. Being a good worker is the construction phase. My parents gave me the first; the year I turned 17 forced me to start on the second. I had to learn to get along in the working world, not just to earn an income to pay for my food, rent, taxes, university loans, and the upkeep of a car, but to maintain a sense of self-respect. I no longer could count on my parents to support me financially or psychologically. I had to have the confidence to make it on my own in a way that I would be proud of.
It was not easy. I had to start from the bottom. I had no high school diploma, no skills, no money, and no job. I needed to find a job that paid enough to cover the cost of flying lessons. Between driving trucks on the Hydro projects and harvesting wild rice, I managed to get the funds together, but I had to endure failures, see my way through disappointments, and endure the pain every step of the way, completely on my own.
Even when your mother and I got married, we still had to find ourselves as individuals as urgently as we had to find ourselves as a couple. Partnership doesn’t relieve you of the work of becoming yourself — it just adds another layer of reasons to do it well. That extra layer of commitment made life more complicated and difficult, as much as it eventually made it ultimately more rewarding.
Right from the beginning, however, I was determined to become a dependable and safe truck driver, then a dependable and safe bush pilot, and very quickly a dedicated and devoted husband and father. All those positive traits were already inside me; I just had to weather the stormy year of being 17 so I could survive to let those traits steer me right. Although inside I knew I was all those positive things, I still had to prove it to myself, my co-workers, my employers, and my loved ones. I accomplished this by letting the good inside me drive my life forward. My belief was that if you have pride in what you do and how well you do it, no matter what you choose, you will succeed. You will be respected. You will be happy.
That goes for you as well. You are reliable, dedicated, and devoted, and you will make a great worker, musician, pilot, partner, or parent if that becomes your path. All you have to do is survive your year of crossing that line toward becoming an emerging adult. Starting today, you will be on a journey to find your true self.
This is your year of reckoning.
I love you, and I wish you a happy birthday.
Dad.
Postscript, 2026. Today, my son is turning 37. He’s on a journey that has been much more of a struggle than either of us could have imagined, but he is a survivor, which is more than any parent could hope for, and no parent can guarantee. If you’re the young person reading this, nothing in life can be done for you; that’s the hard part, and also the good part. If you’re a parent reading this, the year before they cross the line may be the last time you get to say things like this out loud. Say them.
— J.S.G.
