As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Originally Posted by Grandmasam
Hopefully, your daughter will actually listen to you and behave herself with this issue! The fact that the 18 year old just now got his license raises a LOT of questions, the primary one being, "Why not earlier?" I can think of a lot of reasons, and none of them are good! .
My son got his licence just before he turned 18. He kept his learners permit for two years because he didn't like driving and wouldn't practice much. He just wasn't ready at 16.
Hopefully, your daughter will actually listen to you and behave herself with this issue! The fact that the 18 year old just now got his license raises a LOT of questions, the primary one being, "Why not earlier?" I can think of a lot of reasons, and none of them are good! .
I have to disagree here.. There are quite a few valid reasons for an older person/teen getting their license
My DS2 is 18 YO & still doesn't have his drivers license.. He got his permit at 16YO & then he & my DH were involved in a bad car accident & quite frankly DS 2 has been afraid to drive ever since.. he has renewed his permit & does drive occasionally but I'm not pushing him to get his license until *he's* ready.
I also know of several of my kids friends who didn't get their license until they were 18YO or older as their parents wouldn't allow them to get their license until they could pay their own insurance..
The fact that the 18 year old just now got his license raises a LOT of questions, the primary one being, "Why not earlier?" I can think of a lot of reasons, and none of them are good! .
Lenny didn't get his license until he was 21 but that's because he could ride his bicycle wherever he needed to go. I think it was only after he got hit by a car (when he was on his bicycle) that he finally thought about getting his license
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I got my license the day after I turned 16 (would have been the same day, but it was a Monday and the DMV was closed Mondays), had gotten my Mustang the previous week, and started driving myself, a good friend who lived in my neighborhood, and her (younger) sister to school the next day. However, I was a very responsible honor student who had taken private driving lessons and also NEVER touched drugs or alcohol. I was all for your daughter's side until I got to the part about you knowing that this boy is into drugs. That right there would be a no-go for me, whether he was young, old, or anything in between.
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Hopefully, your daughter will actually listen to you and behave herself with this issue! The fact that the 18 year old just now got his license raises a LOT of questions, the primary one being, "Why not earlier?" I can think of a lot of reasons, and none of them are good! And because he was a legal adult when he got his license, he is not subject to the "learning time" built into the licensing of younger persons. Until he's had at least a year of driving experience without ANY problems, I wouldn't trust my child in any car he was driving.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Huntermom
My kids all drove to school senior year with sibling in the car. They never drove other kids. We had graduated licensing which prohibited driving with unrelated passengers with your first license. My daughter, the youngest, drove alone.
My biggest concern is here, kids who wait to 18 to get their license, usually do so because they don't want (can't pass) driver's ed. While my kids found driver's ed a bore, as did I many years before, there are still times when they mention something they learned.
You made the right decision. Stick with it.
My ds is 15. He just got his learners permit last week. So, we haven't had any driver issues thus far... But I would agree w/ your decision 100%.
Regarding- not getting a license until 18- my ds will most likely not be getting his formal license until 18. He is a freshman in HS right now. And I've been saying for years that my kids wouldn't get a license until they graduate HS (this will put my ds at 18). My reasoning is two fold- (1) insurance on teen boys is too expensive and (2) safety; this will give him close to four years of practice on his learners permit with an adult supervising him.
I trust my ds 100%- he is a good kid, but I decided on holding out on the license since he was a toddler.... It's just something I chose to do.... I've told all my kids at HS graduation I will help them get a car and at that time they can get their license.... Now I'm not swearing I won't change my mind on this.... but at the very least it will be a good long while before my ds has a regular license.... So there are a variety of reasons a teenager may not get a license until they are older....
I agree with your decision. The age & lack of experience of the driver or the passenger known for doing drugs would result in a no from me but with it being both there's no possibility of any other answer.
As for not getting your license at 16; I'm 41 & have never gotten my license & I did take driver's ed in high school. Why? I know I'm not a good candidate for driving. I figure myself & everyone else is safer if I'm not driving. That said, I do know how to drive & in an emergency if it was the only way to get help I would get behind the wheel & drive.
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Okay with all of that said.. what's the norm with you? would you/did you let your kids drive to/from school with a new driver & a car with other kids in it ?
I'm not a parent, but I think my rules/guidelines for such a situation would be, "not until they have at least six months' driving experience if you're the only passenger. 1 year to 18 months experience, if there's 3+ people under twenty in the car at once - depending on what I think of the driver. And the first time they even get a parking ticket, that timer resets to zero - the second time, they're simply off-limits, forever."
That'd be for almost anything, not just school, too.
The fact that the 18 year old just now got his license raises a LOT of questions, the primary one being, "Why not earlier?" I can think of a lot of reasons, and none of them are good!
I grew up in Massachusetts - you can get a learner's permit at 16.0, and a license at 16.5 .... and when I was sixteen? I didn't bother getting the learners' permit. I didn't bother at 17, either. Not even at 18. Because, my mother told me I would not be allowed to drive her car, even with her in it, until I had a full years' experience as a driver. Which I couldn't get, except using her car.
Catch-22, that. So I opted not to bother myself with it.
After that, I just didn't have the money for a car - nor for the mandatory insurance in MA, nor for fuel. I still don't. So here I am, about to turn forty-two years old (end of April) ... and I do not have, nor have I ever had, a license.
OP, I agree with you. I think that's a bad situation that is asking for trouble. that's too many people in an inexperienced persons car.
My son is 17 and doesn't have his license yet. He's got his permit and the required number of hours of driving in and passed the Driver's Ed class this year that I had to pay for.
but every time I try to get my husband to leave us the car so my son can take his drivers test - my husband says he needs it. So I think my HUSBAND isn't ready for our oldest to get his drivers license.
It will be happening sometime before school gets out this year though. I'll be making sure of that by golly. LOL
I think the fact that you don't trust the driver speaks volumes. If you did, it would be a non issue. My DDs both got their license the minute they could. Both were responsible and good students. Oldest DD drove younger DD every day, and picked DS up once a week. They drove friends to golf team practice every day after school once it was legal for them to do so. Younger DD does most of her brother's transportation for me now.
We all know you're right. This is one of those time-honored disagreements that all parents and kids have. They want to grow up and be independent. We want to protect them. But also it's important to remember, aside from the issues with the two boys, teenagers don't always make the best decisions. Their brains quite literally aren't fully developed until they are 25! They never want to hear us say that, but it's the truth.
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I agree with you 100%, just don't give in to her teen tantrums. A boy like that is a ticking time bomb, and it's true, why invite the problems by going with people who don't even like you. When Charlie, (DD 15) obtained her permit, I showed her some accident photos that I took, involving teen drivers and how their recklessness results (the less graphic ones of course). Straightened her out reeeaaaaaaal quick. She has a good head on her shoulders, and is very responsible, but I felt those photos just sealed the deal that she would not go and do something stupid. I trust her to drive on her own or with my other kids, once she is able to. It's the other drivers who I do not trust.
To the OP: I know you didn't ask for validation, but I agree with your decision.
Sometimes, "Because I'm your mother and I said so" is a valid reason.
I love some advice I heard from John Rosemond on giving your kids reasons for any decisions you make. He said that there were 6 reasons that basically summed up most situations:
1. There's not enough money
2. There's not enough time
3. You're too young
4. It's too dangerous
5. We don't believe in that
6. We don't like those kids
So he used to keep those written on slips of paper and put them in a bowl. When he got blow back from the kids on decisions, he'd pick up the bowl and shake it and pull out a slip and read it. See, it didn't matter if the reason was appropriate to the situation, it was that you - the parent - had made a decision and the kid just had to live with it.
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