Photo by nevermindtheend

You have to feel sorry for the 15-year-old son of Vienna’s Jenifer Joy Madden, who got outed by his mom in an op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Post for having only just now learned how to ride a bus.

We couched it as another test of their mettle. After all, if these 15-year-olds could swing at objects flying 90 miles an hour and get whacked by titanium lacrosse sticks, they could walk to a bus stop and ride a few miles across town.

The story of Madden’s teenage son’s first public bus ride home from school comes off sounding like a joke to those of us who live inside the District (one commenter on the Post’s web site, who noted that they were “sure the kid was about 10, not 15!”, neatly summed up my initial reaction), but we suppose sometimes we forget how different life is out in Fairfax County. And hey, if Madden’s article inspires a few other suburban families to rethink their car-centric lifestyles just a little bit, then that’s certainly a good thing.

But pair that with this story in this morning’s paper, about how high school students in Loudoun County are aghast at having to pay a fee to park in their school’s parking lot, and it’s hard not to feel like our more far flung Virginia neighbors are living on a different planet. I get that acquiring a driver’s license and being free of the embarrassing yellow school bus is a big deal to a 16-year-old, but quotes about how out in Loudoun, there’s a presumption that parking should be free, kinda boggle my mind.