Why doesn’t my aunt let me do anything?

I guess first I would have to know how old you are to get a fuller picture of your aunt and her point of view. I’m guessing that, since you are talking about getting your license, you are around 15 or 16. So I will go with that assumption. I’m an old guy…57…but I still remember raising kids, both the goods and the bads.
The teen years are a really uncertain time, full of emotion and frustration for both the teen and the adult. I’m going to guess you have probably had a few arguments with your aunt that got elevated in decibels. It happens. The problem at this age is that we don’t listen to each other as much as we should. Parents see that the teens are trying to do all sorts of new things and worry they will hurt themselves. So we say things like “you aren’t ready” or “you are going to make mistakes that could stick with you”. The teens, on the other hand, don’t have the life experiences that the adults do. They don’t listen to what the parents are saying because they are in a hormonal soup that won’t let them put their desires on hold. It’s frustrating on both sides.
As a parent, I viewed my job…my only job…as raising my children to be happy, healthy adults. That includes teaching them to think for themselves and to be independent. Trust me when I say that it wasn’t always easy. My ex-wife viewed her job as a parent as one of never letting the kids grow up. I never understood that. Thankfully when we got divorced, I got custody of the kids. But many parents have the same view of parenting as my ex. I think part of the problem is that we are living our lives and don’t always notice when the children inevitably grow up. Not knowing your aunt, this might be part of it for her.
The best way to work through this time is to communicate. Not yell or cry or any of that, but to talk. One of you needs to be the adult in these conversations. If your aunt won’t be, then it is up to you to take that role. So what does the adult in these conversations have to do? They have to get past all the emotion and get to the bottom of things. You will have to calmly beat her with logic. I always told my kids that if you panic, you’ve already lost. When you panic, you stop thinking and your chances of succeeding at things drops significantly. Getting mad does the same thing. And in a conversation, when you get mad, you shut down the conversation. The other person gets defensive and gets more stiff-necked than ever.
So let’s look at what is at the root of all your arguments. Can’t get your license, can’t cook, can’t travel alone…all of these arguments are over things that show you are growing up. It sounds like your aunt either doesn’t think you are that far along or that she doesn’t want to admit it. So you need to have a talk about growing up. You will eventually need a license, you will eventually need to know how to cook, and you will eventually be out on your own. I’m guessing from your write up that you still love your aunt but are frustrated with her. Eventually you will be on your own and you will still have a relationship with your aunt. She has a big role in determining what that relationship looks like. So let’s take an easy one…cooking. You need to include her in this one. It sounds like her fears revolve around you hurting yourself because you don’t know what you are doing. So ask to help her with cooking sometime…not that you want to cook alone, but to learn from her. Let her see that you know that fire burns and that you know how to handle yourself in the kitchen. After a couple of time of working with her on meals, tell her you want to cook a meal for the family. Pick something easy to start with. And here’s a game…ask her opinion on things while you are cooking even if you already know the answers. Then the next time you cook, ask fewer questions and sort of wean her off the worry.
The stickier things are the license and the traveling. Both involve you being able to go do things without her. This is where you need to tap into your patience with her. Tell her you want to get your license because eventually you will be needing it. If she tells you that you won’t pass the written test, tell her you will get the book and study before the test. Include her in the studying…ask her to quiz you when you think you know the answers. That will take away the whole argument about the test. There may be other arguments, though. So be prepared. And above all…DO NOT GET ANGRY WITH HER. Listen to her. Listen to what she is saying and what she is saying without saying. Don’t discount her fears. You don’t like it when she discounts you, don’t do the same to her.
Traveling is a really tough one. Think about it from her point of view. She has a child she loves that suddenly wants to go somewhere far away for a period of time with no parental guidance. You know, if you are being honest, that as a parent you would be worried. Think of all the things that could happen. You could be in an accident, you could get robbed, you could do things that would get you in trouble, you could have any number of things go wrong with the trip. These things go wrong for adults that have experience traveling, so they are real possibilities for teens that don’t have experience. This is how parents think. So you need to work with her on how you can grow up and try things for the first time and still put her mind at ease. Promise to call her every day, twice a day, to fill her in on your trip. And make that a priority for your trip…don’t screw around and miss a call. Late calls or now calls will translate to you being in trouble in her mind.
Your conversations with your aunt will be yours…not mine. But the keys to successful conversations that result in you growing up involve not losing your cool and to anticipate or ask about her worries with things.

It’s hard to advise without knowing your actual age.

I would think @seawulf575 pretty much covered it. And well.

Good advice.

ditto

The key thing, we don’t know how old you are, and who you’re planning to stay with. If you’re under 17 let’s say, and you’re travelling far, to where there are no family members or friends of family to stay with, it is understandable that she wouldn’t want that. What good parent/ guardian would? She’s looking out for you even if it doesn’t look like it at this point.

@seawulf575 did indeed have excellent advice but for the sake of those who actually want to read the answers, use two-line paragraph breaks, and more of them, please!

Here’s some more to go along with his advice: Treat this like a school project, only it’s for you. Do some research and make a presentation to your aunt.

You have the internet, which many of us (I’m even older than @seawulf575) never had when we were your age. You can look up the requirements for getting a driver’s license in your state. You can research the rules of the road, perhaps even take practice exams (some states, anyway). For that matter, you could learn the license requirements in every state in the Union, and make an entire presentation to your aunt. You could demonstrate to her (not in a snarky way, and not to belittle or embarrass her) that it could be possible for you to know more about driving (intellectually, anyway, and from a strictly administrative and legal point of view) than she does. Think about that – and then act on it.

If you go through with that advice and actually make a presentation to your aunt about “how much you know” – and especially if you think that you know more than she does – about anything outside your immediate experience, anyway – then be prepared to listen to and handle her questions and her criticisms. Because as much as you might think you will know after all your research – all you can know until you experience things is “what you read” – and that’s not always correct. So always keep that in mind before you contradict her. Always.

Ditto for cooking, where @seawulf575‘s advice was fine. “Cooking” doesn’t always have to involve flame, heat and pressure. You can “cook” a lot of things that don’t require much more risk than how to handle a knife – and this is something that you absolutely need to know how to do safely – that includes sharpening them and taking care of them when they’re not being used (and never treating them as toys). Can you prepare and chop the vegetables for a salad? Then you’re “cooking”. After that it’s just a matter of how to apply heat in varying degrees and for lengths of time – and cavemen learned how to do that. (Again, look to the internet: Make a presentation to your aunt about the evolution of cooking skills in humans. Search for exotic recipes from around the world. Show her what you know, and then ask her to teach you what you don’t know.)

The first part of all the above is “recognize that you don’t know it all”. This is also a formidable stumbling block for teens – and maybe more so, now that everyone has access to the internet and thinks that they know everything. You don’t know everything. Even at my advanced age, the more I learn – and I try to learn something every day – the more it is made clear to me that I don’t know. Be humble. You don’t know it all, and when you admit that to your aunt – or other adults that you trust – then you can start to learn.

Good luck with the process.

@Katieeee Are you asking your aunt to let you cook when she is not in the kitchen or at home?