SS. knows the mechanics of getting a drivers license.  What you must do is get SS into '''asleep away''' college.  And out of your home. Far away where weekend trips home is too long.  You must do. '''Do'' what ever is needed.  Making sure he's taking the right classes in high school. Taking college test  ect.

Oh I know the answer! Lol just kidding! 

ss started to learn driving when he was 16, took him a year and didn't get enough driving hours, nor can he drive at night yet. The permit expired, and he's gonna be 18 in a few months. He has to start everything again. He can somewhat drive, he improved a bit, but still have hard time turning, controlling speed, and stay in lanes. 

I personally feel this is a relief that he doesn't drive yet. The last thing I want is to be responsible for the accidents he might cause. 

it's most likely ss will go to community college. I hope he starts getting a job soon. I tried a whole summer helping him with his resume (he thought that's something you can buy from Amazon lol), and I gave up at the end. Not gonna lie though, at least that resume is somewhere more reasonable than the first draft he wrote.

I don't really feel this kid is ready to be an adult, but I know he's looking forward to telling us we don't get to tell him what to do when he turns 18 lol. He will also need to manage his own medication once he turns 18, and that's gonna be a fun one.....

I taught my SO's son, now 21, to drive, and encouraged SO to get him his license and a car. Independence leads to fewer giving rides, BM not required to come to the house (though that backfired, this b will show up randomly to drop off fruit), and he can have a job. SS21 is still living with SO, though. He's not much trouble.

SS15 is still getting picked up by his Mommy from SO's house 10-15 times a month. SS21 being able to drive was supposed to get rid of that, and it did for a few years until SS21 got tired of "managing" his mom. Meaning this b won't keep a schedule. It took no less than 3 texts and 2 phone calls to coordinate each ride, and SS21 understandably got tired of it. Now the b picks up SS15 any time from 3-9.

Idk who is going to teach SS15 to drive. I disengaged because of the backlash from BM and due to some of SS15's behaviors when younger, though he has grown into a pretty good kid, too.

I guess the moral of this tale is that you can't care more than the parents do, and you can't sub for a substandard BM if there is joint custody and frequent exchanges. What you see in your DH is what you get, and what he values will get done.

ETa I didn't teach SS21 to drive for "selfish" reasons. At the time, i was fully filling the "mom" role, and i was also teaching my youngest to drive. I taught them together and enjoyed it. But the BM breezed back into his life after he turned 18 and was no more trouble after getting paid for him as if he were staying with her, and he has distanced himself from me. Whatevs. 

My SKs are SD63, OSS61 and YSS57.  They all moved in full time at 15, 14 and 9 after 4 years of every weekend and all summer..

SD63 graduated after runaways, truancy and plenty of drama.  I enrolled her in beauty school right after graduation, she would have preferred a summer off. She worked for a year or so then moved in with her bf, later DH#1, (one of the happiest days of my life) then married and had a baby.  After a couple years, she split with DH#1 and moved back in here with the baby.  Soon she had a new bf, later DH#2.  They married and she had 2 more children.  Things were fairly quiet until they split, then reconciled and split for good 15 years ago due to her lying and infidelity.  We've had to help her since then, see my blogs for the ugly details.  She is why I'm on this site.

I always got along with OSS61.  But, he and DH have always had a contentious relationship, I never understood why.  As a junior, he transferred to a tech high school and graduated.  Then, he went to work at the factory where DH was plant superintendent and moved out to live with a friend.  He moved from place to place and had several gfs over the years.  We gave him downpayment $ for a house where he lived awhile.   At about 35, he was an alcoholic, basically homeless, unemployed and depressed  He moved back here with a pickup and some Hefty bags and lived in our basement.  DH was on his case daily to get a job which he eventually did.  He started to live more normally and moved out.  One day, he came walking in with a woman and announced they'd just been married.  It was a fiery relationship featuring many fights and only lasted a year or so.  He was living with a friend and we didn't see him for awhile.. He met a wonderful woman and they've been married for 15 or so years.  He is my rock.  Now that DH has cancer and dementia, care of the whole house is on me and he's who I depend on.

YSS57 is DH's fave.   I think now that YSS felt a loyalty bond to BM that kept me at arm's length.  Like you, I disengaged when DH didn't back me up about YSS.  He was a charming, popular athlete. He managed to graduate from high school and was recruited to a college for his athleticism but he only lasted 4 months before he was back.  He lived here a few years, I wasn't paying a lot of attention.  He moved to Hawaii for a job and lived there a few years.  When he moved back, he seemed more mature and got a job as a car salesman. When he sold his first one, we took him out for dinner and I remember thinking, ' Well, at least he sold one".  Soon, he was top salesman, he's a natural.  He met his wife who worked at a nearby dealership and they moved to the city where her family member owned a dealership.  They had 3 kids and he moved up the ladder becoming very financially successful.  He decided to go out on his own but was unsuccessful and they also divorced.  He's now in a different state, again a successful salesman.  He's been a good dad to his 3 kids. 6 momths ago, he called to borrow $, must have been desperate to admit it to us.  He's complying with the payment plan we agreed on.

You asked about driving.  They all got their licenses at 16 and DH saw that they had cars.  I was all for it, independence.

I always smile when I read people counting down the days til 18.  It hasn't worked out that way for us and I have 2 of my own who've moved in and out, too.  Now that DH is ailing, I'm saying "no more," and OSS capped the shower downstairs.  Lol.

A most notable phase in parenting. Even more notable when SParenting.  Particularly when the BP is about the coddle and the SParent is not deluded by the rose colored glasses of procreation regarding that kid.

The crash path to 18 was the phase that regularly threatened my SKids continued presence on the planet. One of us, his mom or me, were always ready to strangle him. The only thing that saved him was that when one of us was ready to turn him into fertilizer, the other was willing to give him just one more day. So, he survived.

On driving. No interest.  He did not learn until he was halfway to 19yo. Only then, it was after we bought him a brand new car as a combination graduation, 18th birthday, and enlistment gift.  We went to my parents for Christmas. I drove his new car up the day before he and his mom drove up.  I hid it at my Uni BFFs house.  On Christmas AM his big gift was a tiny box in his stocking with a car key fob in it.  A couple of days later, his mom and I left with a wave and a "see you at home when you figure out how to drive and have your license. Buh-bye. Drive safely."

My dad taught him to drive. One of his Christmas gifts was driving school to teach him to pass the written test and prep him for the driving test.  By the time he pulled up in our driveway 2mos later after a 250mile drive home he was a very good driver. He was pissed at us. But, so what?  Mission accomplished.

Ours was really a well behaved low drama kid. Until he was getting close to finishing HS.  Adulthood scared the crap out of him and he shoved his head up his own butt his Sr.yr of HS and nearly did not graduated. So, we went scorched earth on him.  He was at a top 20 boarding school, doing exceptionally well, academically, athletically, militarily (it was a Military school), as a leader, in band, etc..... Then the SpermIdiot helped him hack the school firewall and he and the DipShitIot would stay up all night playing WoW to the point that SS was comatose in class failing all but one the first semester of his Sr. year. So rather than having to pay for another full year of tuition for him to graduate  from that school, which he loved, we jerked his ass out of school at winter break, moved him home, and enrolled him in our local HS. We had moved to a new city a month after he started boarding school so he knew no one.  He walked to school and back every day under pain of being dropped off at the homeless camp under the interstate in the big city 50miles N of where we were living.  I even dropped him off there for a couple of hours to meet his new neighbors.  Those dear people were amazing with him. They welcomed him, fed him, and then tag teamed chewing a new asshole about how his parents obviously loved him and wanted him to succeed so he had better pull his head out of his ass. He was bug eyed and in shock for a couple of days after that experience.

The deal was, graduate on time or on graduation day he would be dropped off at the homeless camp with a new coat, a pup-tent,  a sleeping bag, and a good pair of winter boots.  That kid was nothing but assholes and elbows for the last semester of his Sr. year.  At the boarding school he had only needed a single specific class first semester of Sr year, and another single specific class the second semester to graduate.  He failed that class his first semester. Which was why he was having to slog a half a mile through snow drifts to and from school every day, shovel our property, and work his ass off to complete 5 classes and an 18mo Sr project required to graduate in our local school.  He did it. And with honors.

Of course we would not have dumped him at the homeless camp. But, he did not then need to know that.

Then we had that summer to get him to his 18th B-day.  The last semester of his Sr year was so traumatic for him that he was a sullen pouting mess that summer.  We gave him a bunch of money, told him that was it then put him on the plane for his final COd visitation to SpermLand.  To minimize the chance he would try to stay there, his mom picked him up on his last day of visitation so that if he was not coming home he would have to tell her to her face.  Something we knew he could never do.

So home he came. As a late summer boy, his B-day is ... late summer. 

The day after his B-day he had to either be a full time student, working full time, or 1/2-N-1/2.  Nope. No interest in working and the SpermClan had guilted him into not going to school so that their CS would end at 18 rather than continuing until he was 21 if he was a full time student in good standing with his school.

So, we made him our full time live in beck and call chore boy. His mom worked his ass off. He completed the exhaustive chore list every day, or he was on the curb when we left for work the next day. When we got home he had to finish the prior day's unfinished chores, the current day's unfinished chores, or he was on the curb the next day. And so on, and so on.....

After 4 months of unpaid labor for only room and board, he enlisted in the military on the delayed entry program.

Since he refused to take advantage of the mom and dad full ride to Uni, the car was the last thing we could do for him when he launched.

Meanwhile back at the ranch and 14 years later, he is completing his 14th year in the military and is only 6 years from full military retirement. 

His mom and I are exceptionally proud of him.

Some kids need a burning platform to get them to launch. At some point, kids have to be cut lose to finish growing up on their own time and their own dime.  

That, is the final duty of a parent to a no longer minor child.

IMHO of course. 

Set and enforce the standards of behavior and standards of performance. Hold the transitioning to adult kid accountable.  Some need far more accountability applied than others. Adapt accordingly.

IMHO of course.

The chance that a child launches when they have a lazy parent is about at level zero.  

Why did the job of teaching the kid things fall to you?  Why wasn't their own parent(s) interested in their child learning, growing, thriving?

I don't think it's too late to have a small..."so, what are your son's plans for after he graduates?  college? military? "

You may be disengaged from the child.. but you can show interest to your SO regarding the future plans..where you can at the appropriate moment.. insert the "because obviously, he won't be living here when he is an adult".

but can share a few perspectives of young adult steppos (not mine), that I occasionally get exposed to through work. There are a couple of women in their mid twenties-early thirties, who won't stop complaining that daddy's second wife never became their mother No.2, or that she's being "mean" and lays boundaries, when BM, divorced over a decade tries to insert herself in family road trip to visit dad's father (former father in law), because, apparently, they were "close" at some point. At least one of these young women/steppos is quite abrasive, and that's in professional relationships, which she considers to be good, which makes me wonder what would they be like in relationships/environments they see as mediocre or not that great. 
 

Both still get upset that dad has his own life and they can't "spontaneously" inflict themselves upon his not so new second family and marriage. 
 

Both blame the second wife for influencing the father about whatever changes he's made in his life, including the ones that don't concern them: spirituality, holidays, friendship circles and, of course, healthy boundaries to protect his and his family's life. 
They don't seem to have the ability to consider that perhaps dad found someone who reflected and helped foster his existing views/passions.

Both women coast through life directionless. The one in her 30s still doesn't know what she wants to do, has tried and thrown up multiple jobs, has some pipe dreams about living off a hobby farm (she's never lived outside suburbia) despite being on baby 2 now. Luckily for her, she has a SO that funds her lifestyle, and cops a lot of her dissatisfaction with everything, including him and their children. She's entirely self-focused. All her conversations are about pursuits of personal happiness. 
 

The other one (in mid twenties) is in some woo course, living interchangeably with mother and boyfriend. While she pays her way (and her boyfriend's at times, it seems), it is from a certain occupation that appeals to men's baser instincts. She's very unhappy with it, yet won't make any changes. Money is addictive, I suppose. 
 

Both have partners that apparently support them in their animosity towards father's wife. Or maybe they just go along and nod, but these women interpret it the way that fits in with their views. 
 

So, based on my observations, not a lot positives to report. And from what they mentioned, I understand that their stepmothers have always at least tolerated them - no obvious arguments or falling out. One of them was already an adult when father started a new relationship, yet she was upset his new GF did not adopt her. Hmmmmpf!