Last updated on July 6th, 2015 at 03:15 pm

My 14 year-old daughter came home from school today and was raging against “the government”. I was so proud of her standing up to “the man”. Now that’s a strange reaction – as a kid I was totally neo-conservative.

Digging for the details, because indignant 14 year-old girls are incomprehensible, it emerged “the government” had increased the learn-to-drive age to 16 years 9 months. “Dad how old do I have to be to learn to drive?” she demanded.

Therein lies my frustration with “kids these days”. I knew the driving age at 14. I didn’t rely on my parents to know things or look them up for me. If I wanted to know something I’d find it out. At an early age I learned my mum’s answer to any spelling questions was “get the dictionary”.

So of course I rescued her and looked it up online. I can’t believe I did that. I’m crying into my cappuccino at Chocol’art as I write this. For years my answer to almost any factual question has been “have you googled it?”. I blame a mid afternoon brain fade, plus dangerously low caffeine levels. How could I be so weak?

For the record in NSW the age to get a learners permit is 16 years. And that permit must be held for 12 months.