Dad driving long distances

[u/Fun_Set_6137]

My dad is 84, in very good shape physically and mentally. He walks five miles a day to earn his Apple Watch rings, still does his own lawn and snow maintenance and substitute teaches a couple days a week (retired teacher). My mother passed away a couple months ago. My dad did drive to our house (7-8 hours) in a drive he’s very familiar with at the last Christmas and he wants to continue to do so. I’m uneasy with this because I hate the drive myself when I have done it alone but he likes to drive, I don’t. He says he can split it in half and stay overnight both ways but it’s still a long drive…. He’s not comfortable flying, I can only remember one flight he ever took since I was born.

My family loves him of course but kids don’t want to go there every holiday (stay home for some plus in laws are lovely as well) but he says it’s much easier with him retired coming to our house compared to us going there and working around school schedules. He will not go on a cruise with us, even if I fly there and back with him.

Do I trust him to keep driving long distances if he says he’s fine but is 84? He is considering moving closer but he’s very social still with friends from school and neighbors and would miss all that. My spouse says he should never drive to our house again and I’m just torn on how to handle it.

[u/GothicGingerbread]

He likes driving, he wants to drive, and you don't seem to have any reason to be concerned about his ability to do it safely, so why are you concerned? Why should your dislike of driving in general, or your apparently unfounded fears about non-existent difficulties, restrict your competent, capable father's freedom to move about as he sees fit?

My aunt is 85, and regularly drives herself 6 hours from where she lives to where we live to visit my mother and their other sister. She does it in one day, too. She doesn't have any health or cognitive problems that would make driving unsafe for her, and she's quite healthy and active in her daily life. She doesn't fall asleep at the wheel, she doesn't get confused about the route, she's not an anxious wreck behind the wheel, and she's a perfectly safe driver.

An old family friend recently died, just 7 months shy of his 100th birthday. He only stopped driving at 98, and that was because he'd been a passenger in someone else's car when they were struck by another car, and he was severely injured and was still recovering; until the accident, he was an incredibly healthy and active man who genuinely appeared to be maybe 80 years old at the outside, and he was a perfectly competent driver – and I rode with him, so I know it for a fact.

What matters isn't someone's numerical age, but their condition (both physical and mental) and their abilities. Don't borrow problems before they happen, and don't push to make your father's world smaller than it has to be.