My son Mario, age 17, asked an important question the other day: How old should an adopted highway be before it’s told that it’s adopted? Highway engineering philosophers are constantly debating this issue, but have come to no conclusion.

Highway parents concerned about the well being of their patch of road are anxious about the correct way to handle this problem. Many are afraid that if their little highway learns it’s adopted at too early an age, it will fall apart, develop potholes and see its asphalt chipped away tar bit by tar bit. Others think that it’s better to tell the highway as soon as it’s old enough to understand that it’s part of the road community, perhaps after four or five years in service. By then it will have made junctions with other highways, who can be role models and mentors if they’re having trouble coping with the news of their adoption.

However, many road theorists feel that a highway need never be told that its adopted. “What’s the point?” asks Roger Maitland, professor of Boulevard Studies at the University of Georgia. “What roads don’t know won’t hurt them,” he said. “We don’t tell roads when we don’t have money to keep them in good repair or that we’re going to extend them or turn them into an off ramp. They don’t seem to be suffering much from ignorance of those policies.”

But others aren’t so sure and point to The ThouroughFarers, a support group for adoptive road parents whose roads learned from others that they were adopted. Many are embittered and refuse upkeep from their parents. They’ve become distraught, welcoming litter and not caring that their medians are overgrown with ugly plant life. In more extreme cases, some roads have gone completely in the wrong direction, shut themselves down and resist widening. A significant number said they would have preferred to have been foster roads rather than adopted. “At least a foster road knows where it stands from the get-go,” said one angry Northeastern highway, who preferred to remain anonymous.

AAA, the Asphalt Advocates of America, offer counselling to parents seeking to deal with this important question. “It’s hard for them,” said an AAA counsellor. “They’ve already suffered the trauma of learning that they’re unable to conceive their own road and when they turn to adoption, there’s the risk that the road will be resentful.”

I told Mario that there are no easy answers in life and travel and I see his thoughtful gaze as we pass an adopted piece of road. I know he’s wondering whether to say something, but he doesn’t.

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