When you ride a lot, it’s easy to get numb to it. Excitement becomes dulled by routine; your mind starts drifting to other things rather than the goodness of the here and now, the pleasure of propelling yourself forward on a bike. But you know who’s not numb to the joys of bike riding? Eight-year-olds, that’s who.
My eldest daughter’s class had bike education last week. The buildup started with a letter brought home with a checklist of things to do on her bike – pump the tyres, check for rattles, make sure the brakes work – and the structure for the week. Some kids would be learning to ride for the first time; others like my daughter had been doing it for years. Regardless of where they each sat on that spectrum, though, for a couple of hours every day, they’d be on two wheels.
Friday was the culmination – a big ride through the park, down the bike path and back: five kilometres or so, factoring in an hour and a half. Wrangling 50 kids in the wild was a bit of an ask for teacher/student ratios, so a few parents were asked to volunteer. I pondered for about a second before sticking my hand up: taking some kids for a bike ride seemed a much better way to contribute to the school community than flipping election-day sausages.
One of parenthood’s greatest joys is the gift of seeing things through a new pair of eyes in your child. That’s a wrestle sometimes, though: to not barge in and think that you know better or you’ve seen it before; to let the wonder just be. I think, mostly, that you need to be conscious about it – to accept the weight of feeling in your child, whether it’s excitement or anger. Or, for that matter, anxiety about Friday’s bike ride. Maybe by being there I could help a bit.
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