Where childhood development is concerned, I’d like to believe that I’m pretty laid-back–especially when it comes to the whole notion of a “time line.” In fact, when my children were smaller, anyone who suggested to me that they might be “late” getting started on something like potty-training always got the same response–“I’m sure it will happen when they’re ready; after all, you don’t see too many 20-year-olds who have yet to learn to use the potty.” (Although, having shared a house with several male room-mates while I was in college, I have to admit that the bar for actually knowing how to “use” a toilet is set fairly low.)
I have taken this same approach to many of childhood’s “milestones”: tying their own shoes, telling time, sleeping in their own bed–in each of these instances I have tried to take the laissez-faire approach–with most of the emphasis being placed on the “lazy.” Why, I thought, should I drive myself crazy trying to teach them something that they are obviously not yet ready to learn? Wouldn’t it be better to focus on where they were right now than try to push them on to the next stage? It was, I felt, the most “Be Here Now” approach to parenting I could come up with, and I’ll admit that it continually filled me with no small amount of smug satisfaction. Which makes it all the harder to understand why, when it came time for Clyde to learn how to ride a bike, I became such a jerk.
I was never this way with his, sister, Clementine–and her bike ( a very cool vintage Schwinn with the original “Good Buddy” banana seat still attached) was purchased for her back when she was still in utero. Sure, we encouraged her a little bit–we took her up and down the street a few times to show her the basics–but after that we left her on her own. Amazingly, this plan actually worked: after mulling it over for 18 months or so, one day she just picked up her bike and took off riding.
With Clyde, on the other hand, I am downright mean.
“Did you hear about the party I’m throwing?” I casually asked him after he rode his scooter home from school yet again. “It’s going to be at Peter Piper Pizza–all the pizza and tokens kids want. It’s only for bike riders, though; no scooter riders allowed. Too bad you won’t be coming.” And then I rode off–on my bike.
Poor Clyde: part of the reason that he is getting the hard sell whereas Clementine did not is that he is the last one. While Clementine was taking her own sweet time to learn how to ride a bike, Clyde was still a toddler: it hardly mattered when I got her up and on her bike if I still had to pull Clyde around in the bike trailer regardless. Now that Clementine is a proficient bike rider, though, a tiny, white light shining at the end of the tunnel has crept into my field of vision–one that looks suspiciously like it’s mounted on a pair of handlebars.
Suddenly my memories of the glorious bike trips of my youth all come back to me: Scotland, Cape Cod, the Blue Ridge Parkway–even a six-week tour of Arizona–and with them also comes all the plans I had for bike trips yet to be done–the C & O canal, the Oregon coast, the South of France. Plans that were put on hold once my children came along. And just like that it’s “good-bye mellow hippie Mom” and “hello Peter Piper Pizza pusher.”
And my new mantra? Bike Here Now.
(Update: the Peter Piper Pizza Ploy actually worked–Clyde is off the scooter and on the bike, just in time for Bike to School Day, Thursday, May 15. For more info, go to www.flagstaffbiking.org)