Breaking Away
Dad Gone Mad | February 20I always assumed that teaching my son to ride a bike would closely resemble my own maiden afternoon on a two-wheeler – a bloody, death-defying Sunday that included a bucketful of tears, a head-on collision with a parked car and, after several hours of watching me flail and fall, my father opining that perhaps we should put the training wheels back on.
See, I’m not terribly coordinated or dexterous. Never have been. I can’t dribble a basketball without sticking out my tongue. If I am chewing gum, I have to be seated and silent and in the presence of someone who can administer the Heimlich. I once tried to flip a pancake in a frying pan without a spatula and I ended up with second-degree burns on my head that made me look like Gorbachev’s long-lost son.
My fear was always that I would pass my rather unenviable physical shortcomings on to my son, but a miracle seems to have occurred. The kid is a bona fide athlete.
I personally took the training wheels off of his bike Saturday afternoon (which is a miracle in itself because the last time I handled a crescent wrench, I ended up with a herniated L5 and a right nostril packed with cotton). For 15 minutes, I ran behind him, my right hand clutching the seat to steady the bike. I shouted constant encouragements to him, too. “Don’t worry, bud. If you fall, the hospital is only 20 minutes away. And they have ice cream there!”
I expected the lesson to take as long as my own did 30 years ago. When it was over, I expected to find myself in the same condition as my dad was that day – on the ground in the fetal position, shivering, whimpering, and mumbling something about a curse.
But I had no such bad luck.
After just 15 minutes of assistance, my son ordered me to remove my inept hand from his bike, and off he went. Within 30 minutes, he was riding in circles, standing up while pedaling, and asking me to arrange of row of school buses on our street so he could jump over them.
I haven’t the foggiest idea where my son got these physical gifts. But rest assured that I plan to nurture them and celebrate them and, when the time comes, capitalize on them like a motherfucker.
He’s no longer just my son. He’s also my meal ticket.
oh yeah! Now you can live through him! you can have sissy-ass fist fights with other dads on the play yard. You’re totally set! Thank the lord.
Alright, he’s mastered the bicycle… time for his first set of golf clubs. He’s got to start now if he’s gonna be winning tournaments by the time he’s 15. Good luck!
word to the meal ticket: getting my daughter a modeling agent asap. screw working!
Isn’t it obvious? He gets it from me.
We had a similar experience, but in reverse: my husband used to cycle competitively, so he was all about getting our son Henry (who is five) a bike. But the day we took the training wheels off, Henry had a complete breakdown and wound up telling my husband that if it was okay with him, he would like to keep them on. “Daddy, you can take them off when I’m fifteen,” he said.
Sigh.