Growing up in suburban Memphis, I lived too far from my schools to ride my bike to and from except in seventh and eighth grades. My sense of freedom in those years was as boundless as a newly minted teen can feel. The mile to school was flat, save for one hill on the way there. After school, my friends and I would ride our 10-speeds through the neighborhood, sometimes heading to the Woolco (where I bought that famous Farrah Fawcett poster … after borrowing eight cents) or the TGY to see if they had any new Hot Wheels.
It was a freedom that can only be experienced in childhood, but the way my 10-speed brought the world within reach served a key role in my ongoing love affair with the bicycle. Lord, I do love the bike.
I offer that prelude as a way to frame my awareness that kids today lead lives quite different from how mine unfolded. I came to parenting at an age when many of my high school classmates’ kids were in college, or emancipated, which made me a parent to Gen Z kids, not Millenials (technically, my youngest isn’t even Gen Z; he’s an Alpha). This has caused my perspective on how being a kid has changed to either be greater in breadth, or more warped; possibly both.
I’m not here to wring my hands and wish for days of yore; I’m acknowledging an inescapable fact of contemporary life. I watch and I adjust. The trajectory of my sons’ lives veered in 2020 with the arrival of the pandemic. Learning, friendships and anything approaching liberty wasn’t so much placed on hold as confined to cold storage. Only in the last year have I begun to see friendships and playdates resume. Autonomy, such as it is for a pre-teen and teen, was best described as stunted.
It was my girlfriend, Jennifer, who ran across an article in which the writer advocated asking kids how they would like to grow their independence. I considered the wisdom of the approach self-evident, past needing negotiation. One night, as I was cooking dinner, I called the boys into the kitchen to ask them how they would like to grow their freedom. Philip, then 14, began with becoming a pilot. I believe he included astronaut and mountaineer as well. I hadn’t anticipated he would go full Kafka and treat it as an exercise in absurdity. He seemed unprepared for the offer, and not quite ready to process it as a serious opportunity.
Matthew, then 10, said he wanted to walk to a nearby park; getting there meant crossing a complicated intersection where most drivers consider the 35 mph speed limit laughably quaint; the driveway into the park could also prove treacherous—to anyone. The following Saturday, we went out and I shadowed him, letting him lead the way, but keeping an eye on him and watching how carefully he took in his surroundings. Papa pride surged through me as I watched him take in every car that passed.
In the days preceding his entry into sixth grade, Matthew came to me and asked if he could start riding his bike to and from school. My only concern was not to say yes so quickly that it came out as a hissing sound. We began the year with him walking home from school, a significant step in its own right.
One afternoon following school we got on our bikes and rode to school with the lock he would use, entered campus and locked his bike to one of the bike racks. He then unlocked and we rode home. For a free-range Gen Xer, the first time I rode to school didn’t rank as an event. Arriving home from Matthew’s first dry run at riding to school didn’t pass without a hug and me telling him I was proud of him.
Helicopter parenting strikes me as a disservice to kids; only recently have we given a catchy name to an approach where we empower kids to figure things out, which helps them build confidence, which in turn promotes healthy self-esteem. They call us lighthouse parents.
I’d like Matthew to do a better job of looking over his shoulder as he crosses streets, but his general sense of caution makes him easy to trust. With an older brother who specializes in velocity, Matthew’s awareness and consideration don’t escape my eye.
What I love about this is that riding to school is something that Matthew requested. This means he filed away the awareness that asking for greater autonomy is a thing. This is growth he wanted and I can’t think of anything that will open the world to him as well as picking a destination and riding his bike there.
Riding to school isn’t sexy, but it’s a big step, with many more to follow.