On yer bike!
A long overdue seven-year-old ditches the training wheels
It’s seems hard to believe that my seven-year-old daughter can’t ride a bicycle without training wheels. When I was seven, I was racing my bike down the Big Hill near our house and jumping over ramps with eleven-year-old boys. And trust me, this was a whopper of a hill not just one of those meek little rises that you revisit when you’re thirty and realize it was just your seven-year-old size that made it appear large (like the extraordinary experience I had with the Monopoly board at age twenty-five – “But it’s so teensy!”).
It feels kind of negligent not teaching Ella how to ride a bike earlier. She was also a late swimmer (sacrilege in Australia where swimming is part of the everyday lifestyle of, like, everyone and where children as young as eighteen months zip through the water like Antipodean dolphins). I’ve raised this fact many times with my husband. “We’ve failed the kids… who in Australia can’t ride a bike or swim after age three?” I’ve wailed many a time during these past three years in Beijing. Being the practical, down-to-earth one, my husband immediately reminds (and mollifies) me that - sure, our kids might not be able to ride bikes or swim Olympic laps, but they can speak some semblance of another language, are having a multi-cultural experience most kids will never have the privilege of knowing and have already laid foot in six different countries in their very short lives.
Bringing kids to Beijing certainly has pros and cons. Advantages and disadvantages. Pluses and minuses.
I guess the reasons Ella can’t ride a bicycle without training wheels are many. Firstly, we arrived in Beijing when she was only four and had not yet owned a bike. Secondly, we live in a high rise apartment with no BMX track and no car-less cul-de-sac or kid-friendly driveway out the front door. Thirdly, although she has owned a bike for three years, the limit of Ella’s cycling travels have been around and around the considerable girth of our open-plan living room. Lastly, she is not an overly sporty child (although she does love to dance and spins a mean hula hoop around her skinny hips). Yes, our Ella would much prefer to laze like a kitten in the sunshine and while away the hours inside a good book, whiz around a computer screen, knead sticky dough for scones, create luscious artwork (with sparkles) or design and sew haute couture for her teddy bears, than pull a single bead of sweat from her subcutaneous sweat glands.
So. As part of our summer holiday nine-week Debacle, my husband has deigned to make use of this protracted time to teach Ella how to ride trainer-less (and also to teach Riley to swim floatie-less, but that’s another blog). Alas, she has been less than enthusiastic. Despite her physical adeptness (she is one of these kids who can actually physically perform better than her own brain believes she can), she honestly feels she can’t do it. And in classic Ella form, what she believes she can’t do, she can’t do (part of the human condition, no?). Thankfully, her parents are persistent and ceaselessly encouraging, and our little girl (also thankfully) is prone to catching our enthusiasm, and responds marvelously to praise (who doesn’t?), not to mention the fact that she can – gasp! – actually do this.
Yesterday was her first big session. The sunshine was out and she was feeling pumped, having had just come through a short psyche sitting with Dad. Although that fatalistic self-disbelief was still in her eyes, I could also see a glint of determination. It didn’t last long. She did try. But it took two grownups, lots of bolstering and endless coaching from all sides. She wanted to give up several times but we refused – absolutely refused, meanies that we are. Yes, she fell, yes, she tumbled. But the grazes were insignificant in light of the important challenge before her. I was so proud. She cruised along for several inches, several times and that was miles of pride for me.
Today she is in for another session. And tomorrow. And the day after that. Despite her reluctance, she is a fast learner, and with her mother incessantly insisting there is nothing like soaring down a Big Hill on a bicycle, with your legs sticking out like thumbs and the breeze whooshing your hair from your face, she is bound to catch the “I can fly!” fever eventually. I’m figuring if she continues on this trajectory, she will be free-wheeling in less than a week.
Expect an update.
Tania McCartney
Comments Add a public comment
-
-
-
-
Phew! Thanks for setting my neglectful-parent mind at ease. I guess I am comparing her to my nephews at home who can scale indoor climbing walls, swim, ride bikes and haul in 3kg fish from their dad's dinghy - and they're only 3 and 6.
I bet they couldn't bargain at Ya Show for Hello Kitty earrings with the finesse my Ella can, though!
;)
-
-
My roommate is from Chongqing and didn't learn to ride a bike until college. If you know anything about Chongqing, you know that bike riding is impossible as the city is built entirely on mountains and hills.
BTW, I need Ella to teach me some bargaining skills!!
-
-
Hi there!!
I have the feeling you are missing out something here. I do not know if your are a good mother or not BUT teaching your kids how to ride a bicycle is a MUST DO.
My parents did not and I was very sad and mocked by others who could (sometimes younger).
Your article awoke memories and I do not wish your lovely daughter goes through the same. You know better than me that kids can be cruel.
I am sure you or your husband could have spent some time not in a cul-de-sac but in a park (and they are quite a lot them around Beijing).
I think it is neglecting his own child in some ways.... Ella加油!!!!
-
-
alishan - I know, aren't we disgraceful, neglectful, terrible parents?! But don't worry yourself a moment longer... we're onto it!
Watch this space...
PS: I trust you are a veteran bike rider now. PPS: No bike-riding allowed in Beijing parks. We've tried.
-
-
Ok for the parks, which did not know. I am sure you will both do a good job :)
Good luck
-
-
Alishan, perhaps I have missed the point of your post...but I do feel that as parents, we are constantly make to feel guilt for so many things. "mother guilt" is something I had no idea about until I became one. It can be all consuming. I really think we should all be sticking together to support one another not posting accusations of neglect. Apologies if this was not your intent....I'm just sayin....
-
-
It's funny... although, like most parents, I've had 8 years of varying daily degrees of parental guilt (usually enforced upon me by everyone else's beliefs and expectations - hmmm, how unusual...), I've not felt at all guilty about Ella not learning to ride a bike without training wheels.
If I started freaking out about that, I might as well freak out about not teaching her to tap-dance, whistle through her fingers, juggle or skim precarious surfaces on a skateboard by age 3 (among a kajillion other things each individual child may deem important to learn).
I guess each family, each parent, each child, has their own "thing" and bicycle riding just doesn't happen to have rated above learning to swim, knit, sew (yes, our Ella can operate a sewing machine quite deftly), hoola hoop, roller blade, and conquer sudoku and beginner French and Mandarin (amongst a kajllion other things we've taught her).
Until now.
You might be interested to read my imminent bicycling update...
-
-
i can swim and bike but give me a knitting needle and I'm utterly useless. My hemming doesn't look so hot either...
© 2007 Beijing Ringier International Advertising Company. All rights reserved.
京ICP备05061149号
Seven's definitely not too late to learn how to ride a bike! Because I started out with training wheels, it took me until I was 8, I think, and I also didn't learn to swim 'til I was maybe 7. Just be careful about letting her into Beijing traffic once she learns (I'm guessing very soon if not today)!