With great power...

Today Dutch and I biked to her soccer practice. It took forever, and I found it exhausting (I find many things exhausting, but it turns out that watching my child's vulnerable little body wobbling on her bike as a car passes her is particularly exhausting for me), but she was exhilarated and tremendously proud of herself.

For Dutch, riding her bike on the street is like getting a driver's license as a teenager. It represents both freedom and a step toward adulthood. For most Americans, riding a bike is a Kid Thing - you do it until you can drive, and it's not cool or useful. For Dutch, and many other kids growing up in inner Portland neighborhoods, riding a bike is an Adult Thing - you do it to get to grown-up places like work, and the grocery store. Many of the households she knows the best use bikes for much of their utilitarian travel, and she sees many more grownups on bikes than kids on bikes in the course of her day. (She is, of course, most impressed by the pretty grownups on pretty bikes, of which we have a steady supply in our neighborhood due to the Extremely Hip Coffee Shop around the corner.)

Anyway, I think that's pretty neat. I'm proud and delighted to be raising a kid for whom biking represents freedom, responsibility, and power. Even if she leaves the bike behind the moment she leaves home and buys an enormous SUV with 18 cup-holders, she'll have learned (at the very least) how to be a better car driver around bikes.

Also, she's just awesome. You should see her bopping along on her sparkly pink bike, her bony knees still flopping slightly out as she pedals, earnestly scanning her surroundings for delightful sightings (rainbows, tree houses, classmates) and possible dangers (cars, gravel, dogs, glass, CARS!). It'll make you laugh, and cringe, and go "awww!" and then be slightly impressed. (Or maybe that's just me.)

Come and visit! We can go for a ride!