😭 This is a beautiful, beautiful story, Katherine. You’ve taught your boy well, and I could relate so much as I thought back to my own son showing me all the details of his red mustang, the first car that he bought a few years back. Those raspberries must have tasted divine! 🧡
I always tell people if you’re going to keep the tech away, especially for boys (sorry?), you need to give them something else to do that’s exciting. My son isn’t going to just pick up a book. That would be great but it’s not our reality. Scouts has been indispensable for us. He has a collection of knives, he can build a fire, he has a BB gun. We let him ride the city bus in the neighborhood around age 12. We let him take apart 2 old computers that we kind of wanted to keep but knew we could give him hours of entertainment this way. When he whines about tech I ask him how many of his friends do any of the above and the answer is almost none. he is finally old enough to realize that this stuff is better than a few extra hours of video games per week.
You have summed up the struggle of parenting. You can live life as an example for your kids to follow, but you cannot make them follow your path. Dirt bikes are a good symbol. Like you, I hate ICE vehicles, but heaven knows I used them most of my life, including "dirt" bikes, mostly on a farm, or on back roads in Africa. Looking back I know I contributed to the problem we now face, watching our respective country-sides burn even to urban areas. We know fossil fuels are wrong, but it is an entire system problem, not just an individual one. Your son is pulled many ways and has to make his own mistakes, even as parents struggle to hold our tongues knowing a choice may not be the best. Yet the planet is dying. Can we work to reverse that status even as our loved ones make choices that contradict that effort? I hope so, but the system we live in will place roadblocks in that path, just like the rock that threw me head over handlebars on a dirt bike when a took a turn just a little bit tight. I was fine, but it was a lesson I had to learn at 17, self-taught. Electric bikes are a lot safer, and healthier, but he will have to figure that out on his own while you write about it.
My oldest (14) is very goal oriented as well. It is simultaneously stunning and terrifying to watch them get after it in the real world, isn't it?
Good for you for allowing him the joy of working for a personal goal and gaining experience and freedom along the way. That is a huge part of becoming a man.
Confronting then surrendering the illusion of control is one of the hardest things we do as a parent, but it is central to the task of raising competent human beings in the world. A dirt bike would have challenged me for sure, but so did drivers licenses, weeks-long climbing/camping with friends, college choices 1600 miles away, or summers spent traveling, but those are also the experiences that made my kids into the independent adults that they are, at home in the world. Cheers, Mama!
This is a tough one. We drive electric. At six my daughter observed someone “rolling coal” on us and was absolutely irate. She has been anti-ICE vehicle since. I’m hoping it sticks. Though I’m sure she’ll come up with something else to try me. This is good reminder that they need to learn and experience for themselves.
😭 This is a beautiful, beautiful story, Katherine. You’ve taught your boy well, and I could relate so much as I thought back to my own son showing me all the details of his red mustang, the first car that he bought a few years back. Those raspberries must have tasted divine! 🧡
I always tell people if you’re going to keep the tech away, especially for boys (sorry?), you need to give them something else to do that’s exciting. My son isn’t going to just pick up a book. That would be great but it’s not our reality. Scouts has been indispensable for us. He has a collection of knives, he can build a fire, he has a BB gun. We let him ride the city bus in the neighborhood around age 12. We let him take apart 2 old computers that we kind of wanted to keep but knew we could give him hours of entertainment this way. When he whines about tech I ask him how many of his friends do any of the above and the answer is almost none. he is finally old enough to realize that this stuff is better than a few extra hours of video games per week.
You have summed up the struggle of parenting. You can live life as an example for your kids to follow, but you cannot make them follow your path. Dirt bikes are a good symbol. Like you, I hate ICE vehicles, but heaven knows I used them most of my life, including "dirt" bikes, mostly on a farm, or on back roads in Africa. Looking back I know I contributed to the problem we now face, watching our respective country-sides burn even to urban areas. We know fossil fuels are wrong, but it is an entire system problem, not just an individual one. Your son is pulled many ways and has to make his own mistakes, even as parents struggle to hold our tongues knowing a choice may not be the best. Yet the planet is dying. Can we work to reverse that status even as our loved ones make choices that contradict that effort? I hope so, but the system we live in will place roadblocks in that path, just like the rock that threw me head over handlebars on a dirt bike when a took a turn just a little bit tight. I was fine, but it was a lesson I had to learn at 17, self-taught. Electric bikes are a lot safer, and healthier, but he will have to figure that out on his own while you write about it.
My oldest (14) is very goal oriented as well. It is simultaneously stunning and terrifying to watch them get after it in the real world, isn't it?
Good for you for allowing him the joy of working for a personal goal and gaining experience and freedom along the way. That is a huge part of becoming a man.
Confronting then surrendering the illusion of control is one of the hardest things we do as a parent, but it is central to the task of raising competent human beings in the world. A dirt bike would have challenged me for sure, but so did drivers licenses, weeks-long climbing/camping with friends, college choices 1600 miles away, or summers spent traveling, but those are also the experiences that made my kids into the independent adults that they are, at home in the world. Cheers, Mama!
This is a tough one. We drive electric. At six my daughter observed someone “rolling coal” on us and was absolutely irate. She has been anti-ICE vehicle since. I’m hoping it sticks. Though I’m sure she’ll come up with something else to try me. This is good reminder that they need to learn and experience for themselves.
So excited for the new book!