29. UNASHAMED PARENTAL BIAS

Carbon Fibre Basket. Fully suspension dolly seat. Super duper over/under slung single action dingly bell. It as it all....

Look at that piece of finely engineered bicycle. Went for a ride with my daughter on it the other day. Which is to say she was on that bike and I was on mine. I have ridden her bike but it’s not very comfortable and she gets nervous I might break it (a fear that has some validity) so I don’t do it anymore. And I was so proud. Half way to school and back we made it and up some fairly big hills (for a 7 year old). Brilliant for her confidence it was too. So brilliant in fact that she ripped down the first part of our dirt driveway straight into a rut and over her handlebars.

Knocked her shoe right off.

Cried for about 2 minutes then laughed at the fact that her shoe had come off. Little hard arse.

I can tell she’s still not entirely convinced about the whole bicycle thing though. For starters she keeps bringing up Pony Club and referring to all of the horses we pass on the way to school (which is a lot) by their names (or names she has made up for them) which I suspect is not a good sign.

If only she can figure out what a good wicket she could be on. I mean lets be honest – If she gets into cycling she’s going to get some totally righteous gear. It’s not like she’s ever going to get into Rugby or any of those other ‘boy’ sports so she might as well gouge me for everything she can on the bicycle front.

Don’t get the wrong idea here. I’m not actually going to stop her doing say, netball or ballet or horses (though I’ll be mounting some fairly robust financial responsibility arguments for the latter because NO WAY am I going to get stuck with feeding, exercising and ultimately digging a bloody great hole for a pony when she decides she’s rather more interested in boys and whatever Facebook has morphed into by that time) and I’ll be right there cheering/quietly applauding her all the way.

But the fact remains – I like cycling. So if she likes cycling she’s much more likely to get a really good bike than, say a really good netball if that turns out to be her thing.

I’m sure that makes me a bad father.

Next: Intentionally damaging my child.