After four years of biking both my kids to school every day, Thursday marked the end of an era and I wanted to share how important this was to me: 640+ Bike Rides to School & Why It Meant Everything
Yeah, I lost it. I kinda thought I might, but as I biked with my son on his last day of elementary school and our last day ever of me biking with him…
The dad emotions hit me hard, which we’ll get to…
By my count we’ve covered about 2,400 miles together these last four years of biking to school… That’s an entire trip across country…
The first three years I biked with both my son and my daughter, but she’s moved up to middle and bikes with her friends…
It’s the natural progression of parenthood and childhood and I’d be 100% lying if I said every day was great…
Most were fine… Some were pleasant… Some with tantrums and arguments and kids refusing to slow down or speed up were frustrating as hell…
My daughter went about 3 weeks straight back in 3rd grade with the sole mission of going way too fast for my son (then in 2nd) to keep up on his little bike… Which would leave me playing dad in the middle, yelling ahead to her to slow down and behind to him to relax…
Good times…
But most mornings were ordinary and by that I mean exceptional… The stuff that day-to-day life is made of with little kids that flies by…
We talked about space and insects and state capitols… We discussed best school lunches and dinosaurs and ice cream flavors… We debated Moana vs. Ariel and Macho Man vs. John Cena… We covered everything…
2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade…
It is the greatest privilege of dad life to be able to spend this uninterrupted time with my kids, just us, biking to school in the sun and fresh air for 25 minutes….
No screens. No distractions. Nobody else…
Then my daughter moved up and this year it was just me and my boy. 10 at the start of the year, 11 now…
And he’s a little dude through and through… football, hoops, WWE, music, action movies…
We’ve discussed history and science and the Olympics and the best decades… I’ve imparted my wisdom on everything from Michael Crichton books to Terminator 2 to LL Cool J to Bo Jackson highlights…
The kid could slide into the early 90s and not miss a bit haha…
And damn will I miss our daily morning hang time. About sports. About life. About school and friends…
And sure, it’s just a bike ride. We have a million things we do together and I’m going to replace the ride with nightly dog walks with me so we still have our time…
But this is the end of a dad era…
And yes, when he walked over to the bike rack today, and he did his last, goofy, LA Knight “YEAH!” pointing goodbye (that I do back, it’s our thing)…
I lost it… waterworks… a blubbering mess… like i said, i kinda knew i would… but i was cool with it. earned it in a way. these 2,400 miles have been glorious and i’ll remember them collectively for the rest of my life.
The lesson:
Spend daily time with your kids outside, away from screens and friends and distractions. Just you. Find a thing… a bike ride… a walk… a catch… whatever…
But do it and do it most days…
It’s time spent that you will never regret.
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