Thursday, January 24, 2008

She rocks

It was suggested that I sounded like a grumpy old stay-off-my-lawn guy in my last post. Maybe I did. That's OK. People who break glass on bike paths deserve an good ass kickin', in my opinion.

But don't get the wrong idea about my view of teenagers.

Not long ago, I stumbled into the garage at the end of a tough day, after a tiring commute home in fresh snow.

As I stood in the garage shaking snow off my my clothes, my very cool daughter walked out and put a big mug of hot chocolate in my hand.

Teenagers ain't all bad. Mine isn't, anyway.

She rides a mountain bike, too. I don't think it's a coincidence. Most of the coolest kids I know are kids who ride.

Teach your children well. Take 'em out on rides.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

here here. I agree with the broken glass on the sidewalk opinion. There's just no need for it. But there are good kids out there. Mine prove that to me quite often. And its not to say that there isn't some good in those that had broken the bottles on the sidewalk. They just need more time to encounter a few more people with a better standard to bring it out in them.

Jerome said...

Damn Straight!

WheelDancer said...

I agree with the broken glass perspective; it pisses me off that I have to have Kevlar tires on all my commuting bikes since I am under a deadline to get where I am going and can't afford the time to fix the number of flats I would otherwise have.

...but...

I don't have kids but still find many of them to be quite fine, heck I was even one myself once... It all depends on whether they were raised to respect others and understand that while they can choose their behavior, they can't choose the consequences. They need to be taught that if they break glass on bike paths, someone will suffer as a result. I remember my father stopping me when I dropped a wrapper on the ground on a hike (first step is parents being involved with their kids...) and commenting on how pretty it was to be in the woods and then asked me if it would still be this pretty if there were piles of trash lying around. Then he asked who I thought was going to pick up my trash so the next kid could enjoy how nice the woods was. I got the point...