I was just "flipping" through some photos I took. Nobody'll confuse my work with that of Henri-Cartier Bresson, but I have a couple of pictures I like. Here's one I took a couple of weeks ago when I was riding on the Rockaway Boardwalk:
It was interesting to see the two boys with their mother. A woman I knew--a former co-worker--who used to live out that way sometimes rode with her daughters along that boardwalk. I accompanied them a couple of times; I enjoyed the company of the mother and her daughters. And, they turned out to be better cyclists than I'd anticipated.
I can recall a few other times when I've seen mothers riding with daughters, or with their husbands and kids. However, I don't think I've ever seen a woman cycling with her boys, but not her husband or daughters, if she had them. On the other hand, when I've seen boys on tricycles or bicycles with training wheels, the adult who was watching over them was a female--usually the mother, from what I could tell. I've seen fathers or other adult males riding with young boys, but never accompanying or supervising them as the woman in the photo did.
As I remember, my mother and grandmother took me to the park or watched over me as I toddered along the sidewalks in our neighborhood. Those memories are sunny. That's most likely because we went out only on nice days.
But neither they nor my father, or any other relatives, rode with me--at least as best as I can recall. To be fair, almost no adults rode bikes in those days, at least in the US. And, as I now realize, my parents may not have had enough money to buy bikes for themselves. After all, the bikes I rode as a kid were gifts or hand-me-downs. Worst of all, they were very busy, and thus very tired, so much of the time.
How involved were your family members in your childhood and adolescent cycling experiences?
