Balance Bike

A couple months ago my in-laws came into town. 

They brought with them the bike that my wife had learned how to ride on when she was a kid.  An old Fuji.  All chrome.  Still in great condition.  It provided the perfect opportunity and some incentive for my five-year-old son, Tighe, to learn how to ride without training wheels.  So we took the bike into the shop, got some new tires put on, and then shined it up until it looked good as new. 

The moment finally came when Tighe mounted the bike. 

I stood alongside him, my hands on the handlebars and the back of the seat, positioned to help guide him.  Slowly he lifted his feet, began peddling, and we began moving down the street.  The only problem was that he was leaning like the Tower of Pisa!  It was seriously pathetic.  Despite my best efforts to straighten him out and get him upright, he kept leaning my direction.  After going up and down the street a few times, I called it quits.  I was drenched with sweat, my back was aching, and I was totally exhausted…and feeling kind of old…and honestly, a bit frustrated at his lack of progress.   

The next night we set out again.

I was convinced that perseverance and consistent effort was the key.  We just needed to keep trying.  What kind of a Dad would I be to give up on him?  So off we went—me running alongside with Tighe still leaning like crazy.  It didn’t work.  Despite about double the amount of time and multiple laps around the block, I still ended up drenched with sweat, ridiculously sore, embarrassingly frustrated, and feeling really old.  But I am no quitter.  McCarthys don’t quit.  And I was beginning to take this lack of progress a bit personal.  So I made a declaration to my wife to demonstrate my commitment – By tomorrow night, our son Tighe will be riding that bike on his own!  Mark my words!

More like eat my words.

After another night of running up and down the street the only thing to show for my efforts was another pile of sweaty clothes.  And now Josie was starting to get frustrated because of all the extra laundry she was doing.

I felt defeated...and embarrassed.

The next day while I was driving home from work I had an idea.

After I pulled into our garage I jumped out and immediately grabbed my toolset.  I got right to work taking the pedals off of Tighe’s new bike.  The entire family came outside to watch what I was doing.  As I finished up, I stood the bike upright and gave Tighe his new instructions.

Tighe, the last several nights we’ve been working really hard on learning how to ride this bike without much progress.  I’ve put too much pressure on you and myself and we’ve both ended up really frustrated.  I am really sorry.  But I think I’ve got a way to start over.  See, the problem is you don’t know how to balance yet.  And balance is the key to riding a bike.  So here’s what you are going to do.  You are going to learn how to balance with this bike by pushing off with your feet and coasting on the driveway.  You can practice as much or as little as you want.  It’s totally up to you.  I’ll put your pedals back on once you can coast all the way down the driveway.   

You want to know how long it took for him to learn how to ride???

One week. 

I kid you not.  One week.

Tighe practiced every single night and after one week I put the pedals back on his bike and he literally road off down the street without any assistance at all.  There was no running on my part.  No sweating.  No extra laundry.  Not an ounce of frustration.  No badgering or pressuring.  I had simply created the right conditions for him to learn a new skill.  But he had put forth the effort and accomplished it on his own.  And he knew it.  He beamed with pride knowing it had been his hard work and effort that led to this new ability. 

Over the past several months, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on this experience.  I’ve come to the conclusion that the shift I made in converting my son’s bike into a “balance bike” has huge implications not only for parenting, but for most relationships, leadership situations, and all of life.  Often times our (relational, leadership, and parenting) default is to run alongside others allowing them to put all their weight on us.  With good intentions and because we genuinely care, we keep running and bearing all the weight.  We might start out excited and enthusiastic.  But typically we end up exhausted, weary, sweaty, and burned out.  We end up frustrated.  And so do the people we are running alongside. 

I’m convinced we need to be giving out more balance bikes.

Instead of running alongside people bearing all their weight, we need to learn how to give the work back in a way that truly empowers people to act on their motivations.  To do so, however, we will need a new imagination for empowerment and, ultimately, a different set of skills. 

We are all too accustomed to swooping in, taking other people’s problems upon ourselves, playing the hero, and then stealing credit for whatever success was the result.  Such “support” ultimately cripples others, fosters codependency, and feeds our own narcissism.  Instead, we will need to have a clear understanding of where our responsibility starts and ends.  We will need to die to our savior-complex and need to fix or solve other people’s problems.  We will need to learn how to come underneath others, providing the right resources, and the right amount of encouragement for them to flourish.

In short, we will need to become more like Jesus.

 

Just read through the gospels and you’ll notice a sharp contrast between our standard weight bearing tactics and the way Jesus empowered and equipped those closest to him.  He didn’t do things for his disciples that they were supposed to do.  But he also didn’t abandon them to figure it out on their own.  He showed them, taught them, resourced them, and stayed present to them.  It wasn’t about less engagement, but a different kind of engagement—one that required more wisdom, discernment, and ingenuity than standard weight bearing tactics.  Jesus was masterful at giving out balance bikes.