Swearing on the Bus
A Walk Alone
Squirt started riding the bus this year, and he’s going to middle school so that apparently means riding a bus with middle schoolers and also high schoolers. Maybe that was always a thing, to cram students bound for wildly different destinations together, but it surprised me. I grew up so rural everyone from a kindergartener to a senior in high school had to ride the bus together ‘cause we were all going to the same place anyways. Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s different for Squirt because of the generational divide and what’s different simply because of the geography.
Nevertheless, some things haven’t changed — the high schoolers swear on the bus! Certainly my child would never do this, he’s an angel with a great example in his father who never ever uses “bad” words. But those darn high schoolers? Sounds like the bus driver has handed out some talkings-to. I find myself curious how the kids reacted because, honestly, my bus driver was the right hand of god. She saw everything, she knew everything, and if you fucked up enough that she’d say something then lord help you.
I’m proud that Squirt is riding the bus, which feels a little odd to say on the face of it, but there it is. Perhaps it’s better to say that I’m proud of the maturity that Squirt’s showing by riding the bus. He packs himself up in the morning, he makes his own breakfast, and he walks out the door to wander down to the road. A road where dumbasses take advantage of our straightaway to hit ninety-miles-an-hour and blast past the entrance to our neighborhood. Thirty years ago, I was that kind of dumbass and did this myself on the straightaway near my house once and passed a line of six cars. Mom was driving the car at the front of the line.
Ah, moving on…
My bus stop as a kid was in between two curves so everyone slowed down. My bus stop had a crowd of big kids to shepherd me along too. I could stand there for twenty minutes and not see a single other vehicle. Squirt’s bus stop is none of these things — it’s at the intersection with a straightaway that nobody slows down for, he’s all alone, and vehicles are much more common. There’s also an app to tell us when the bus will be there, an assigned seat, and a badge scanner for when he climbs aboard. We get electronic reports every Friday about it.
Squirt is growing up in a very different world. More watched. More directed. Less agency. The world has become a place that prepares the road for the child instead of preparing the child for the road.
Walking Away
Before I became a dad I didn’t really understand what it would mean to have my child grow up. I really didn’t grok how much parenting is actually balancing observation and guidance. When do I watch something happen as he makes his own choices? When do I shove him in a direction?
It’s hard to let him walk down to the bus stop alone. Hard to know he’s all alone at the entrance to our neighborhood where I know idiot kids with cars, idiots as stupid as I was, are not paying any goddamn attention to who might be crossing the road to get on a bus. Hard to say “remember to look both ways” one last time as he walks out the door and then go on with my life.
It will be just as hard when he drives to school the first time with his shiny new license. Closes the door of his dorm room as we head back home. Asks me to help him move in to his first house and then drive back to the one we shared for so long.
But that’s the job. To watch him walk away on his own. Parenting is just a slow decline from giving them every single thing to a point where they don’t actually need you to give them anything at all. Now if only that meant not worrying.
Squirt Says…
I would say that as time goes on and a child gets more mature [then] parents must give responsibility, let a child take chances, and let them make their own decisions for them to function as an adult properly. They must have these thing so they can do things for themselves when they come to adulthood.
Dad Responds…
Agreed. That’s why you’ll be mowing the lawn next year!
