I know...Abraham Lincoln walked 100 miles to school each day...(and so did my parents...) and I know that walking or bike riding is quite healthy...but!
I’m just not so sure. I worry about the kids that go on foot or scooter or bike or long board or some other way unaccompanied by a parent.
I’m lucky enough I can walk with my son. And everyday that I do, I’m glad. Not only do I have a few good moments to connect directly, find out about his plans, his day, what’s on his mind...but I can shudder through the heavy drafts left by the cars racing by. It’s not supposed to be a busy street. And it’s definitely not a major thoroughfare. It’s just a simple road getting people out of the neighborhood and on to work. Aaaah work...the place everybody is always late to!
So on the first half of our short walk, the cars are generally zooming. The second half gets us closer to school. Unfortunately on the side we approach from there is no 15 mph sign to slow people down. The 80% who are dropping kids off at school slow down to make the turn, but they too are in a hurry. And those fleeing the neighborhood who don’t have to make the turn...they swerve toward oncoming traffic to avoid the potential lineup for the turn.
Just seems like too much chance for error for me. I’m not so much worried about predators as I am about drivers. I also like the assurance that my son gets to school safely. Because I’ve seen how careless kids can be.
Before any of my kids went to school, that’s about 20 years ago now, perish the thought, I was driving past the same elementary school that my youngest attends and all his siblings before him. School had just let out so I was driving by very slowly. I was watching some kids head home on bikes and they were all racing and fooling around and happy to be let out! Quick as a blink one of those kids fell off his bike right in front of my car! Because I had my eye on those kids and I was driving slowly, I was able to stop. The kid got up, jumped back on his bike & caught up with his friends. But I was shaken enough to remember the incident crystal clearly all these years later.
When I drive to the middle school to pick my daughter up there, I am reminded of that time. There are kids riding bikes out of every orifice of the school, as fast or crazily as they can. They aren’t looking forward...or even sideways most of the time, they are looking backwards to find their friends. I breath a sigh of relief when I’m done with that pickup, which happily I don’t have to do very often. But I always wonder...do parents know what this after school scene looks like? Do they worry the same way I do?
Or am I just a worrier warrior? An over-protective, helicopter mom?
I’m walking now in the mornings. I drop my son off at school and walk on and around the larger part of the neighborhood. It’s a good little walk in the cool of the day. It’s fun to feel the hustle & bustle around me and not to be so much a part of it. On the other side of the school the 15 mph sign appears along with some crossing guards. Today as a couple cars zoomed by, I commented to the crossing guard that it didn’t look like 15 mph to me. She called it the “audubon crossing”. And further down, the other crossing guard was chatting to a friend a half a block away from the crossing. Not that there were walkers in danger, but I’m just saying!
I totally understand how both parents in a family have to work these days. I may not be far from that reality myself. But if it happens, I’ll figure out a way to make that commute as safe as possible.
It may have been dangerous too in Abraham Lincoln’s day. Walking through the woods with bears and beasts and bugs, we probably still have it pretty good.
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