Daddies and Bicycles

My greatest joy in life is watching my daughter Laura grow and learn. I knew that being blind would not diminish this enjoyment because I have learned many skills from my association with the National Federation of the Blind. Mostly I have learned to be confident in handling situations. I am even confident in handling those situations in which I have had no experience or little information. The Federation teaches that with confidence a blind person can succeed at most any task. Each time that Laura tries a new skill it becomes a new task to which I must adapt my blindness skills. Most of these adaptations are quite subtle and hardly noticeable except for one.

For Laura's third birthday I bought her an old style tricycle. This began a new form of mobility for her. I spent countless hours following her around on that tricycle. It was easy to manage her on that because the tricycle was loud enough for me to manage from a distance. I could sit on my front porch and listen to where she went. She was slow enough for me to run and catch her if she was going out-of-control or somewhere I didn't want her to go. At her fourth birthday she graduated to a regular bicycle with training wheels. Much like the tricycle the bicycle with training wheels was loud and not so fast. This expanded her range from that of the tricycle, but was still not a problem for me to manage. I set clearly defined boundaries for her to stay within and she usually obeyed. Setting these boundaries allowed me to monitor her easily. She had a great time and so did I. When she wanted a larger riding area we would go to the park and I would follow her around the running track. I got great exercise and she had lots of fun.

The fifth birthday came along and it was time for her to ride without training wheels. She was very hesitant to allow me to take the wheels off of her bicycle and, as fate would have it, one day her training wheels broke. Her only choice was to ride without them or not at all. Laura looked upon this as a very threatening situation, and her first response was to say, with all of the faith and confidence that a little girl has in her father, "Daddy you are going to teach me!"

I thought to myself, "Teach you? To ride without training wheels? To ride a bicycle fast and far? Not me-I cant see. I'm blind little girl, or have you forgotten that fact? So what do I do now? I am still daddy, blind or not it is my job to teach her."

I was always a good bike rider during my childhood. I can remember the day I learned to ride my white and blue "Western Auto Flyer" without training wheels, constantly falling until I got the balance right and took off. When I was Laura's age I had very poor eyesight. I had sight in one eye only and that eye wasn't very good, but it never slowed me from riding my bike. Later, when I completely lost my sight at age twelve, I continued to ride my bicycle, which by then was a really fast green and white "Western Auto Flyer" with three gears. Using my hearing to draw a mental image of my surroundings along with the bicycle wheels to tell me if I were straying off the path I rode with much enjoyment.

A commonly held misconception of blindness is that when a person looses sight then their hearing gets better. I always wondered, if that were true, would people who are deaf want to loose their sight so that they could hear. Of course the loss of sight has no effect upon hearing, but it does force a person to pay attention to sounds and use them in different ways. Just as I used sound to keep up with Laura when she was riding her tricycle and just as I used sound to help me navigate on my bicycle, I use my hearing for many everyday task that a sighted person would use sight. My blindness didn't stop me from riding a bicycle as a child, but, now came the time for me to teach my daughter to ride. How on earth was I going to accomplish this task? Riding a bicycle without training wheels meant greater speed and distance. I knew that no longer could I depend upon following her, it also meant that the bike would not make as much noise.

First things first, she had to be taught to ride without training wheels, and she had just assigned me the task. I knew that Laura would not accept me getting one of my sighted friends to help, nor really could I. This was one of those missions that could only be done by Daddy.

The National Federation of the Blind had already equipped me for the task. I had received the best long white cane training from blind people in NFB, and I had heard and read a thousand times from the Federation that, with a positive attitude and confidence in myself, I could accomplish anything. Armed with this reminder I set out to conduct the first lesson in bike riding.

Laura put her helmet on and climbed aboard the bike with me holding it steady. I started with a lecture-- beginning by telling her that she would fall and that it might hurt some but not to worry. With that inspiring lecture she began climbing off of the bike, I quickly realized that I should shut up and get on with the job at hand. I started with my cane in one hand and the handle bars of the bike in the other. We walked and ran along like that for a few minutes. This was working, in so much as I was finding my way just fine with my cane and holding up the bike, but she was not learning much at all. So I did what any father would do. I put one hand on the back of the seat and the other on a handle bar and told her to pedal and sit up straight. I took about two steps and gave the bike a good shove. As predicted she went about ten feet and crashed. The next time she went about twenty feet and so on until she was riding freely.

It is years later and Laura loves bike riding and she is quite good at it. Soon she will be big enough to drive a two-seater bike and she and I will have great enjoyment together. Blindness has always been just one of my characteristics to Laura, just like hair loss. When all was said and done, my blindness had no impact upon my ability to teach bike riding. What did have an impact was Laura's unwavering trust in her Daddy's ability to take care of any situation. She completely expected that I would teach her.

Expectations for blind children and adults are far often not set very high and because of that many people do not ever achieve as much as their natural gifts would allow them. This is why we in the National Federation of the Blind promote that anyone, no matter the limitation, with high expectations can compete and enjoy life.

No matter what Laura and I were doing: traveling alone through the airport, going to strange places, teaching swimming or just being a daddy I have always done my best to live the Federation's philosophy of blindness. This philosophy says that blindness is nothing more than a physical nuisance, and with opportunity and confidence one can lead an enjoyable life. Every blind child I have the opportunity to serve, or every newly blinded adult that I encounter I always have for them the same high expectations of competence that Laura has for me.

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