Today I asked the @kidsisters to wash their bicycles, but I decided to make it social and fun by sending them to the old bridge crossing.
🪨 Rusty Rebar, River Rocks, & Rapids 🌊
I can remember my youth and the first time I got a bicycle without training wheels, and in those pre-internet days I think I washed my bike nearly every day. I have been trying to instill a similar sense of pride in my daughters concerning the care and maintenance of their bicycles, but this modern world is so different from the reality I faced as a kid.
I realize their 5+ year old iPads are worth more than all they toys and possessions I had when I was a kid. If they only knew all the neighbors' yards I mowed and gutters I cleaned, just to save up enough change to ride my bike into town and purchase a pack of baseball cards. The joy brought by purchasing those 5 pieces of cardboard and the rock-hard stick of gum inside was worth all the hours spent working throughout the week.
Wow! I just realized I sound like an old fart, perhaps I am now officially a dinosaur, and my outdated midwestern American farmer work ethic has no place in a digital world. I realize I shouldn't compare too much, but I constantly remind them how easy their lives are. A full day at Cambodian school is 4 hours, and due to the way things work here, only an hour or two at best is spent learning.
I can remember waking up in darkness on the farm and feeding the animals before walking almost 30 minutes to the rural bus stop. When I was 13 (my oldest daughter's age) I spent 10 hours physically at school each day due to being involved in after-school sports, and still managed to perform a long list of farm chores each week for my allowance and also spent 15 hours a week working at a machine shop doing grunt work like shoveling steel shavings.
Wait, What's This Post About? 🤔
Time to get back on topic with this post. My daughters are back home each day by 11:30am, often with no homework, and although they don't perform enough chores to secure a weekly allowance, they are tasked with washing the dishes and maintaining a clean room, but these two things are still a battle right now. You can imagine the look on their faces when I asked them to go and wash their bikes with soap and water at the river's edge 😠.
Luckily our neighbor girls find joy in any situation, and accompanied the @kidsisters to the other side of the river. I was on the opposite side of the river, but walked down to document this work-venture. The upset faces on my daughters quickly turned to smiles and laughter when the neighbor girls May-Yee and Nim began splashing water and swimming, showing that any situation can be instantly made fun.
While they were poking the water with their fingers, Nim and May-Yee immediately jumped in the river without hesitation, and immediately May-Yee began swimming across to me, navigating a swift current and lots of rusty rebar, the girl is fearless. In the end this mission went okay, and although I don't think they'll be washing their bikes again without me suggesting it, I sensed a wee bit of pride in them.
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Return from 🚲 Bike Washin' At The Old Bridge With The @KidSisters 🧼 to Justin Parke's Web3 Blog
