Daddy Tail

The other afternoon, the Gay Uncle was out in his yard studying the new growth on his forsythia–another of his compulsive daily habits–when he heard a strange rumbling. Imagining it might be a logging truck or ATV-er, he prepared his best scowl, but was surprised to see an eleven year old girl on a pink bicycle coming down the road. Unless she weighed about four hundred pounds, or was in terrible gastric distress, she had no right to be making this noise, and he stared at her, trying to figure out what was up. He finally recognized her as an unfortunately pie-faced little neighbor child–who had, happily, finally started growing into her head–and smiled and started to wave, pleased to see a kid enjoying the outdoors in a free-spirited and unstructured way. Realizing the tremor was unconnected to her locomotion, he even thought to warn her of the eminent approach of a tractor or bulldozer from her rear. But it was then that he noticed the true source of the noise. It was her father, trailing about fifteen feet behind her in a Bobcat Utility Vehicle like the one pictured above: a gasoline powered, four-wheel drive, go-anywhere golf cart. The Gay Uncle’s scowl returned. It wasn’t just the unnecessary carbon footprint that outraged him. Or the dorkiness of an gentleman farmer/urban second-home owner driving one of these down a public road. It was the fact that the dad was following this kid around at all while she rode through our rural streets. The G.U. recently recorded a piece for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered critiquing the short tether that contemporary parents keep on their tweens; a British study claimed that a full third of 11-15 year olds in the U.K. have never been allowed outside of the house alone. He strongly advocates letting your youth off the leash. Kids this age need unstructured free time away from their folks to make sense of the world and improvise responses to new input. If we don’t want them to become a part of Generation XL, they also need a space bigger than their living room to roam around in. This girl was certainly getting some exercise, but under the constantly prying eye of her father, who kept his gaze trained on her rear tire as she motored up the hill. Gunc wondered if he was simply escorting her somewhere, but he saw them pass by a few more times that afternoon and since, as if he was running a horse. Note to parents: teach your almost-teenagers how to navigate the world so they don’t live in fear of it, and give them some room to become themselves. The world is honestly not as dangerous as you think.