Parenthood
Let's lace up the skates
Bryan is getting a chance to bond with his son Christopher (3 years) through sharing his love of skating
Finding an activity to do with my son that would be a bonding experience was important to me from the get-go. Even before he was born I thought of myself as a bit of “tough” dad - with two boys I think it will be a necessary parenting style - but it didn’t take long after he appeared for me to soften up and have visions of the two of us out on our own playing games together and “running amok” in the great outdoors; when he got older of taking trips on our own, leaving mom at home while us “men” went camping under the stars, hiking in the mountains of British Columbia (our home province) and building a fire for our dinner... being the best of friends.
Perhaps it is a bit stereotypical to think that I have to bond with my boy while doing typically male activities, but that was not my intention In fact, time cooking in the kitchen would be great, but I think we might need to wait for him to get a little bit older. I have always just wanted to have a “special” time with him where we could do something on our own - regardless of what it was - where he would enjoy himself and we could bond as father and son. The activity could have been anything under the sun, but it turned out to be an easy choice, come time to decide. Hailing from Canada, skating lessons (in preparation for ice hockey) were the obvious choice.
There are typically several rinks in a neighbourhood back home so comparatively I had to search quite a bit for lessons in the UK. But eventually I found a rink not too far from the house, the right class for his age, and a decent time on Saturday mornings. A small glimmer of hope took hold in my heart that Chris would start to enjoy the ice hockey that I put on the TV more than than the rugby that currently catches his fancy; and then I let myself get carried away and thought that it was a foregone conclusion that he would be the next NHL superstar. I pictured an easy life in (early) retirement, content in the knowledge that he would be ever grateful to his dad for introducing him to the sport at an early age helping nurture his talent into superstardom … typical dreams a dad would have of his boy making it into the Premier League, writing the next classic novel or movie ….
Our first lesson didn’t quite go as I would have hoped, although it wasn’t altogether different from what I had expected. Chris was quickly introduced to the concept of “penguin steps” as a basic skill, and then was also quickly introduced to … falling on his behind. He was not impressed with this and the tears came fast and furious. He wanted to be better at skating right from the start, and wasn’t impressed that he was not an expert. He crawled off the ice at one point, I had to pick him up and comfort him, but do my very best to get him back on the ice. I didn’t want him to hate me for putting him back on the ice, but I wanted him to learn the lesson early that persistence pays off.