‘I think it’s terrifying that he cycles to school alone’
Image: Getty Images
Every day Joan dies a thousand deaths when son Callum cycles to school alone. While: he is eleven. She thinks it’s high time to cut that umbilical cord.
“Soon in group seven everyone will cycle to school without parents.” Callum, six years old and sitting safely on the back of me, tells it triumphantly. I react with horror and disbelief. Even though his school is 1.4 kilometers from our house and it’s a ten-minute stretch, I can’t imagine ‘only cycling’ at all. Certainly not because there is an unclear intersection on the route. I find the thought that my man would ever have to go through Amsterdam traffic on his own unbearable.
Unaware of my musings, Callum lists which of his friends’ older siblings were allowed to do this even in sixth grade. I joke that it is different if you have several children, then you can run a risk. Meanwhile I think: not going to happen. Never. I’ll even accompany you if you have to go to university later.
Contents
Cycling only
Now, a few years later, his prediction has come true and I die a thousand deaths every day. Callum – now in group seven – cycles to school on a sturdy transport bike with classmate Feline, who lives two blocks away. I prefer to run after him or follow him secretly from a distance. I think it’s terrifying that he goes on his own.
Of course, he passed his traffic exam neatly and we practiced the route all summer holidays. He knows how to look left-right-left and hold out his hands and he has received a telephone from us especially for this expedition. With this he calls every morning as soon as he has arrived. To avoid being embarrassed in front of his class, he only has to ring the bell once. He does it faithfully, but that one time he forgets I call the caretaker in a complete panic at 8.35 am: is Callum perhaps already in class HBB?
To grow up
Letting go, I think it’s a task. I’m just really bad at it. For me, this first manifested itself when Callum was five months old. At the consultation office I was kindly informed whether I had already started with a vegetable practice snack. I gave the doctor a glassy look: vegetable snack? How so? He drank mom’s milk nicely. I would give him the bottle all year round, seemed so easy to me. He was a baby, they took everything liquid, didn’t they? Did I know that they can already stow away bread and pasta at nine months? It was such a disappointment to me that he was no longer completely dependent.
“With everything he could, I just thought: please stay small”
Anyway, I thought he grew up so fast. That whole teeny-tiny thing, the larval part, in which they lie on your chest for hours, barely lasted about eight weeks. Then Callum wanted to turn around, sit, make noises and grab toys. The aunts and grandpa and grandma clapped their hands at everything he could, but all I thought was, please stay small.
“The umbilical cord between us is still stuck”, I always shout when someone points out that I should let my son be more free. Maybe because I was a single mother when I had him, after waiting ten years for him to arrive. Ten years in which I had four miscarriages. But it can also be a clumsy character trait. Or something motherly, because I have more friends who prefer to lock their children in golden cages. Luckily I’m not the only one.
“Out of the garden? Did he know how many child molesters were out there?”
It’s that I started dating, otherwise Callum would still be in the front yard with the playhouse and trampoline. He was four and a half when my friend Dennis asked when my son could go out in the garden. He had looked at it that way for a while and thought that Callum might enjoy swinging with the neighborhood kids on the playground in front of our house. uh… never? Did he know how many child molesters and others predators were walking around? With me behind the fence seemed so safe. Of course I gave in to this too. Admittedly I sat on the bench near the sandbox like an akela for the first few weeks, but when that also became a bit ridiculous, I let go. Although I still checked everything about ten times an hour through the kitchen window.
Read also – Child suddenly in the upper years: ‘Have I let him go enough?’ >
To school for the first time
In the same period, Callum also went to school for the first time. Until then he was at the nursery and I could read and write with his lovely teachers. Even though I called three times a day to ask how things were going, no one made a fuss about it. When I picked him up or brought him back, I took the time to go through the day or night with them. With Callum off to kindergarten, a kiss and hug from my son proved to be the only carryover.
I had planned that he would only go to school for half days during the first month and agreed this with my clients. Could he and I calmly get used to the idea. That Monday, I walked Callum to his class with a knot in my stomach.
“Now I walked out of the building sobbing, straight to the bakery to comfort myself”
On the way I had told him that we would buy something nice in the toy store in the afternoon if he didn’t cry when we said goodbye. He looked at me with a surprised look: huh, crying? Why? School was fun, wasn’t it? That’s right, the only one who didn’t keep it dry was myself. I once saw Queen Máxima in tears on the news because she took Amalia to kindergarten. At the time I thought that was so ridiculous. Now I myself walked out of the building sobbing, straight to the bakery to comfort myself with something delicious.
The child did not need to be rewarded. Callum hadn’t been in any trouble, as it turned out when I came to pick him up again at noon. He stated that school was really cool and that from now on he wanted to go full days and not half days like the other kids. A week later he asked if he could stay over too and I suddenly had the whole adjustment month to myself.
Balance
I found it difficult that he had suddenly grown so big and seemed to need me less. Of course I don’t want a son who is still at home with his mummy at thirty, I want Callum to grow up to be an independent, well-balanced boy. So far it works fine. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy for his mother. The balance between letting go of the reins and tightening them still remains a daily one struggle.
Staying with a boyfriend is of course okay, but that time a boy from his class asked him to go to a holiday home somewhere in the woods for a weekend, together with his father, I just made up an excuse. I didn’t know the kid in question and his father, and the thought of a man alone with two kids put a funny taste in my mouth. Call me exaggerated or suspicious, but I didn’t dare give my Brussels sprout.
Letting go
Riding with others, also such a creepy thing. “He’s being brought home” as a plus on an invitation to a birthday party means three swallows for me. Do they drive carefully? Aren’t there too many children in a car? Do they wear seat belts? Aren’t they speeding? Callum’s best friend likes to brag that his parents can cover the distance from Amsterdam to Eindhoven in an hour. I don’t exactly think it’s a recommendation, if you consider that a normal person takes almost double that. Especially not with my son.
“I love to drive to the away games myself, at least I’m sure he will arrive in one piece”
Usually I come up with a reason to bring him to playdates or pick him up from a party myself, then I say: “He gets carsick easily, otherwise he might spit in your car”, or: “We happen to be in the area. ” I also deliberately didn’t sign up for the football carpool app group. I love driving to the away games myself, at least I’m sure he’ll get there in one piece.
training
He is allowed to cycle to his own football club with his teammate, because he does not have to cross a dangerous road and it is through a park with neat cycle paths, but I always pick him up. Callum can’t go back in the twilight, no matter how many guys cycle back with him.
In any case, I prefer to be present at his training sessions and matches in case something happens. That it’s not an exaggeration is proven by the one time I wasn’t there, because I had tickets for a theater performance and Callum was unexpectedly in the final of the school football tournament. It was precisely then that he collided with the keeper, resulting in a slight concussion. I was just entering the room when my phone rang. It was his teacher who said: “Joan, don’t be alarmed, everything is under control, but….” I could cry and because of the stress I hardly saw anything of the performance.
Read also – Mariette: ‘I stood waving along the line with a bleeding mother’s heart’ >
Self-reliant
Because prevention is better than cure, I try to raise Callum self-aware and self-reliant. One day he has to – oh horror – go to secondary school, now I find it terrifying if he wants to go to the soccer field in the neighborhood on his own. I can’t always come along and that would be weird too; he’s just eleven now, so you don’t want chaperones anymore. I have to make him recover. I do this, among other things, by telling him about possible dangers and how he should respond to them.
Dani, a football buddy of his, was recently robbed of his iPhone 13 in the middle of the day. Dani was catching Pokémons in the neighborhood when an older boy on a scooter snatched his new phone from his hands. Dani was devastated and developed a street fear because of it.
I discussed that incident with Callum at length, especially since he quite heroically claimed that he himself would never have his phone stolen. He was so strong, he would fight like a ninja for a while. I didn’t think that comment was that smart and risky too. I urged him that whatever they want to steal from him (his bike/jacket/bag), he must hand it over without mercy. Don’t argue, please don’t take a beating.
In case of emergency
At the idea alone I almost stay in it, but it is reality if I let him do his own thing more. After all, there are bad people and they also hang around (secured) schoolyards, playgrounds and football fields. When choosing stuff, we now deliberately already take a less expensive variant. A second or third hand mobile phone is fine and he has a decent bike and not a supersonic electric or fat bike of 2000 euros.
“Okay, it takes effort, but little by little the umbilical cord is being cut”
He also knows my number by heart and I teach him to look for a mother in case of emergency. If he feels threatened, find a woman with a baby stroller or child and tell her you’re scared. She will call me for you or help you. I completely trust the maternal instinct of my fellow mothers in that regard. And okay, it takes effort, but little by little the umbilical cord is being cut.
This article appears in Kek Mama 12-2022.
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