#003 - The Bicycle Theft
Last week, I was on Reddit reading Am I The Asshole? posts and stumbled upon the story of a father who stole his daughter’s bicycle to "teach her a lesson" about… wanting to bike in an area where there were a lot of bicycle thefts, I guess? The said bicycle was locked in the trunk of her car and the point he was trying to make was that she shouldn’t have left it unattended. So, the man stole his daughter’s car keys and used them to steal the aforementioned bike.
No doubt, the man is a colossal asshole.
This thread reminded me that it happened to me also, although the circumstances were different. It was a long buried memory that I believe has more signification that I would’ve perhaps initially thought in regards to my life. I was maybe eight years old when my dad stole my bicycle to “teach me a lesson or whatever”. Perhaps I was seven or nine, but it was in that ballpark. My point is: it was way before I could understand anything about anything.
See, I was friends with this neighbourhood kid Dave. He’s the first friend I remember having and I thought he was cooler than shit for two reasons: 1) Dave had every toy a kid could ever dream about 2) He was the only person I would meet for the first eighteen years of my life who genuinely enjoyed the same things than I did with the same level of intensity. He was dead fucking serious about cartoon lore and video game culture long before it was cool.
My parents didn’t like Dave at all and didn’t want me to hang out with him. If you’re a parent yourself, I can already anticipate your questions: was Dave a little spoiled shit? Did his mere existence lead you to making shitty, materialistic demands to your parents? The answer to the first question is no. Dave was rather meek and polite. I had much shittier, entitled friends that my parents liked more than him soon after that. The answer to the second question is: I don’t know.
It was a long time ago. Perhaps.
The reason why my parents didn’t like Dave was that his father was drug dealer. A man local cops hilariously nicknamed Breeze, because he was impossible to catch. I have very faint memories of a bearded man who vaguely looked like a 1970s serial killer from true crime shows but for most of my friendship with Dave, Breeze was not around. He was either on the run or imprisoned, hence why he showered his only kid with bullshit presents. The man felt guilty.
Now, it’s understandable to any parents not wanting their kid to hang out with a drug dealer’s son even if the said drug dealer is not around. In the nineties more than now because we were thoroughly uninformed about how the drug trade worked. I’m sure images of me getting kidnapped by villains from Die Hard, mowed down by machine gun fire or even worse, fed or forced to mule drugs against my will haunted them while I was out on play dates.
But they never told me that. Not sure I would’ve understood the scope or the seriousness of their worries anyway, but if you tell a kid he can’t do something without telling him why or making him emotionally understand the importance of the situation, of course he’s going to do it.
So, I did bike up to Dave’s house again. If I remember this day correctly, it was not planned or anything. I was just biking around and Dave happened to be there. We started playing together, because this is what kids do. We went inside to play video games and when I came back out, my bike had disappear. Being a kid, I walked back home crying. Ashamed that I would have to explain to my parents where I was on that day and even more ashamed of the consequences of my transgressions.
My dad was predictably angry with me, but immediately invited me to look in the garage. My yellow McKinley bicycle was there, up on its kickstand. I felt atrociously guilty that I had betrayed my parents trust and my dad promptly grounded me. It was more or less the ending of my friendship with Dave. I still remember the video game we played that afternoon: Super James Pond, a weird Earthworm Jim ripoff for SNES. The psychological ramification of this event were important.
I understand why my parents did this. It was a terrible fucking idea, but I do. It was a desperate way for two socially awkward people to instil honesty and obedience in their younger son. The fake theft had the opposite effect. I became more secretive and dishonest, but only towards them. I’ve grown into being a rather straight shooting person, but not when dealing with them. I lie to my parents in every conversation I have with them since and the goal is always the same: avoiding their disapproval.
My stealing my bicycle out of frustration and profound misunderstanding of how a child’s mind works, my father basically gamified our relationship. If I was the obedient and honest kid he and my mom wanted, there would be no consequences. If I was myself, there could consequences depending on their level of approval of the decisions I took for myself. If I was never gave them any information on who I was or what I was doing: I would avoid consequences completely.
The Rubicon was crossed. There was no going back because my mind formed around the idea I had to live my life in the margin of theirs to avoid conflict.
How could it have been avoided? Probably by showing honesty and emotional vulnerability to Dave’s moms and explained to her what they were worried about. Fearing for your kid is understandable, especially if you don’t know anything about a certain situation. Now, my hometown is filled with feral, broken people who will get really riled up if you cast even the slightest doubt on who they are and how they live their life. It might’ve not worked.
The other options would’ve been to admit their wrongdoing soon after. I lived with culpability for years until realizing that THEY were in the wrong for cruelly punishing their kid for repeating a pattern he didn’t understand. My mom’s motto then was: "You’re not going to remember it on the day of your wedding." Well, I’m 39 and not only I remember it, but I only understand now how important it was.
You can lie to your kids. But don’t make their carry the moral burden of a situation when it’s unfair for them to do so. This will backfire and poison your relationship with them. You cannot force honesty and obedience out of a kid. You can only guide him through the peaks and valleys and advise him on his mistakes. It’s frustrating when they don’t take your word on something, but the human brain need to experience things at least once before assigning them any importance.
If my folks understood that, maybe I wouldn’t have experienced the burden of their own lack of character.
