Confession time, again! I mentioned I couldn’t get my children to engage in therapeutic activity, but I was wrong. Middle Child does. He cycles everywhere. To be more accurate, he Limes everywhere. Helmet free obviously. Now, there’s a big part of me that’s proud of him. Cycling in London is audacious; it takes some guts, or in his case, the youthful certainty that one is invincible. I often cycle (no electricity, helmet always on) and I love it. You can predict your arrival time to the minute and you get your exercise with a frisson of adrenalin. Adrenalin in manageable doses, you know? Like, a fraction of a sky dive each time, but it all adds up. At the end of each week, when you’ve had the requisite number of near misses, and some decent wind-in-your-hair-downhills, you accumulate the kind of buzz people pay a lot of money for, and you don’t even need to jump out of a plane! I say this, but I cycle like the middle aged woman that I am: I assume that I’m invisible. I know my stopping distances; I (mostly) stop at traffic lights; give way to all pedestrians (they may, on occasion, be gormless and wilfully unseeing but they have priority, end of); and I stay behind the bus because buses are never going to be the losers in a bike vs bus altercation). Middle child assumes that he is hypervisible and that everyone is psychically attuned to his next move. I worry. He is blissfully unaware of how much your average London driver dislikes him and his ilk. At least Lime bikes are lit up, so he’s not like those ghost riders who dress in black and cycle in the dark with no lights, hoodie up, no helmet: proper stealth!) Ok I’m not gonna lie, I’m not that keen on Middle Child cycling even though it’s clearly hypocritical. Thing is, what does he know about the highway code? What does he even care? If we had more/better cycle lanes, I’d be less terrified. It drives me crazy that in this day and age motorists still rule. It’s a vicious circle: you give priority to cars, so it’s less safe for cyclists. So people who might have become cyclists never even consider it. They use their cars and, cocooned in their little bubble of metal, pour scorn on us (occasionally) gormless and unseeing cyclists. So now, those who cycle are considered (at best) courageously insane! Us crazies will harp on about the health benefits of cycling, to no avail. Its kind of like midwifery. Us midwives are always promoting reasonably normal birth (by which I mean: take the epidural, it’s 2023, we don’t have to suffer) because yes, it’s safer for mother and baby (ok, there are many caveats, I’m well aware of them). But on balance, the non-surgical mode of delivery is the gold standard. It’s much better value for the NHS, and much easier to recover from for the mother. Similarly, everyone, who is lucky enough to be able to cycle, should be encouraged to do so both for their own health and for the climate. But we need to make cycling safer. We need more cycle lanes. I know it’s a big ask. And I’ve asked… I’ve written to my MP many times (hi @FelicityBuchan, if you’re listening…) She’s not interested. Look, I’m a driver, I love my car, I know there will always be a role for cars. I also love cycling. And I need safe cycling options which allow Middle Child to experience all the joy, all the convenience, all the benefits of cycling without destroying my mental health worrying about him. Similarly, I’m very much in favour of c-sections. Sometimes, they are the only sensible way for a baby to be born. I’m even in favour if it’s maternal choice. Because informed choice is always a good thing. And a lovely planned caesarean can be really protective of a woman’s mental health. Pushing a baby out as nature intended may be beneficial, but it’s also a bit mad! Equally, cycling: healthy but a bit mental (at least for the foreseeable future). Until then, me and my 16 year old are sharing the roads with buses, lorries, vans, taxis and cars. So please, next time you see an idiot on a lime bike, or even a MAWIL (middle aged woman in lycra) please be kind. Give us a wide berth. We thank you !
Be careful what you wish for!
2 responses to “Be careful what you wish for!”
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Your parallel between cycling infrastructure and maternity services strikes rather close to home, I’m afraid. Ten years ago, our local obstetric unit closed (downgraded to midwife-only) – one of those “efficiency measures” that politicians announce with such breezy confidence. Now expectant mothers face a twenty-five-mile dash through traffic that would make your Middle Child’s Lime bike adventures seem positively sedate by comparison.
I confess, I’m firmly earthbound myself; two wheels and I have never reached an understanding. But watching cyclists navigate our roads fills me with the sort of admiration usually reserved for tightrope walkers – equal parts awe and terror. Your description of accumulating “a fraction of a sky dive each time” rather captures it; though from my car window, it looks more like Russian roulette with HGVs.
The bitter irony, of course, is that both cycling and birth represent perfectly natural human activities that we’ve somehow managed to make unnecessarily perilous through bureaucratic neglect. Your MP’s studied disinterest in cycle lanes mirrors our local politicians’ cheerful indifference to the fact that labouring mothers now require blue-light escorts to reach basic care. Both situations demand what you so aptly call “courageously insane” behaviour from ordinary people simply trying to get on with life.
I do try to give cyclists that wide berth you request – partly from respect, partly from the sobering knowledge that any of us might one day find ourselves requiring emergency transport through those same unforgiving streets. Perhaps there’s something to be said for solidarity among the vulnerably mobile, whether on two wheels or two stretcher handles.
Your Middle Child’s blissful confidence that the world is psychically attuned to his movements sounds rather like our health planners’ touching faith that emergencies will arrange themselves conveniently around service cuts.-
Thanks so much for your kind comments. I’m all in favour of lovely midwifery led units, obviously (I was a home birth midwife in the Pre Motherhood Era) but there needs to be very easy and quick access to an obstetric unit for everyone. When I did home births, I knew I could rely on ambulances to get to me within minutes, thereby providing me with 2 highly trained technicians plus the ability to get to my hospital (cutting through South London traffic whatever the time of day) with minimal delay. I was never more than a few miles away. That made the job feasible. If I’d had to escort my women across 25 miles of traffic, it would have been infernal, a whole new level of unacceptable risk… I think what happens is that cyclists are blamed when things go wrong even though accidents would have been prevented had the infrastructure been in place. The answer isn’t that cyclists should drive. But that’s what it feels like. Cyclists don’t get given credit for bring infinitely greener. And healthier. Which isn’t to say that everyone should cycle! Everyone is different. Same with women who truly try to have physiological births, which is a no brainer where possible but you need to have infrastructure in place for when extra help is needed. You should not, ever, blame the women for having chosen “wrong” birth setting (every woman is different, each has her own idea of what constitutes a good birth) when the problem was that they had to choose in the first place. Because that’s not a proper choice. Midwives should be able to work in easy partnership with obstetricians. But the city planners/politicians need to make this possible by making access to obstetricians fast, reliable and equitable. Not by cutting corners, cutting services, scrapping safety, and blaming the resulting mess on the most vulnerable. Who are just trying to do the right thing in difficult circumstances. I know that I’d be a terrible politician though, and there’s a small part of me that feels sorry for them. Because you can’t please everyone. I get that. But you should surely look to the future and act accordingly. Spend cash now, spend lots of it. And reap the benefits in years to come. Simples! [Meerkat gifs!]
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Midwife, Mother, Me
You don't have to be a midwife to be a mother. Or a mother to be a midwife!
Midwife, Mother, Me 
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