Tony Hawk and Healing Your Inner Child
I recently bought Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 for the Nintendo Switch on a whim. I had saved it in my Nintendo eshop wishlist months ago, but for whatever reason, on this particular day the nostalgia demons were working overtime and I succumbed to the urge to shell out the on-sale twenty dollars to download it. Suddenly I’m grinding rails in my living room again, like I had once on my N64, and then on the PSP. It occurred to me that there was some connection between scratching that virtual itch and my decision to get my daughter into skateboarding a while back.
A few months ago, maybe longer (time is just a human construct anyways, relax) I started my daughter with skateboard lessons. I’d wanted to for longer, but took a while to find a coach who had a good vibe, and was also affordable for me. I knew on some level from the top that this was partly about taking care of my own inner child, beyond just the wanting to be a cool dad motivator. I definitely looked in awe at even my friends who mostly sucked at skating, but were willing to collect scrapes and bruises in exchange for mediocre trick attempts in the parking lot. Let alone the whole wave of the Tony Hawk phenomenon that for me landed particularly with the video games. I wanted my daughter to have the chance at the real deal feeling of self-esteem coming from mastering a skill that is undeniably cool. A more visceral experience than the one that I only managed to siphon off the virtual plane myself.
I was never the adventurous kid in any form, that I remember anyways. I was the (unknowingly) anxious, overthinking kid who watched the skateboard kids from afar and wondered what it felt like to be that fearless. I watched the movie Didi on a flight recently and could definitely relate to the protagonist in that regard (take this as my recommendation to watch it). Now I’m the parent trying to give my daughter room to be brave in ways I never was, conscious of also not going too far the other way and pushing her beyond her limits. And she impresses me time and time again. Whether it was ziplining in Costa Rica, surf lessons, or any number of occasions, her fortitude always impresses me. And I try to tell her that whenever it does happen.
There’s something beautiful about this secondhand courage. I can’t go back and give seven-year-old me the confidence to drop into a halfpipe, but I can drive my daughter to the skate park and cheer her on. Plus I used it as an opportunity to start skating too (albeit much more horizontally). I can’t undo my own childhood self-consciousness, but I can model what it looks like to try new things, to fall down, to get back up. I have my qualms about going too far down the rabbit hole of essentially trying to parent myself through her. I recognize the importance of maintaining my perspective that my daughter is her own being independent of me. My goal is mostly to give her safe space to develop into whatever she wants to become rather than some version of the person I wanted to be. Still, there’s undeniable healing in this process.
The video game is just muscle memory, fingers remembering button combinations that never fade completely. But watching my daughter learn to ollie? That’s creating new memories, ones to cherish. The controller will eventually gather dust again, but the courage she’s building is permanent. Sometimes a way to heal the past isn’t to revisit it, but to write a different story for the future. One where fearlessness is more than hitting a high score. When it’s part of a lived experience passed down through love, encouragement, and the radical act of believing in someone more than you ever believed in yourself.