I am aware that a large part of the draw for my son wanting to play soccer with me is the opportunity for him to beat an adult. And not just beat. Even if I’m trying my hardest — fueled by a cup of coffee, with fresh taped gloves on my hands, and having done some warm-up pushing — Dad versus Ewan looks like a high school player getting toyed with by Lionel Messi. Or if you’re not a soccer fan … like Rocky chasing a chicken. 

It’s great fun for Ewan. He plays “outfield” and I play defense on the paved parking pad in front of our house. The goal is a cheap, sun-bleached folding net. I chase him around in my everyday wheelchair, playing chair position to block his path. He’s already learned that wheels don’t change direction like feet do — he’ll lead me hard one direction, before cutting back behind me. As I spin around, he’s already tapping the ball into the net. If give him too much space, he just sprints in front and boots it past my flaccid feet. Ewan 2, Dad 0.  

It’s fun for me too, if I can get over myself. There was a large period in my wheelchair-using life — beginning immediately after my C7 SCI and continuing for about 15 years, through a Paralympic career that relied heavily on wheelchair speed and agility — when getting trounced by a 7-year-old would have annoyed the shit out of me. I don’t know at what age I expected my children to surpass my own sporting abilities, but I’d hoped to hold out longer than this.  

Ewan inherited obnoxious levels of competitiveness from both me and my wife. As I try to teach him that not everything has to be a competition and we can’t always win, 41-year-old me is still coming to grips with these sentiments as well. I’m getting a good workout, I tell myself. It’s satisfying to watch Ewan exult in that unique feeling of improving at something. It doesn’t matter that I can’t stop more than one in 10 of his shots, can’t make him work harder, can’t show him how to improve his footwork … we’re having fun … who am I kidding? 

During a recent session, I got tired of getting beat. I stationed myself in front of the net and told him he had to shoot from a distance. At first, he loved booting the ball at me as hard as he could. Then he realized that my wingspan obscured all but the far edges of the goal. The tables had turned. Somewhere around my ninth block, Ewan’s frustration center overloaded. “Baba!” — this is what he’s called me since he learned to talk — “This is no fair! You’re too big — it’s too hard!” 

“Ewan. When we were just playing, how many shots did you make without me blocking one?” 

He paused. Annoyance settled on his face as he realized where this was going. “A lot.”  

“And what did I do when I was getting scored on over and over again?” 

“Kept trying.” The annoyance turned to a pout when he said it. He didn’t like the lesson, but he didn’t have an argument either. We kept playing. 

Ewan wants to be the best at everything, and he wants it now. A huge part of sports is learning how to win without getting too cocky and how to use losing for growth and motivation rather than an excuse to shut down and stop trying. Today he got to work on a little of both. I tried not to be smug. 

Same Genes, Different Results 

My daughter, Lou, helps balance us out. She’s about to turn 3 and if she has the competitiveness gene, it has yet to activate. Whereas Ewan started racing me down the sidewalk shortly after he learned to walk, Lou is unconcerned with who is ahead and who is behind.  

Ewan watches pro baseball players on TV, then goes out and tries to emulate their perfect form. I watch a baseball game, then cradle a ball between three quad fingers and shot put it. Lou watches us, then picks up the ball and a stick, twists her torso into a discus-throwing position and does a spinning fling that sends them both in opposite directions. “Baba! Did you see my cool Lou throw?!” In sports and in life, Lou does Lou, and she is often pleased with the results.  

Not that Lou-life is without its frustrations. Far from it. Lou wants to do everything herself and she is not afraid to scream — high pitched, like a bald eagle — and throw and stomp when her uncoordinated little limbs won’t do what she wants them to. I feel her anger. Just last month I let out a “Gah!” and threw a click strap across the driveway after my 15th failed attempt to zip-tie it to my handcycle frame. I felt dumb after I threw it, but calmer too. My childish explosion had released a little of my bubbling anger. A few attempts later, I got the plastic devil zipped into place.  

So, I try to remember that outbursts, whether toddler or adult, have their uses. “You’re allowed to be angry. You’re not allowed to be mean,” my wife tells Lou. And that seems like good advice for dealing with disability too.  

New Perspective 

The first time Ewan told me he wished I wasn’t in a wheelchair, we were sitting on the pullout of a bike path overlooking the Columbia River Gorge. We were about 600 feet above the river and could see its white-capped waters winding through cliffs and plateaus and rolling hills. We’d just climbed a couple of miles to get there, he on his mountain bike and me on my handcycle. There were high clouds over a blue sky, a cool breeze and we were both rosy from exertion. I was as content as I get — until he dropped that wish on me. I looked at him for a second as he took a bite of his granola bar and asked him, “How come?” 

He finished chewing and said, “You know, so you could do more stuff with me.”  

That stung. “Well. We’re here right now. Riding bikes together. We get to play basketball and soccer and go mountain biking. …”  

“Yeah, that’s all fun, but we could still do more. Like go hiking or jump on the trampoline.” 

“That would be fun,” I said. “I guess we’ve just gotta enjoy the stuff we can do as much as possible.”  

“Uh huh,” he said between bites.  

I couldn’t be annoyed that he wasn’t impressed with my answer. It didn’t feel very satisfying to me either.  

I thought back to a recent day mountain biking. Lou was riding on my lap, and we chased Ewan on the trails while my wife got a quick break to ride at adult speed. The dogs were running beside me, and Lou was laughing and yelling, “We gotta go fast! Go get him!” as Ewan pedaled furiously down a winding forest path. Everyone was present. Everyone was happy, and I felt like the most capable Dad in the world.  

A few days later, after I dropped off Lou at her hippie, outdoorsy preschool, I got stuck in a patch of deep gravel on my way back to the truck. I had to have another parent rescue me from what may as well have been quicksand. So much for capable. I got pouty and petulant, annoyed at myself and annoyed at the world, and it ruined most of my morning. 

Before becoming a parent, I thought the feeling of always wanting more was mostly due to various annoyances of living with a disability. But the more I’m around two little people just learning how to process their emotions, the more I realize I’m not that special. I want it all. But I can’t always have it. Just like everybody else.   

Other essays in the Parenting From a Wheelchair series:

• Safety, Boundaries and Fun as a Wheelchair-Using Parent
• Navigating an Inaccessible World with My Son
• Year One of the Ewan Experience
• Keeping Up with a Mobile Toddler
• Explaining Disability to Our Kids