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Interview with Patricia Doherty, whose son, Evan, is a skateboarder

When did your son start skateboarding?

Evan started skating at age 4. But when I say “started skating,” I mean that I let him push around on our basement floor all padded up. I finally took him to his first skate park (all padded up) in August 2007, so just less than two years ago.

What was your knowledge of skateboarding prior to Evan starting to skate?

Before Evan introduced me to skateboarding, I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about it. Neither did my husband, or anyone we knew. That is why it was so surprising that Evan came up to me at age 3 and began asking for a skateboard. How did he know about it if we didn’t?

What do you think the value is in an online tool like Skateparents.com to equip skate moms and dads?

As a skate mom, I think it will be amazing to have a resource like Skateparents.com out there, to help navigate through the concrete waters of skateboarding. When Evan first started skateboarding, my husband and I were lost. When people would talk to us about skateboarding, we would use the smile-and-nod routine, basically just pretending we knew what people were talking about. Back then, “trucks” to us were still made by Tonka Toys [instead of being part of the board]. There was absolutely nothing that related to us, and at just 4 years old, Evan was not much help.

It is such a shame to see some people just drop off their skaters at the park. I hope that one of the things this site can do is encourage parents to become involved, to stay at the skate park and see the magnificent things your skater is learning.

As a parent, you want to make sure you “keep in the know” about what your child is passionate about. Having an online resource that can keep other parents informed about “skate speak” (skateboard terminology), products, safety, skate parks, etc., will be so great and will encourage both skater and parent to interact together and relate to one another. Parents and other skateboarding enthusiasts come up to me all the time to talk about skateboarding, and now I will be so glad to direct them to Skateparents.com!