My parents got fed up with my flats and got solid rubber tires.
We rode on gravel, mudholes and all. Solids would not have worked, but my !ad got us a patch kit and a pump and showed us where the wrenches were (put them back when you are done!), and taught us how to fix our own flats. I’m not sure what they did to the compound in tire tubes nowadays (maybe it is the glue), but patches just don’t seem to take as well as they used to.