Let me state right upfront that I was (am?) a sports junkie. I cannot say enough about what being involved in athletics did for me. Not only did it encourage the usual things– teamwork, character development, and mental and physical endurance–but it was a terrific antidote to standard teenage body abuse. My body was a machine, and I respected it enormously, enough to treat it well. It was not simply a vehicle for adornment or the means to escape, it was the reason I was going to Germany.I wish all these things for my kids, and have supported their involvement in athletics. On a micro level, most of their experience has been positive. They enjoy the exercise, the engagement, their teammates and their coaches. No, that part seems to be working well. It’s the next few tiers in the organization where things fall apart. Tier one is whatever happens to some normally very grounded people when they are watching a game. I’ve had to walk to the other side of the field or the rink to get away from fans of my own kids’ team because they are so negative or obnoxious. Believe me, there is nothing to be gained from criticizing any player, coach or ref during the game — or even after (I have been in all three positions, and I can tell you officiating is a truly thankless role). We all know when we didn’t do a good job. Tier two is competing against teams from other towns. Why does this dynamic bring out the “us. vs. them” duality in the best of us? They’re not the enemy, they are just a bunch of 10 year old kids just like yours. Why is it so hard to remember this? I often admire a good play another team makes and you’d think that I had just committed treason. Good play is simply good play, particularly where kids are concerned. Kids near to hear us say that, ad nauseum. Tier three is organizational. Hats off to all you folks who volunteer your time keeping youth sports up and running, but at times, I think some of you need a reality check. I have two good friends, one was national champion in her sport and the other an Olympian; I myself played at the elite level. So, basically, we know what we are talking about, and this is what puzzles all of us: we didn’t focus on sports until we were about thirteen. Up until then, we climbed trees (upper body), rode bikes and played kick the can (endurance) and had wiffle ball marathons in the driveway (eye/hand coordination). Even after we focused on a sport, the only reason we got good was because we were obsessed, practicing on our own with siblings or friends. Adults and formal practices had very little to do with our development until we were physically and emotionally mature. So, no, they don’t need 3 practices and 2 scrimmages a week, they don’t need 3 hour sessions and they definitely don’t need conditioning camps.They need to be kids, and all kids need is an hour, a ball and a similarly-minded friend. And it it is meant to be, greatness will come.
Archive for April, 2008
Tiers
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008Angry Spectators
Sunday, April 27th, 2008
This blog entry and the next several will all deal with kids and sports, so feel free to skip if you aren’t interested.
A recent series of events at athletic events has shaken me out of my code of silence. Ever since my oldest nephew started playing t-ball twenty years ago, I have been in the position as spectator to observe a variety of behavior. Some has been wonderful, a lot of it outrageous, but I’ve stood firm in my belief that none of it was my business. The only time it was my business was when I was a college coach and official, and even then, I only had to eject one parent from a game.
But that was another phase of my life, long ago. I’ve been busy doing a lot of other things since then. So, on a recent evening, when I had the opportunity to attend a highly competitive college hockey game, I jumped at it.
I don’t know what I expected – the excited, slightly buzzed fans of my college days. A loud and crazy band. Warrior face paint perhaps. By the end of the first period I was so thoroughly disgusted with the behavior of the crowd–adult and students–that I opted to go watch the rest of the game on the tv in hall, where I kept shaking my head and thinking, Man, have I been out of touch with things.
To call what I observed abusive doesn’t even cover it. Since when did it become a personal insult to a 50 year old man that the 19 year old on the ice missed a pass? Enough to scream what he was going to do to this player’s mother after the game. You’d think these players were guilty of felonies the way they were being cursed by the people that sat around me. The behavior of the college students was inexcusable, as they waved signs about the joke of a state school their competitors attended, yelled sexual insults, and declared en masse how much the goalie “SUCKED” ( was there ever a more idiotic term?) and flung the f-bomb around blithely despite the multitude of children at the game.
I watched as one boy of about 7, wearing the oversized jersey of this college team, turned and studied all the people behind him: the anger, the insults, the foul language. You could just see the wheels turning as he absorbed it.
When I mentioned all this to someone later, he said, “Oh, that’s just college hockey. That’s how people get.”
“That’s a cop-out,” I said. “You’ve gotten used to it.” He looked at me in surprise. “I don’t care what people say to justify it. It’s like the teachers always used to say to us at school when we misbehaved: would you speak like that at home? would you behave like that in front of your parents? And we all answered no, remember?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“We’d get killed, for one thing. But because we respected them, I suppose.”
“Bingo. I mean, Fenway Park has resorted to making a statement before game asking people to watch their language. Do we have to have reminders at every sporting event, ‘Don’t swear and don’t threaten to rape player’s relatives?’ Do people not know how to behave respectfully in public?”
“They’re just having fun.”
“Telling the goalie to go f*** himself is fun? I keep thinking how students would riot if I told them to go f*** themselves. I’d be nailed to a tree.”
“You’re supposed to know better. You’re supposed to be respectful.”
“And no one else is?”
I say all of this at the risk of sounding uptight. Or backwards, or uncool or righteous or any number of things. I bring all of this up because this is what is trickling down to kids’ sports. Dex said he has been told to f-off a ton of times this year during games. The locker room trash talk is all about how much the other team sucks. Parents blow up at the players or coaches for god knows what reason.
And I am left with one question: What is everyone so angry about?
-Andi
I’d love your feedback on this one, y’all. What do you make of this?
Living with PlayDoh
Friday, April 18th, 2008Dex, Neve and I all met around the kitchen table the other night. The baby was asleep, Tom was working, Neve was finishing her homework, and I was filling out some paperwork. Dex was ostensibly working on an art project, but when I looked up, he was staring at his reflection in the window, that telltale look on his face.
Any minute now, I thought. Whenever Dex’s face settles into that expression, you know a big idea is percolating.
Not thirty seconds later, he said, “Mom.”
“Yes?”
He paused, frowned a bit and then looked straight at me. “I’ve been thinking about time.” He folded his arms. “I think . . . yeah. I think time is the inability to perceive everything all at once.”
I stared at him, my mind whirling. “You mean it is the result of our inability to perceive everything all at once?”
“Yeah.”
I was mentally flying through everything I had ever studied about metaphysics, but Neve didn’t even look up from her math paper. “Whatever,” she sighed.
“Um, I think you may have just summarized a branch of quantum mechanics in one sentence,” I said, mostly to myself.
“What?” he asked, leaning in closer. “What did you say?”
I repeated myself. Then, I said, “You know, you make me think about Plato.”
Dex and Neve exchanged perplexed glances.
“He makes you think of Play-doh?” Neve blurted out. “That’s kinda mean, Mom.”
I burst out laughing. “No, no! There was an ancient Greek philosopher named P-L-A-T-O.”
“Ohhh!” they both exclaimed, and we were all still laughing about it when Tom came in. “What’s so funny?” he asked, eager to be in on the joke.
Without missing a beat, Neve and Dex both said, “PLATO!” and the three of us fell into hysterics once more.
Tom just stood there looking confused and saying repeatedly, “Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” until Neve opened a drawer, took out a tub of Play-doh and tossed it at him. He looked at the tub, looked at us, and announced. “You’re crazy.”
“But pliable!” Dex added, and the three of us fell apart again while Tom walked out of the room shaking his head.
This One’s for the Overwhelmed
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
Recently, I had a conversation with a mother who was newly overwhelmed. I say newly overwhelmed because she’d had her first child and had just started back to work, and in my experience, feeling overwhelmed is just something you get used to as a parent. Some phases are better than others, but the cumulative effect is of always having something undone. ( I always laugh at my single friends when they say they need Saturday to do their chores. Imagine, one day for chores! Anyway, I digress).
I felt such empathy for this woman; she was clearly exhausted from trying to keep all the threads of her life from unravelling, made worse by a hefty dose of guilt about what she might be doing to her baby by leaving her in daycare. Oh, I remember those days all too well. The tears, the wavering, the desire to do everything, and I mean everything, yourself and do it with breathtaking excellence.
Eventually, most of us get tired of that. And I do mean tired in its fullest sense. At some point, whether it is months or years later, you are so depleted that you stop trying to do it all — and stop making it look easy. Fatigue forces you to prioritize where you are willing to expend your energy. For me, it has always been a fairly constant 40/60 split between my work and my my kids’ emotional lives. I choose to let a lot of things slide so that I can hang out and play with them part of every day. We do everything last minute. Our clothes are generally wrinkled and stained, our meals are boring and predictable, and our house is a chaotic mess. I don’t think anyone has put their clothes in a drawer for a couple of years, who knows when we last changed out sheets, and my car is so disgusting, a child recently refused to ride with us. I don’t watch tv, I rarely get to read non-work related stuff, I only see friends a few times a year, and, for the time being, anyway, exercise is a hazy memory.
But that’s all okay, you see, because I made these choices. They reflect who I am and what is important to me. And I have been through this before: I know not to delete that list of desires, just pause them a while. I have the perspective now to know that all this will rollover and change, and sooner than I know it, sleep will come, I will have a little time to run, and then a little time to read, too, and then all that desire and dreaming I put into escrow will come bursting out in the next chapter of my life.
So, for C, and anyone else out there is clutching a handful of threads, hang in there, and keep dreaming
-Andi
Black on Black
Monday, April 14th, 2008This weekend, my daughter said to me, “Mom, I have a challenge for you.”
“Alright,” I said, a smirk on my face. I was sure I could rise to whatever she had concocted.
“Go one week without wearing any black.” I stared at her. “Except for shoes and your coat,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. You can’t help those.”
I slumped against the bed. “Is it that bad?
Neve sighed in what could only be exasperation at my lack of self-perception. “Mom, the world is a colorful place, why do you wear black all the time?”
I looked down at my outfit. Black pants. Long sleeved shirt –black. Clogs—you guessed it—black. Only my socks had some pattern, and then were grey and black.
“I like black.”
“No you don’t. Nobody likes black. Would you paint the walls black? Would you buy Colin black clothes? Would you buy me black clothes?”
Did I mention she’s 9?
“No,” I admitted. “It’s not right for those things. But it’s right for me.”
She flopped on her back on my bed. “Come on, Mom. Give it up.”
“It hides stains.” I was getting defensive. “It looks dressy and casual. I can go from work to getting Colin and I don’t have to worry so much about what he is going to wipe on me.”
“Mom.” Neve sat up ramrod straight and yelped. “Give. It. Up.”
“And the best part is I don’t have to think about what I am going to wear. I just –“
“It’s not like it’s that hard to match clothes! Gosh, if you don’t want to do it, just say so.”
FYI: Today I am wearing a dark purple sweater and blue pants. And brown shoes, thank you very much
There’s a “me” in team
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008Neve is known for her self-interest and sharp mind. Once, when Tom told her hockey team that there was no “I” in “team,”she raised her hand and said, “But there is a “me’”.
But then she does something so surprising, I realize I have to reassess every opinion I have of her. Yesterday evening, Neve, Colin and I were out in the yard trying to enjoy every last scrap of sunlight. I stood in a small patch of sun, soaking up what I could, trying to lift my mood. I had a long evening ahead of me and was worried about a lot of things, my mother foremost among them.
After Neve helped Colin to climb on top of a rock, the she turned to me, the sun illuminating her dazzling eyes.”Why don’t you go check on her? I’ll watch Col.” She patted Col on the head and he smiled up at her.
“How did you know I was worried about Nana?”
Neve was busy tickling Colin, who was giggling and squirming with delight. “I just did. We usually see her every afternoon, but she hasn’t come out today. Maybe something’s wrong. Go ahead. I’ll take him in and get him ready for his tub, too.”
I stared at her, this child who had seemed to mature about ten years in the past minute.
‘Thank you, honey.”
And she did. I checked on my mother and got her dinner while Neve –with a small bit of help from Dex– played with the baby, got him a snack and then gave him a bath. I listened to them laughing and enjoying each other while he splashed, and thought how I don’t give her enough credit. Together, then, she and Dex got him into pajamas and into bed. Instead of wrestling him around while trying to cook, I had a very peaceful hour in the kitchen.
When I went to tuck Neve in later that night, I sat down and said, “Shall we read something?”
She raised an eyebrow in surprise. “I know, I’m usually wiped, but I’m not exhausted tonight. You know why?”
“Nope.”
“Because you helped me out so much today. I really needed a break and you gave me one. And now I have more to give you. That’s teamwork–you and me both benefit.”
She smiled and shrugged. “It was fun. I’ll do it again tomorrow if you want.”
“Yes, please.” I lay down next to her. “Now squeeze over, kid, we’ve got a book to read.”
Moods, waves
Friday, April 4th, 2008It’s 6:45 am. I’ve just returned from taking my mother to her outpatient treatment, and it is requiring an absurd amount of concentration to measure out the coffee grounds. Up late working, up early helping her, neither of which I would change, but still, my body and psyche can only take so much. Just when Colin started sleeping through the night, too. But he’s goofing around with Tom in the bedroom, and so I lean into the counter, and wait for the brewing to finish, grateful I can sneak in a quiet minute before the morning rush begins.
“MOM!” Her voice cuts me right to the core. “I have NO socks and these pants have hole in them!” I turn, and Neve is standing on the stairs, her whole body arranged in a posture of aggravation. On any another morning, I might tell her to look in the laundry basket, or the dryer, or even offer to sew the hole as she ate breakfast. But it’s out before I can even think.
“So?”
She stares at me. “So?”
I take a sip of coffee, which emboldens me even more. “Yup.”
“You’re not even going to do anything?”
“You would like me to do something?”
“AAHH!” And she stomps back up the stairs past Dex, who is quite literally still half-asleep as he slides into a chair. I can hear her rampaging through her room, turning things over, slamming anything that can be slammed.
“Whatsa matter with her?” Dex mutters.
“She just got a dose of the real me,” I said. “Look out. Nice Mom is on vacation this week.”
“Huh?” He lay his head on the table. “It’s too early for this.”
I finished my coffee. She came down much later wearing filthy socks and the holey pants, and I said not a word. She steamed and stormed until she left for school, and all of us were miserable to be caught in her mood. It would have been easier if I had given her what she wanted. The day would have begun on a better note. She would’ve have left for school happy instead of crying, on time instead of stressfully late. But I couldn’t help her, not in the way she wanted. It’s easy to please an easily-pleased kid, and feel secure in their affection. That’s love with a lower-case “l” if you ask me. But Neve often wants love expressed in ways that are too hard for me to give, and that is what has truly opened my heart. And that means realizing sometimes she just has to ride the wave she created to its end herself — albeit in familiarity of our kitchen, and in the security of our Love.