One Thing I'd Do Differently

I have just spent what may be my favorite six minutes ever on YouTube. (Considering that this includes countless viewings of a tranquilized bear falling out of a tree onto a trampoline, that is high praise.)  If you have six minutes, please use them to watch and listen to this four-year-old at hockey practice.

As the parents of four sons, Husband and I naturally had a few goals and dreams for our children when they were born. Two teams of doubles partners at Wimbledon? Battery plus first and third for the Royals? Surely a winning World Cup goal from one of them?

Yes. We had athletic goals for our children, in spite of what we fondly call the Parental Lack of Speed Gene (Dominant) that would be prominent in our genome mapping. Also, a Lack of Hand-Eye Coordination (Recessive) passed on by both of us. Also, while we are cutthroat competitors, neither Husband nor I particularly enjoy participatory sports (see also: We Always Lose At Sports). 

Athletic glory from our Boys? It is to laugh. And yet...

Just like every single parent of every single small child in Small Town, we started signing our children up for teams when they were just about the age of the kid in the video today. Boy#1's preschool teacher thought it would be good for his gross motor skills to play soccer ("At this age it's mostly herd-ball, but he'll be running around and that's always good") so we stepped onto the sports merry-go-round when he was four.

It was a full decade of soccer, t-ball, baseball, basketball, tennis--if the ball was round there was one of our Boys on a team for it somewhere. To everything there was a season, and unending schedules and practices and games and orange slices and finding of lost shinguards. One summer we spent every single weeknight of the year at the baseball complex, trading bleachers after the bottom of the fourth inning so that both parents could watch some of each kid's game.

Oh, I have plenty of good memories. I will always remember fondly One picking flowers at mid-pitch and running over to press them into my hand while the ball dribbled past him for a goal. I remember less fondly the year Boy#2 was hit in the side of the face by a fast pitch that knocked off his braces and left him bleeding and slumped over home plate. (As he re-wired Two's mouth the orthodontist reassured us he was actually lucky--without the braces he might have been left without the teeth. Yay? I guess?)

I wonder, though, if our boys might have enjoyed sports more if Husband and I had focused more on having fun and less on competing.

If you watch the YouTube in today's post, you'll see a kid who is having quite a bit of fun, even if his teammates are better skaters. That child is spending a lot of time just sliding around and looking forward to eating at BaDonald's. 

In our defense, after they had tried one season of any sport we never required that the Boys sign up for athletic teams--they could decide to not participate, but if they signed up they had to finish the season. The exception to this was piano lessons, which their mean mother made mandatory through eighth grade. Two continued to take lessons through high school, a third regretted having quit early, and the fourth--well, he plays a mean Solfeggietto, and I regret nothing in this decision.

The Boys have turned out just fine in spite of their genetically doomed competitive athletic careers. All have found health-ifying physical activities they enjoy, and they are avid sports fans. They're vaccinated and insured and know how to read, so we weren't completely awful parents.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if I were parenting again with what I know today, I would try to be more like the laid-back parent in today's video. He's a hockey coach, for heaven's sake, but he isn't all stressed out about making sure his four-year-old has the best stick skills on the team.

Next time? I would skip the kid sports. BaDonald's anyone?