I am ready for little league to end. The travel teams that our sons’ play for are wrapping up their seasons, and I couldn’t be happier about it. The boys have been playing since March. We are all in need of a little break before the fall season begins.My urgency to get out is two-fold. It is often hard to be a parent and it is often hard to be a coach. On one team, I’m just a parent. On the other, I am the coach’s wife.
People are fairly crazy when issues of children and competition are combined. I include myself in “people.” But this year has been particularly troubling for me as I have sought to understand my own feelings/responses and the feelings/responses of others.
On one hand, I experience overly competitive urges and worry that my child won’t get the opportunities to be his best. On the other hand, I feel my husband’s stress as he decides who gets to play and at what position and who has to sit and wait. I feel badly for parents whose children consistently sit on the bench, all while I feel like parents should see their children's abilities realistically (knowing I can barely see myself realistically). I can quickly feel defensive when my husband is criticized and equally tense when my sons do not play well. And all this tension is about a baseball game that will never, ever change the world.
I am messed up.
In our small community, there are teams and splinter teams and gossip and hard feelings between. There are grudges and people upset over slander and statistics being tallied about player commitment (these are 10 year olds!) and coaches who take themselves far too seriously. Kids are hearing things at the dinner table that they shouldn’t be and withholding/critical spirits are being nurtured inside their young minds. Everybody keeps forming opinions, and everybody thinks their perspective is the right perspective.
I watched a documentary last week entitled Darfur Now. Click here to learn mo
re. The suffering of these people, the abuse suffered by children, the physical and emotional voids left by violence, was startling to observe. While I took in the alarming stories, my shallowness raged in my gut. I felt like I had eaten spoiled seafood – the feelings of embarrassment and shame churned within me and I quite literally wanted to vomit them up.Oh, how silly I can be, how self-aggrandizing. Oh, how my tiny little problems are allowed to become huge. Oh, how we forget that we really do need each other, and that we all long for grace.
I would rather be righteous than right but, @#*!, it is hard. Love is patient, it is kind, it keeps no record of wrongs. Being a follower of Jesus means considering others better than myself, even my enemies, but how quickly I focus on my own feelings and perceived needs.
Forgive me, Lord, and remind me of how small I really am. I'm glad that Your mercies are new every morning, because right now I could use a fresh day.
5 comments:
This is a topic close to my heart. Here in Iowa, I am the referee in chief for hockey. (yeah the Canadian is still alive and well in me) I have many situations that arise and are usually from parents who take issues and blow them up to huge levels. In the past year this quiet Midwest town that I live in has had a basketball referee attacked by an angry dad and just recently an umpire was beat up by a dad and mom. It is ashame what we have done as parents. Here is an interesting article from the local newspaper that I think says it well.
lithttp://www.qctimes.com/articles/2002/04/24/bettnews/export33507.txttle
When I worked as a nurse in a children's hospital, we used to joke that our jobs would be easier without parents and what would it be like if parents just came during visiting hours. Of course, this was absurd and selfish.
But now as a parent of an "athlete," I am appalled at parental behavior, and sometimes even my own. In "our" sport (swimming), the code of conduct is read before each meet and most of it involves parents. My daughter reminded me one evening after not an exactly stellar performance..."but mom, I had fun, doesn't that count?" Did I feel small.
Watching the olympic trials and the swim meets I attend where 400 children are competing I am reminded that there are just a few of us that God has gifted with olympic prowess, a few more with professional potential, but for most of us, we are in the "have fun" column. And there is no shame in that.
They are children, our children, God's children. These "games" are for fun, and to learn life lessons, and to help keep them healthy.
Maybe the parents could watch via satellite from a remote location. The kids would likely have more fun.
and Steve was the best coach Katie ever had!
Maybe you can print out this blog and include it in registation material next year. I will keep it in my wallet.
As a church mediator, I used to think that churches had the most messed up, dysfunctional relationships around...until I went to my first little league game. Oh my gosh! I'm feelin' ya.
you sound like david, and i dig it
Life is so scripted today. Children can't just play. They have to be "preparing" for some great future thing. I have been told countless times that I by parents that I "ruined their son's chance to play in MLB." Statistics tell us that 1 in 900 senior baseball players each year get to play professional baseball. Of those 1 in 900 of them will play major league baseball. The average length of service is 5.6 years. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070709131254.htm
That is a pretty short "career" if you live 75+ years.
Let kids play and play as many sports as possible.
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