Tag Archives: parenting

The secret league of horrible parents

We just won a moral victory of sorts. It took two months, and there were times I doubted the Fates would allow it, but now that it’s done, I feel free to speak of it.

I mentioned that our seven-year-old son was on a basketball team. If you saw that post, you may think our victory is a decision to keep score at the games, but it’s not. It may be even more valuable than that.

Over our three years in sports, there has not been a team that didn’t require a rotating list of hapless parents to bring healthy snacks for the kids to eat at the end of every game. The Team Snack was the Sacred Cow of youth athletics. God knows, kids playing ball for an hour would wither to dust if not fortified with granola and sugar-free fluids within seconds of the final whistle.

When I was a boy, we played all afternoon without a thought to our bellies, but then we were not enlightened enough to know we were doomed to die young for our bad habits. We drank whole milk too, to give you an idea of how recklessly ignorant we were. Our parents were the worst, making us have fun all the way until dinner time. For shame.

My wife and I dislike game-day snacks because we struggle to get to the games on time without having to remember the groceries, and it’s not like we can just grab a bag of Doritos or Oreos on the way out the door. These evil snacks we have, but only because our tragic upbringings neglected to teach us any better. Blame the 1970s.

old school

After the game, we had to take up the planking from the pasture and milk the cows before we could even think about eating. (Image: Russell Lee/US Farm Security Administration)

They told us it couldn’t be done. They said the kids on a snackless team would grow envious of the other team’s snacks, though I don’t know a single kid who covets a V8 juice box and a bar of pine needles. Still, no one would want to be on the team whose bad parents didn’t do exactly what the good parents do.

So after the first practice, we waited for that email – the one organizing the snack rotation. We’d highlight a game on the schedule, dread it’s coming, and hope we were both available to attend, so all our children and all our snacks could be at the same place at the same time.

The email never came. The coach was new, and I don’t think she even thought about snacks, which makes me love her a little bit. For the entire season, we went to games where other teams had snacks. Our team never bemoaned our lack of snacks. I saw no indication they even noticed. From our team’s other parents, I never heard a peep about snacks. Our snackless rebellion was our little secret.

I now suspect that many parents dislike the post-game snack, but no one publicly decries it, because that might make them the worst parent ever, and who would ever dare flirt with that consequence?

Keep your creepy nightmares in your own wing of the castle

I was sleeping so good at 5 o’clock this morning. The thing about sleeping so good is you only know you were sleeping so good after something wakes you up. Sleeping so good is the perfect example of something you didn’t realize you had until it’s gone.

The thing that made me realize I had, up until then, been sleeping so good was a hand that shook me awake. “Daddy, I had a nightmare,” the seven-year-old owner of that damned hand said to me.

“Go back to bed,” I replied. This is my standard response to all young people at 5 a.m.

“I can’t. It was too creepy.”

“Oh, in that case, go back to bed.”

“I can’t. I’ll have it again. I need to sleep with you.” He tried to strong-arm his way onto my bed. Mommy leaves me about a quarter of the bed as my portion, so there’s no room at the inn. Mommy’s not giving up any of her three-quarters; the boy knows this and it is why he came to my side.

I don’t even ask him to relate his bad dreams anymore. There’s no point. They are about as scary as an episode of Peppa Pig. You want to know about a really scary nightmare? I’ll tell you a scary nightmare.

Not this night, because I was sleeping so good, but last night, I dreamt we had to leave our house and move into a single bedroom apartment in California. After all the time I spend fantasizing about living in a castle where the parents have their own wing, imagine my terror at having to share a tiny apartment with these kids. Now that’s a nightmare. And did I go running into his room to tell him about it? Hell no. In a perfect world, his wing of the castle would be too far for me to travel before daylight.

The boys' room

The view of the kids’ wing from my bedroom. (It’s the farthest away part.)

I resisted his efforts to usurp my allotment of sleeping area. “Go back to bed!” I said in the voice of someone who now fully realized just how good he had been sleeping.

“You have to come with me.”

Well, this was a victory of sorts. I got up and walked him back to his room. I tucked him into bed and was back in my room in less than a minute. I guess there’s a hidden benefit in not having my own wing.

I still had some time before work to get more sleep. And that is exactly what I would have done, had not I been reminded of the nightmare of living in a single bedroom apartment in California.  I thought I had put that horror behind me.

By now, my son was surely comfy in his bed, nightmare free, sleeping so good. Anyhow, it would be time to wake him up for school soon, and then we’d let him know just how good he had been sleeping.

 

Make yourself comfortable, you little freak

I sometimes forget what little weirdos my kids are. Once they outgrow some creepy habit, I tend to forget about it. It slips to the dark recesses of my mind until the next kid does the same nutty thing and reminds me that the last one was just as odd.

Now a veteran potty-goer, Buster has become comfortable enough with the routine to want to customize the experience to his own bizarre preferences. One day, at his request, I took him into the bathroom to have a sit-down meeting with the potty. After he pulled down his pants, I lifted him onto his child potty seat.

I was about to leave him alone for a minute when he called me back. He extended his legs and asked me to take his pants completely off him. Taking them off meant eventually putting them back on, which was more work than I wanted, but okay. His potty seat has a pee guard sticking up between his legs, and maybe he needed to spread out to avoid scraping his thighs on it. Fair enough.

I pulled off his pants.

He pointed to his underpants. Those too.

Whatever. If the underwear are holding back progress, we can take those too. I tossed his underwear on top of his empty pants and turned to leave.

Wait. He wanted his shirt off too.

Really? His shirt was hindering  the process? Oh well, it was a long shirt; maybe he was worried about it hanging down in the way. All right. He lifted his hands and I pulled the shirt over his head. Done.

Undershirt too.

Come on now! That little muscle shirt couldn’t get in the way if it wanted to.

in the zone

Kick off your shoes (and every other stitch of clothing you have), sit back, relax, and let the magic happen.

Yes. Undershirt too.

Well, at least that would be a snap to put back on.

I pulled of his undershirt.

Now there was nothing that could possibly be in the way of him performing his business. I could leave.

Socks.

Oh, what the hell? Might as well. Wouldn’t want to impose any unnecessary constraints on his ability to poop.

I slipped his socks off and put them on top of the pile of his clothes.

Anything else, I asked the now completely naked boy. You want a quick hair cut to keep that out of the way?

Get out and close the door. Hurry up.

My apologies for lingering so long. I don’t know what got into me.

As I made my final escape I found leisure to let some buried memories assail me. This scene was familiar. Just four short years ago, when Big Brother was three, we went through the same routine. I’d forgotten all about it. Well, at least the weirdos are consistent.

I shouldn’t worry about Buster getting completely naked to poop for the rest of his life. Big Brother outgrew that phase soon enough. Then again, that was just before he started singing Christmas Carols in public rest rooms.

The Weird may change, but the Weirdo remains.

 

 

 

 

A game nobody wins

The oldest boy is playing basketball this winter. I am happy to report he appears to have a brighter future as a basketball player than he does as a soccer player. For one thing, he’s taller than most of the other kids. Now if he would just learn that he’s allowed to jump for a rebound, he’d be on the road to stardom.

My son’s team is made up of role players. On a team of 1st and 2nd graders, every kid (my boy included) is convinced his role is to shoot the ball as often as possible in each game. If this means picking up his dribble, taking a large hop to one side, then resuming his dribble in the clear, in order to get a better shot, then that’s just the strategy adopted. Passing the ball to a teammate is the last resort, only to be considered when one is in danger of being crushed by five closing defenders.

It occurred to me that if I were the coach of such a team, I would tell the boys, “If you want to win games, you’ve got to work as a team.” Upon thinking this, I realized I would say no such thing, and for one simple reason: Nobody wins games in our league. There are no winners or losers, just a bunch of elementary schoolers running around the gym, each craving the chance to add to the number of baskets he’s scored.

Nobody keeps score. Officially. Some of the parents keep it quietly in their heads. The kids try to keep it, but their tallies vary widely. They are much more precise at counting the number of points they have scored individually, which bodes ill in this team sport.

Your 1920 American Industrial League Champions

You’ll never become Industrial League Champs if you don’t learn to work as a team. Also, you may to keep score in some of the games.

Not keeping score is society’s admission that it no longer trusts parents to teach sportsmanship. There may be good reasons for this lack of trust, but it is a mournful admission just the same. It means society doesn’t trust itself to produce humans that are, on balance, kind people. That’s too bad, because nothing improves that doesn’t trust itself.

In our league, and probably most leagues like it, we have limited the chances of gloating, hurt feelings, and the other disappointing aspects of competition. In doing so, we have limited the opportunity to experience the inspiration of contributing to a team effort, and the ideal of putting the team’s success ahead of one’s own. Is the tradeoff worthwhile? Can they make up for lost teamwork concepts when they’re older? I’ll have a more fully developed opinion on that in a few years.

Meanwhile, there are rumors that the refs are going to crack down on traveling and double dribbles. This has to keep the coaches up at night. I would much rather have to teach these kids good sportsmanship, citizenship, civics, and probably even advanced mathematics than how to resist the urge to shuffle a few feet to the right to get a clear shot at the hoop.