Tom Hanks was wrong. There is crying in baseball … or at least there was this past Saturday in our house.
Both of my boys are very athletic and love sports, but my youngest son is obsessed. He is in a league of his own (get it? Like the title of the movie I’m quoting … yep, I’m that clever!). Nearly all the books he borrows from the library are sports-based (both fiction or non-fiction), his bathroom reading material of choice is the latest issue of Sports Illustrated Kids (guess I should have seen that one coming) and he can easily locate any ESPN channel on any television. He is a savant of sorts when it comes to remembering details of players and games. If you want to know who played where and when, what the score of a game was, how each player performed and what they each wore, too, then he’s your man.
The fact that my son has such great recall is both interesting and perplexing to me because the child cannot recollect where he left his socks or remember to flush a toilet, but I digress.
The only thing my 2nd grader enjoys more than watching, reading or talking about sports is playing sports … which is why it was a total shocker last weekend when he had a complete meltdown over the mere mention of baseball practice. Who was this whiny child, stomping his feet? Not my kid! My kid loves baseball. Loves all sports. Any opportunity to play is usually met with unbridled enthusiasm and sheer joy. But not last Saturday.
Remaining calm (a personal victory for me!), I asked him why he didn’t want to go. His answer was even more shocking to me than his meltdown … he said he didn’t want to play baseball anymore. At all. WTF? After further inquiry, but no further explanation, we made a deal that if he went to practice that day, we’d talk about it again later. He reluctantly agreed. Crisis temporarily averted. Score another parenting victory for me … that’s two in one day, for those keeping score.
We have a family rule that once you make a commitment to a team, you must honor that commitment and stick it out. There’s no quitting in the middle of the season. Allowing him to give up would send the wrong message and set a bad precedent. But here’s where my Mom of the Year Award chances start to dwindle. I was actually contemplating letting him “retire” before the season really even started. I mean, this was only the second practice, I rationalized. It would be cruel to force him to play when he really didn’t want to, I reasoned. My husband didn’t agree with my thinking, which created some strife. Crisis apparently not averted.
For the better part of the day, I wrestled with this. Beat myself up and agonized over it, actually. Which was the right decision — allowing him to abandon his team and his commitment, or compelling him to suck it up and play on? Truth was, I was thinking more about myself than about my son. Youth baseball is s-l-o-w and, let’s be frank, sometimes boring. I prefer fast-paced sports with a game clock, like basketball and lacrosse, because I can’t sit still that long. Plus, the thought of having to deal with a nearly-8-year-old’s tantrums 3+times a week for the next couple of months if I forced him to play was not appealing to me. No way could I deal with more snits as patiently as I did Saturday morning. I’m just not that good of a parent.
Ultimately, I didn’t have to make a decision because he decided for himself. Saturday’s practice with his buddies was fun, so he says, and he changed his mind. Game on … like the morning meltdown never happened. WTF, again?!? It’s a good thing I love that kid so much because otherwise I could kill him for the stress he causes me!
So baseball is back on our schedule, wedged between lacrosse, spring basketball, religion class and homework. I will take my seat in the bleachers, cheering loudly for my little slugger and his teammates, but praying quietly for fast innings and no more tears (from either of us).
– LJDT
