Play Ball!

As we approach Spring so does baseball season, soccer season, and any kind of sport season that can suck money out of your wallet and time from your day...well the time is well worth it as long as your kids have fun doing it. You'll only have this opportunity once when the sport is still fun and it's not competitive. Tyler is still only 6 and kindergarten so it's Tball. We did it last year too and forced Madison to do it as well so that she had a taste of it, but she hated it and wouldn't participate...although she has a pretty good swing and can hit the ball pretty well and can throw and catch...but I'm not going to force her so it will just be Tyler this year. I'm not sure what it's like in other towns, but you see some of these kids show up all geared up but just not knowing what to do with themselves! The pressures they get from their father's to play well and you have wonder, "dude! what do you expect from your kid? we're hitting off of t's!" Granted, yes, there are some kids who are well...just not made for sports and are painful to watch even with a T. And you can almost feel his father's pain...but it's OK! there ARE worse things in life! The funny thing is I'm pretty sure many of these fathers are living vicariously through their sons' lives, and are trying to prove their manlihood through their son...but you know what they say! "Size doesn't matter!" so maybe we should leave it alone. He could be a doctor like you? a proctologist pays well right? The crazy lives that these kids lead with all the sports are insane...and these are kindergartners. Soccer, basketball, baseball, afterschool activities, and we get the kids involved "not for the sport but for the social aspect". I also think that team building and learning to be a team member is important and for the kids to feel like they are a part of something special is so great for them. But I've heard dad's pull their kids aside giving them "peptalks" and putting all this pressure on their kids, it's so sad. Kids were telling me "my dad said I have to hit it this way," or "I have to throw it like this." Believe it or not I overheard a conversation amongst these kindergartners about which sport they should play because it pays more! These dads need to realize that they are already grown, their penises are not growing anymore...no matter how well their kids do in sports, so drop it. Let them have fun and just play and develop for now.