The Hectic Life of a Sports Family

Abigail and Dolley readers, today let's talk about something touchy, sports.   (Take a little ride with me, this is a not an attack on anyone but more of a dramatized tale.  Just pretend that I am the "Ghost of Christmas Present".  Even if your experience is not this extreme, perhaps you can find some truth in the below.)  Sports... the great American pastime, it evokes images of camaraderie, cheering spectators, and life's lessons learned on the ball field.  Just good plain fun, but is that the honest truth in today's world?  An idealized view of modern sports drive behavior and decision making in American families.  We maniacally throwing our children into one activity after the next, all in pursuit of a sports fantasy.  For countless families, the reality is far from fantastic.

In the not so distant past, kids played a variety of different sports.  Sports had seasons and kids moved from one season to another, not settling on a single sport until their late high school years, if ever.  This variety taught them different skill sets, types of movement, tempos, and paces.  Multiple sports insured kids had different friends, coaches, and experiences. Sports were a balanced part of a well rounded childhood, where the family did not revolve around the child or his activities. Today, it is widely believed and practiced that parents should select their "kid's sport" by age eight.  Once chosen, then the wholehearted investment, commitment/pressure, and expenses begin.  These kids embark on a journey of conditioning seasons during the heat of the Summer, special camps, travel teams, year round sports, clinics, personal trainers, and position coaches - for ten year olds.

Let's consider the time.  Public school demands more time from your child's life than ever before - 38 hours a week from bus ride to bus ride + homework.  Then we drag these kids to hours of sports practices and games.  Frazzled moms yell at tired kids to do their homework on the one hour commute to the "away" game and not get fast food mustard on the seat.  Are you tired yet?  Wait, there's more.  Now multiply this scenario by the number of kids, who play different sports, have different practice times, and different locations.  Mom takes one kid and Dad takes the other.  Other relatives are recruited and this insanity bleeds over into households that don't even have children.   Add in Scouts, Dance, Music, and Art because they need to be well rounded.  The truth is we try to give our kids everything that we wanted and didn't get.  Recently, I overheard a lady comment to a boy, "Where've you been, Justin?  We haven't seen you in weeks."  The young boy shook his head, sighed, and said, "I've had 11 games in the last 14 days."  This conversation took place as the 7th grade Junior Cotillion class that was dismissing at 8:30 pm.   That 12 year old boy had put in a 13 hour day and I'd bet he still had homework.

Small Town America and Why We Still Matter

Abigail and Dolley readers, I went to a reunion yesterday.  Not a family reunion, but an Small Town American reunion.  A gathering of folks who grew up and around a small mill town on the outskirts of Charlotte.  These days there is little difference between Pineville and Charlotte, but for those of us who grew up there, we know the difference.  We remember the landmarks that are no longer there, we "Awwed" audibly when pictures of loved ones flashed on the screen during the memorial CD, we smiled at the pictures of the wild Southern boys and their jacked up muscle cars, but most of all we were happy to see each other and took pride in our heritage.

Now, the ruling classes and the liberal elite would have looked upon this group with contempt.  You see we were in cut off shorts and T-shirts, we sang all the words to Sweet Home Alabama, and we raised our cups to lost friends and good times.  We laughed at old stories, complained that we were still smoking and knew we should quit, and talked about our kids, grandkids, and small businesses.  What the ruling class forgets is that these are the people that fix your cars, build your houses, and work in your factories.  They are the back bone of this Country and will show up with a casserole when someone passes away, a tow to pull your car out of a ditch, and money to bail you out of whatever trouble you've gotten yourself into.

Their pride in their country is held in contempt by the liberal elitists who scorn their patriotism and hate this country.  Their accents render them unintelligent in the eyes of the country club Republicans.  Their faith is scorned by the academics that are too smart for God.  They are Southern, so they must be racist, say the mainstream media.  I say, they are wrong again.  These are the people that built this country, their blood ran on the battlefields of history, their sweat plowed the fields, and their hands built the products that changed the world.

These are now the people who are muzzled and stifled by an over bearing government that makes it too difficult for the common man to start a business.  These are the folks whose factories have shut down because regulators required too many expensive "safety" upgrades (for their own good, of course.) and taxed "the rich" at such a rate they could no longer afford to do business in this country.  These are the folks that used to build your house, clean your gutters, and mow your lawn but now can't find work because there are illegal aliens that will do that job "under the table".  These are the people who teeter on the edge now because the work is gone and the horizon is bleak.  These are the people who recognize that when you talk about "the rich" you are really talking about their employers and they know their jobs won't be coming back until the government stops taking their bosses money at an alarming rate.

These are the people that loved Ronald Reagan and "hoped" Obama would live up to his promises of a "change".  In the immortal words of George W Bush, "You fool me once.... wait hang on.  Well, if you fool me once then, you aren't gonna fool me again."

Long live small town America!  Enjoy the video.

Perpetual Childhood

Abigail and Dolley readers many of the aspects of this Healthcare take over bother me, sicken me, and infuriate me; there is one part that disturbs me.  We now allow children to remain on their parents health insurance until they are 26.  Is this now the age when we feel our kids finally need to be responsible adults?  Why does that age keep getting moved up and how is that possibly good for our families, society, and the kids themselves?


When my Grandparents were children, it was not unusual for a boy to take on the responsibilities of his family in his early and middle teens if the father was deceased.  My parents married out of High School, thus setting the age for adulthood around 18.  When I was coming up, it was understood that when I went away to college that I was on my own thereafter and would be independent from my parents at graduation - so I guess the bar was set at about 22 for me.  Now we are saying, 26?

I remember a line in Interview With A Vampire, based on the Anne Rice novel, (that I really only watched because I had this thing for Brad Pitt back then, but I digress), Brad Pitt's character is speaking of the time he was human.  At 23, he said he was master of the plantation.  Then unlike now, that was well into adulthood, he was a man.  I was not much older than that myself at the time and I reflected on the boys I knew that age.  They were not MEN they were boys or better yet, they were GUYS.

We do not expect our children to grow up, instead we indulge them in their selfishness and immaturity far too long.  When the voting age was moved to 18, we expected that our children would be adults at this time.  That was the case then, but is no longer the case now.  They are easily influenced and naive, they are not prepared for the world in which they are not the center.  We have failed many generations and specifically our men, who in turn fail our women because they do not know their proper role and place within society and the family.

We as parents must change this.  I am already speaking very strongly about this subject to my child and he understands that I expect his teen years to be very short and as painless for both of us as possible.  He will not be indulged in this area.  I will teach him and expect him to become a MAN, not a guy, not a boy, but a MAN and all that this entails.  Will you join me?