Vacation is over and now it's back to the grind. I worked three days this past week -- it was weird having New Year's Eve and New Year's Day in the middle of the work week -- but that's not what I consider "the grind." My grind is my kids' grind, which I typically find more burdensome and stressful than my own. And that started up again in full force today with Lil' S2's flag football. He's doing this thing called Winter Elite, which means he has a game Saturday morning, a division-wide training session Sunday afternoon, and an individual team practice Monday evening. It's a lot of football, and it's a lot of football outdoors in the dead of winter. My weather app said "24 degrees, Feels like 11", as we left the house at 8:30 this morning.* That is not how I wanted to kick off (no pun intended) my Saturday, but as a parent, I've found my weekends are no longer something to look forward to. When your kids are really little, a weekend is basically two 14-hour chunks of playing the entertainer because there is no school or daycare; when they get a little bit older, it's a series of chauffeuring and chaperoning various activities. A typical day at work is legitimately more relaxing.
*Lil' S2's outdoor football game was still on, but Lil' S1's indoor coding class was canceled. WTF? Why on Earth would you cancel a coding class because it's cold outside? The roads are totally clear and the building is heated. Are you worried people are going freeze to death on their 15-second walk from the parking lot to the door?
At least Lil' S2's game went well. They mercy-ruled the other team, winning 28-0 without playing the final five minutes of the game. Lil' S2 played decently. He quarterbacked two scoring drives, threw a touchdown and two extra points, and didn't throw any interceptions. He also played pretty well on defense. He's not fast, but he's smart about where to go on the field. Several times he read the opposing QB and stepped in front of the primary receiver, forcing an incompletion or a sack (if the ref counts to five before the QB has thrown the ball, it counts as a sack). It was cool. What was even cooler is that they didn't have any subs, so he got to play the entire game. On a day like today, you do not want to be standing on the sidelines. I'm sure I got in a couple thousand steps just pacing around, trying to stay warm.
The thing is, I really don't care how good Lil' S2 is at football (or any other sport). I just want him to have good experiences. It's hard to do that, however, if you are really bad or on a terrible team, so I guess I do want him to at least be good enough to have fun and contribute to a reasonably successful team. So far he's meeting that baseline. I mean, it's highly unlikely, for anybody, that any material success will come from athletic achievement, so it's all about the intangibles -- teamwork, character, exercise, fun. Those are the important things for everybody but the top 1% who might actually earn scholarships and make money playing sports.
Along those lines, I really try not to push Lil' S2 too hard or over-coach him or anything like that.* Growing up, I definitely saw kids who were miserable playing youth sports because their parents (dads, let's be honest, it's pretty much always dads) were way too overbearing. Often these kids weren't even that good, and were never going to be that good, which makes the entire thing even sadder and more ridiculous. There are numerous examples of star athletes whose parents toed the line between aggressive support and mild abuse -- Tiger Woods, Andre Agassi, and the Williams sisters to name a few -- but at least these people really were that good at their respective sports. Their parents might have been too strict, but they weren't delusional, and what they did actually "worked".** For the vast majority of tyrannical sports dad, though, it's like, even if you succeed, then what? So, your kid is now the third best player on their rec team instead of the seventh best -- congratulations.
*I think I'm succeeding, being that he's usually nagging me to play with him, not vice-versa.
**I use quotes here because it's unknowable if these athletes would have had the same success without their fathers being so demanding.
Also, being a domineering sports dad would be way too much work. As a youngster, I would here stories of the "Robo QB," and think Geez, that sounds terrible for the child. Now, I hear them and think about how bad it sounds for the parent. Waking up at 4:00 am to drive behind your kid as they run? Preparing them sugar-free snacks to bring to birthday parties with them to eat instead of cake and ice cream? Holding them back a grade, so that they can have a "red shirt" year in high school? No thank you, no thank you, and no thank you.
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In other news, I finished the first season of Squid Game. I really liked it -- so much so that I almost don't want to watch Season 2 for fear that it will be bad and taint my overall enjoyment of the series. It has a bit of a twist ending -- or maybe it's just more of an interesting reveal than a true twist -- and I had the same experience with it as I did with Fight Club and Get Out. I wasn't quite sure what to think of it while I was watching it, but then I had trouble shaking it from my head even days after I finished it, so I had little choice but to conclude that it's awesome. It's not a show I would recommend to everybody (S for instance probably wouldn't enjoy it) because it's so graphically violent, perhaps even gratuitously so (although I would argue the gore is crucial to the motif), but if you can handle that type of thing, and you haven't seen it yet, I would strongly consider giving it a whirl. I also suggest watching it in Korean with the subtitles on. I tried the dubbed version once, because I was watching on an iPad without my glasses on (I was on the exercise bike), and found it to be far inferior. Halfway through I put it back to subtitles and squinted through it.
*But I already watched the first episode, and enjoyed it, so hopefully I'm safe on this front. Also, the Mr. Beast real-life version on YouTube is quite good.
Alright, that's plenty for now.
Until next time...
