I started this blog many months ago. I was aggravated by the parent of a kid I know who refuses to pay any attention to his own kid. I couldn’t exactly figure out what I was trying to say. I wanted to write about crappy parents, how much my kids mean to me, or maybe a completely different blog to my kids about resilience as my two boys have been going through Hell over the last year or two with bullying due to their size and/or alleged talent or lack thereof in hockey.
(Months ago) Over the past couple of weeks, some really horrible things have happened to former and current teammates of both my boys. On top of that my youngest kid is getting the crap kicked out of him playing hockey versus sophomores and juniors in high school as an eighth grader. Really questioning my parenting.
(Months ago) One of Logan’s teammates passed away at 17 years old last week. Have known that kid since he was little even helped coach him off and on. Just devastated for his parents. There just aren’t words for that. Another 17 year old teammate is fighting for his life after having to have a heart transplant. It’s just unreal. Logan’s friend got a heart transplant and as of this writing we saw him play in a varsity game this week which is amazing.
(Also months ago) Sunday during a B hockey (Junior High/High School Development League) one of Luke’s teammates had his collar bone broken by two big goons from a private school. Luke is covered in bruises from head to toe. That kid is also fine now and playing better than ever.
All these emotional tragedies had me in my feels like crazy.
One day their entire hand fits around your pinky
They are helpless and you are hopelessly in love
One day they let go of your hand and get on that big yellow bus and your heart begins to crack
Maybe you wipe their tears or maybe they happily jump into the bus without even a look back
You blink and they are running down the soccer field or skating up the ice
You blink again and you are handing her off to another man and people are throwing rice
Throughout the time we have we are constantly caught off guard wondering how we went from pacifiers to drivers’ licenses
We constantly ask ourselves “How did this happen?”
One minute you are up all night holding them as they cry and spit up
The next you’re holding their hair back as they cry and throw up
In your heart they are still little and you feel the same hurt for them that you cannot take that pain away
In what feels like a literal blink of an eye you go from their tiny selves laying asleep on your chest, to kindergarten, to kissing a boy/girl, to keeping their kids while they go out
How did this happen?
I don’t know, but I am certainly glad it did.
I’m not sure that’s a poem as it’s been a long long time since I have written one, but I have been feeling very sentimental (SURPRISE) about my three kids lately. My daughter has given us our second grandchild in a year of continued pandemic and political madness. Our middle son turned 16 (now 17) and took off in a car and got a job and a girlfriend. Our sweet little baby boy turned 14 and turned into a completely different human being in one day. A funny, but challenging human being. I find myself every day asking How and When did this happen? Why is it going so brutally fast?
I am not exactly sure what the point of this particular blog is. Maybe a note to my kids on what they mean or just a waxing poetic of being a parent and a grandparent at the ripe old age of 48. Who knows? I am just going to keep typing and see what happens.
I am going to diverge and get real negative here for a minute. I feel like I need to set the stage for what love and pride is like between a parent and child, but for some reason we are wired as humans differently and I fervently believe some of us are wired wrong or are just plain evil. I have witnessed evil firsthand around the world. I have fought it with my fists, wrestled it in my arms, and handcuffed it. I promise you there are humans among us that have nothing behind their eyes when you look in them and they can disregard their own children like a piece of trash in the street.
I say that to say this. I’ll take it down a notch from evil to deadbeat. Whether it be in my personal, professional life I have way too many times come into contact with people who somehow were not born with what should have been the inherent nature to love their children unconditionally. I know parents who refuse to watch the child play their preferred sport. I said I’d lighten this up, so I am going with the more first world crappy parents. Not the abusers.
How do you drop your son off at his baseball game or your daughter to her dance recital and not watch them? I don’t mean that time you had a meeting to make or a snow bomb cyclone is on the way and you gotta get them French toast ingredients at the store. I mean you don’t ever go. You don’t “like” baseball or dancing. You dump your kid and leave EVERY time.
I don’t care if you hate baseball or dancing that’s your kid doing something they love and worked hard at. What kind of dirtbag are you? I will never understand that, and I see it all the time. Sometimes it’s “Well it’s me ex’s day” or “my ex and her boyfriend will be there.” So? Grow up and think of the kid not you.
It is your responsibility to encourage them and be there when they succeed or fail. To help build their character to be better than your own. Not only are you showing them you care little for their feelings you’re demonstrating how they will learn to treat their own children. If it’s the “ex” thing, you are teaching them how to have crappy relationships and to be a coward around your wife’s new boyfriend. None of which is the kids’ fault. And is that how you want your kids’ future relationships to work out?
I am the first to admit I will whine about the endless amount of hockey practices, games, camps, and tournaments I take the boys to. On the other hand, I missed tons of my daughter’s soccer practices and games and that was all over in the blink of an eye. She was grown, married, and gone before I even knew what was happening. I’d give anything to get those practices and games back. That’s not how it works. Now I just regret being deployed or on business trips instead of watching her.
The rides to practice and sitting around the rink or the soccer field is where the best conversations happen with your kids and where you work on their character. There are so many highs and lows in youth sports. Character building and character destroying moments it’s imperative their parents should try and be there for. At least one of them. Where you reinforce being a good loser, winner, teammate, and person. You can’t do that from just dumping them off at the door.
You need to see the mistakes they make. The times they get screwed over by the referee or their coach. That’s how you know what they’re going through, and you work in a discussion on how they work through the problem and how it applies to their adult lives later. When they work their guts out, the entire off season to make the A team, but after tryouts they land on the B team and they’re devastated. Maybe they had a great tryout or maybe they blew it. You can’t know if you aren’t there. Perfect time to try and bring them back up and teach them sometimes life just doesn’t go our way. However, they may have the best season ever on that B team and make friends for life.
Also, when they get older, they may not get that job they were perfect for or that promotion they absolutely deserved some tool got it instead that wasn’t even qualified. They’ve been in that spot at least once or twice in their time in sports and they know how to work through it. They need to learn resilience. We live in a world that tells them they are special and can never fail. That’s not how the world works outside of the classroom. Unfortunately, this progressive view that they are special and deserve a trophy just for showing up, goes all the way through college. They walk out of college thinking the world owes them something. Not even close.
If they’ve played club or high school sports, they know that they are not special. Oh, they’re special to you, because they’re your kids, but no one else thinks so. They must prove it and they must earn it. They must repeat that process every practice, game, and tryout every season. We didn’t put our kids in soccer, baseball, gymnastics, and hockey to get them pro contracts or even scholarships. That would be an awesome bonus, but that’s not why. We wanted them to learn what it is to lose and to win with a team or on their own. What it means to be coachable, respectful, and resilient. Being a good teammate translates throughout their entire personal and professional lives.
I learned it in the military. It is my sincere hope none of them will have to learn it that way. We didn’t force them to play sports. We encouraged it and they picked the ones they liked. We have watched sports benefit all three of our kids. They know to stick up for their teammates on the field, the ice, but also in the hallway and the locker room at school. Later they will know to stick up for their friends at work, or to never leave one behind at a bar or in argument or with a stranger. I have watched all three of them stick up for other people in front of bullies. That’s what makes all the hauling nasty gear and smelly kids from place to place at the crack of dawn in the freezing cold or blazing heat.
Those are the conversations they will remember and the ones I will remember and when I can be the best parent I can be. These are also the times if you’re a believer to impart what God would want them to do in tough situations or what Jesus would expect of them. To forgive the ref, opponent, teammate, or coach. Let the game slip off their shoulders and know whatever team they landed on was for a reason. Do not mistake me these conversations are not as flowery as they sound. They are hard. When Ashley didn’t make the cheerleading squad and cried her eyes out it was all I could do to not walk back in that gym and punch every single adult in the throat.
When the boys didn’t make the team, we expected same scenario I wanted to hurt someone on their behalf. These were/are always horrible conversations, but they need to be had and they make us all better in the long run. For a parent to choose not to be here for these moments is just baffling to me. Being a kid is hard enough no matter how privileged they are. They need someone to guide them through.
This year has been a particularly rough one for both boys. Logan and Luke have been bullied this year off and on the ice. Logan’s bullies were broadcasting how terrible a goalie he was and how they would never win any games with him. This was addressed and Logan recovered from it the best he could. I could write another blog on how to handle a goalie situation and how not to, but I’m not going to.
Luke was the complete opposite. His has been quiet and in secret. His teammates just refuse to pass to him. They are constant with the snide remarks about his size and don’t invite him when they’re all hanging out together. Sadly these are the kids his age and younger. The only kids being nice to him are the upper classmen.
It always goes back to Luke’s size which there is nothing anyone can do about it. I can hear other parents on the team sigh when he gets knocked down and a bigger kid steals the puck or when he sees a 6’4” 200lb teenage man come at him and he makes a panic pass away to the other team. We’ve taken him to doctors and specialists and they all say he’s just a late bloomer and his growth spurt is “right around the corner.” Getting really old telling him that. I cannot imagine how he feels.
On the other hand another bullying issue came up with their team only they were the bullies. They chose to retaliate on some normal mean kid chirps with some serious hate type words (not a color thing but something else I am not elaborating on to keep the victim kids privacy). I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. We have never used that kind of language at home but it was said nonetheless. I know these words have been passed along the hallways at school and in the locker room. This is and was no excuse whether “other kids call them that all the time” etc. It was my kids they went to their parents about so clearly my kids pushed it too far. Those relationships may never be the same again. I do not know. I know my boys sucked it up and apologized and I know they felt awful about it once they understood what was said. I hope they’ll all be able to move past whatever was said on both sides.
If we just ignored them like the aforementioned deadbeat dirt bag parents, I referenced earlier we’d never know these kinds of things were happening or be able to stop hateful behavior before it started. To teach them that some words are not just words.
All in the ups and downs of being a parent. Have to take the wins and the losses. From having one kid already out of the house and gone too far away, I know you have to appreciate the losses and learn from them and to teach your kids to be adults who do the same thing. I guess the deadbeat and the dirtbag won’t really regret missing out on these things. As the boys speed ever faster to graduation and their final days on the ice. I know I sure will. Those are the facts of life.
Jacked Up Dad 