I recently was at a baseball game watching my son play on his local recreational team baseball game. His team was not playing well and missed a few key plays. But the boys were laughing and having fun nonetheless.
His team is a local recreational baseball team. It is basically a more organized version of sandlot. It is not anything too serious.
After another missed ball in the outfield, one of the fathers of a boy on the team started up in a major rant. He began saying derogatory things about the missed plays and how badly the boys had been playing.
He complained and ranted loudly about a boy who didn’t stop a ball in the outfield and was starting to get agitated. “Come on! Don’t you boys know how to play?” He made a few other negative comments when some of the boys struck out about that’s not how you win the game and what’s wrong with you boys.
It’s such a good thing he wasn’t talking smack about my kid. I’m a nice, kind, lovely person, until you start to mess with my kid and then once Mama Bear comes out I become an entirely different person altogether of the Cruella de Vil variety.
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I had all I could do not to say anything to him. Like seriously?? These boys are 11 and 12 year olds.
This is not the MLB.
No Division 1 college baseball scholarships are being handed out today.
These are not professional baseball players. Most of them may not even play in high school.
These are young kids playing a game and having a good time with their friends. They could have cared less that they were losing the game.
Fortunately none of the kids heard anything, at least I didn’t think they did, and just continued playing, smiling, enjoying the game, and hanging out together.
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I ignored him and moved to another area.
Later on I overheard the irate parent say he played baseball in High School and in college and was an All-Star.
Well good for you, that’s nice. That does not mean you have to be insulting and having a coronary when these young boys miss a play.
My son was up to bat and some parents were yelling for him to hit a good one. He usually does very well hitting but he got nervous and struck out, most likely from all of the yelling. It was a pivotal moment of the game, the final out, and then the game was over.
My son walked over to me slowly with a long face, looking dejected. It killed me a little inside because he is usually a very happy-go-lucky boy.
“Mom. I lost the game.” He looked so sad and like he was ready to start crying.
I knew I needed to come up with the right words right then and there. Words are so critical sometimes when it is a teaching moment.
“Hey! You did not lose the game. If your teammates had played better up to that point everything wouldn’t have been all on you. That parent shouldn’t have been yelling so much and getting crazy. Don’t worry about it. You’ll get it next time! Let’s go for ice cream.”
He looked up at me pondering what I had said. “Ok mom!” and smiled at me.
A few years back, my son played on the travel baseball team which was very competitive and some of the parents were a bit overzealous. He decided on his own that he didn’t want to play on that team anymore. When I asked him why he said, “I just want to have fun playing baseball. Playing on the travel team isn’t fun. It was more fun playing on the rec team.”
I began to think about why exactly do parents live vicariously through their kids?
To me, it seems like it is one of two things – either the parent has unfulfilled ambitions they were not able to accomplish in their youth or possibly a self-esteem issue if they do not feel good about themselves.
It could be that the parent is attempting to live out a dream of theirs that they couldn’t when they were young.
Living vicariously through your kids can have very negative unintended consequences. Kids may feel like they are letting their parents down if their ability is not where they think their parents want it to be or if they decide they no longer want to do that activity or any longer that their parent may be disappointed in them.
In addition, it is not healthy for the parent to depend on their child’s involvement or success for their own happiness or fulfillment. This puts too much pressure on the child that they will let the parent down if they don’t succeed.
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Is it natural to feel some sense of disappointment when your kids do not want to pursue something that you would like them to?
Well yes of course.
Both my kids said they wanted to drop out of band and chorus for this upcoming school year. This was hard for me because I always was very musical and wanted them to be as well. But they have other talents and are have differing interests than I do. My daughter needed more time in her schedule to take some elective art classes, that she is very interested in pursuing.
As hard as it is on us parents, we are forced to come to the realization that even though our children may share our DNA, their gifts, talents, and interests may be completely different from ours. just the same as their personalities may be completely different from ours as well.
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There is one upside to living vicariously through our children. Researchers from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands determined that watching our kids succeed heals our life disappointments and regrets for things we were not able to do. It gives us a chance to pursue the dreams we once had and almost get a do-over or second chance at them.
But for me, I want my children to become the people they were created to be, with all of their God-given unique talents and special abilities. If I have a dream that I want to fulfill, then that’s a dream I should be working towards myself and not pushing it on my children.
Thank you for stopping by, see you again soon!
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Annie Spratt on Unsplash
