MotherBraggers

We are not a sports family. We’re more than halfway through raising boys and we don’t follow football on TV, attend the local NBA franchise games, or even cheer for our college team which I think made it all the way to the Fiesta Bowl in recent years.

That doesn’t mean my boys haven’t played a team sport or three. Or watched an occasional game of some sort. But certainly not with the interest or devotion of most of their peers. I worry the absence of a deep enthusiasm for athletics has deprived us of infinite bonding opportunities and denied our kids the sports savvy they need to be successful.

Once I dropped by a friend’s house with my son, still in his little league uniform. Her husband asked, “Who do you want to win the World Series?” Aside from not having an opinion or knowing which teams were playing, he’d never even seen a pro game at that point in his life. My friend’s husband already realized this and was actually mocking my son, but maybe rightly so.

It’s probably considered un-American, or at least unmanly to let boys grow up rarely throwing balls in the backyard, shooting hoops in the driveway, or memorizing stats in front of the TV.

My older, big-for-his-age son’s lack of dedication to his various grade school teams certainly disturbed the other parents, I know that. One basketball parent/coach commented, “He’s just here for the treats.” It was true. He was there to have fun. And no matter how often adults say that having fun is the point of childhood sports, they don’t mean it.

Kids must play sports with passion or at least watch sports with passion, preferably both. Anything less is, well, just the way it is in our family, heaven help us.