If you’re a Red Sox fan — or just a Yankee-hater — you’ve got to love this story.
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Here are a couple posts from April, 2004. (I know, I’m lazy this morning!)
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I’m reminded by my little league team that some children have no one to be their advocate. No one to protect them. They have to grow up way too quickly.
But my observation elsewhere is that many young parents, eager to be advocates for their children, are tempted to go the other way in being overprotective. They always side with their child against the teacher, against the little league coach, against really anyone who doesn’t agree that THEIR CHILD IS THE MOST PRECOCIOUS CHILD AROUND AND HE/SHE IS NEVER WRONG.
If a child isn’t playing enough, it’s the coach’s fault. He must not like the child. Or he’s playing favorites.
If a child doesn’t make All-Stars, then the people voting had some vendetta against the parent (since the child obviously should have made it). This is the Oliver Stone conspiracy theory of how All-Star voting takes place. (Stay tuned to this blog for my ranting and raving against the whole idea of All-Stars.)
If a child gets in trouble at school, it’s the teacher’s fault–even if the teacher is known to be loving and competent.
Do we really do our children any favors by giving them a sense of entitlement? Does it prepare them for the world to let them know that anytime they run into trouble, THEY aren’t responsible?
It’s a frightening thing to me to run into such children–whether as a coach in little league or as a professor in college.
Everyone is tempted to think their child is precocious–uniquely funny, artistic, smart, and insightful. In fact, we want so desperately to believe that about our kids.
But they’re just children. (A very, very few are, in fact, precocious–but they’re still kids.)
God love ‘em every one.
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I guess I’m the kind of customer that companies depend on. I’m an obsessive-compulsive loyalist. Which means this.
I like Lever 2000 soap. That’s all I’ll use. It’s all I’ve used for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I carry a bar with me rather than use the little freebies in the motel rooms. And with my O-C personality, I like to keep about 20 bars in the cabinet so I don’t run out.
I’ve stuck with Crest toothpaste, Gillette foamy shaving cream (although sometimes I’ll go crazy and opt for the exotic Lemon-Lime scent), Gillette disposable razors, and Paul Mitchell shampoo (no comments, please, about how little good it’s doing) my whole adult life.
I never have to ask myself, “What kind of aftershave will I buy this time?” Always the same. Nor do I have to ask what kind of vehicle we’re going to buy. It will be some kind of Chrysler. (That does have something to do with the fact that my father-in-law was a lifelong Chrysler employee and we get the family discount!)
I wonder how much of this goes back to the loyalty bred and preached into me by my father. My dad believed that we made a living by the good businesses of Neosho, Missouri that advertised in our newspaper. And so, we were expected to buy products from those stores and from those stores alone.
Once I used some of my paper route money to buy a new baseball glove from a sports store on the square. You guessed it: they were committed nonadvertisers in the Neosho Daily News. When I got home, Dad gave me the lecture about loyalty. The next day I took the glove back, went to the newspaper-friendly sports store on the other side of the square and bought another one.
A few times people who were upset with me have suggested that I leave Churches of Christ. Ha! Try getting me to buy Ivory soap! Or brush with Colgate. Or shave with a Bic. I’m afraid people in this wonderful religious tribe are stuck with me!
I love that story. You just watch…Sox fans from all over the world will be claiming to have planted something at the construction site hoping George and family will spend the next ten years digging up the area. Go Sox; stick it to the EE again!
Boston’s been abuzz about that story all week. Some pundits even claimed that the attempted curse worked in reverse, causing the highly unusual 3-for-43 start that David Ortiz is in beginning the season.
I got to Fenway last night thinking that now that the jersey has been unearthed, Ortiz is due to break out of his slump in a big way in Game 3 against the Yanks. But we’ll all have to wait to see, as Tito gave Ortiz the night off for “mental health.”
The thoughts on children are right on. There is certainly a need to stand up for a child, but we must not teach our children that it is ok to reject authority. Recently at church my little girl got in trouble in class and the teacher had to punish her, I went up and thanked the teacher for doing so and told her to do it again if need be.
http://www.matthewsblog.waynesborochurchofchrist.org
Since our household is both (”fan”/”hater”)….kudos to Castignoli.
Mike, as an admitted ‘brand’ loyalist, why does this story not warm the cockles of your heart?
In order to avoid these two, I subscribe to MLB.com in order to watch my Padres and other teams of the NL West Division. Now we can’t even avoid the echo of the EE - with Joe Torre managing the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yipes!!!
As a West Coast and National League[pure baseball, btw :)] fan, I’m really weary of trying to find anything OTHER than Red Sox vs Yankee games to view on TV!!
Also, as a retired school district employee, believe me I can relate to the blog regarding parents and their “perfect” kids. It was dangerous to suggest to many parents that their child was anything but a perfectly well-behaved, applied student. wow!
Good stuff about kids. If all parents would have the courage to admit that our kids are kids, we could all begin working on supporting and helping one another in raising them instead of stressing out ourselves (and our kids) by trying to impress everyone else with how well we’re doing as parents.
Wow, that was a long sentence.
Mike, I’m looking at you in a whole new light, now that I know you’re a Chrysler man. Hmmmm…..
I”m so glad to know that you are not leaving the Church of Christ. We need you and more of your type to help us be the group of people God would have us be. You teach us so much. For the record I’m OLD and I think you are a breath of fresh air in our midst.
You should be a Honda man. After all…..
They make the Best Cars!
I’ve been invited to leave the c’s of C as well. Hasn’t worked yet…
I’m pretty “brand”-loyal as well, but mostly to Macs, Toyota, the NRSV, Firefox, and cocker spaniels. Y’know, if those were all brands…
When my children were very young, my mother-in-law gave me some excellent advice. “If you get a call that your child is in trouble at school, just assume that he is the ring leader. Then when you get there, you might be pleasantly surprised!” It has served me well for a lot of years!
I didn’t know they still made bar soap!
Don’t take this too seriously, but taking your idea of brand loyalty and religious tribery further… I find the roots of my faith often come from a since of belonging and loyalty to a heritage or a community rather than an individual choice to follow Christ. My individual doubts and questions seem to outnumber personal beliefs, and what keeps me around is the community and heritage I belong to. It is woven into my family and friends.
Looking back on my life, I think it would be harder for me to be a non-Christian than a Christian. I would have had to turn my back on a large support network, which nourished me from the day I was born. I’m a successful product of loving families, children’s ministries, and youth groups.
It is interesting to think the successful product of a lifetime of church ministries is a person who never really had to choose. In one sense, I’m kind of like Pavlov’s dog. People were always talking about God when they nourished me growing up, so I suppose I’ve been trained to expect nourishment with the mention of God. I’ve been effectively trained to be a loyal Christian.
I think I just lost a part of my free-will.
Perhaps parenting is similar to how God thinks of his children. He’s mighty proud of what he created; we were formed in his own image; but he knew before he ever formed Adam & Eve, they would make a mess of things and be a disaapointment. They were given incredible minds and abilities, yet they would make bad choices - not one time, but over and over again…and He still loved them (and was probably proud of them again) just as he loves and lives in me. Perhaps we forget no matter what our age, we are someone’s child…and a child of God.
Mike, I’ve never commented on your blog before, though I’ve been a “lurker” for a while now (that sounds really creepy). However, this post made me smile because it so reminds me of my husband. He is very loyal and gets more so the older he gets. We buy all of our appliances at a locally owned store that has been in Amarillo since the 50’s, where one of his buddies from high school has worked his way up to mgr. Last year, when we needed a new dishwasher, I commented that Best Buy had 12mo/no interest, to which he said “Nope, I always buy Whirlpool and always from Circle N Appliance”……*sigh*….that 12mo/no interest would have been nice. He has gotten his hair cut at the same old timey barber shop (with a barber pole outside!)for the last 16 years. He has told his barber that he better not retire because it will completely mess up his routine. (Poor guy’s gotta be at least 70!) He shaves with Edge Gel in the orange can…..not the purple, the blue, or the silver…..the orange ONLY! (I can’t even get away with buying store brand! He always notices)
Also, on another note, he coaches our son’s baseball team (8th grade) and has for several years. So I can relate to your comments about parents. The other night we had our first league game and one of our new players showed up w/o his cap (which had been handed out at the previous practice). The league rules are, you have to have a cap in order to play. Notice, I said LEAGUE rule, not COACHES rule. Never the less, the kids mom said “Screw you, if he is not going to get to play, we quit!” OK…whatever. I call it the “Precious darlin’ ” mentality….as in “My precious darlin would never do something like that” or “Whatever precious darlin wants, precious darlin gets.”
Mike, I too was raised by a small town businessman and I was expected to make my purchases with the local folks. All my friends went to Abilene or Dallas to buy their formals for the “big occasions” and i was stuck in Sweetwater. Good thing we had stores like Levy’s and Russell’s–all my friends had bragging rights to the big city dresses, but my teenage angst was short-lived–it was the right thing to do. Those store owners traded at Sweetwater Floral which, I’m sure, helped Daddy pay for my dresses!
“There is certainly a need to stand up for a child, but we must not teach our children that it is ok to reject authority.”
Why not Matthew? If MLK and Rosa Parks don’t reject authority, civil rights takes a huge blow.
We should teach our kids to question authority in a critical authenticate manner. Its seems our only hope to remain relevant to a world in this age not one 2000 years ago.
We are blessed with you, Diane and your family.