And Then There's This... Play Ball! (And Wake Me When It's Over)
If you're an empty nester as I am, you probably began taking stock as soon as your last kid left home about what you did right and wrong in child rearing specifically and in marriage generally. As old as I am — and I was there when the earth's crust was formed — I still think a lot about it. Most of my musing is academic, of course, since I've already done what I can to heal any emotional injuries I may have inflicted on the family. My wife Norma died four years ago and is thus beyond any benefits that may have accrued from my apologies and course corrections. Even so, our three surviving children live nearby and, in my mind, remain susceptible to my psychological fine tuning.
In its early years, my family suffered from my being a hard ass. I wasn't a dictator, a martinet or even a strict disciplinarian, but I was unyielding on a cluster of beliefs and habits my wife and kids were forced to put up with. I smoked when and where I pleased, indifferent to its impact on others. (Fortunately for all, I had kicked the habit by the time our last child was born.) I wasn't stingy, but having grown up cash poor, I was irritatingly thrifty. Sure my wife could ultimately bend me to buying her two scoops of ice cream instead of the one I had grudgingly agreed to, but she had to work for it. If sent to the grocery or drug store, I tended to buy the fewest and cheapest goods I could get away with.
Additionally, I spent more time on politics than I did helping my children with their homework. I was so quick to anger and fight authority that I would either quit jobs in “principled” protest or else get fired from them. I was in my mid 40s before I finally held a job for more than three years. This meant that we moved around incessantly. My oldest daughter still associates autumn with the trauma of having to enroll in yet another new school and again try to find new friends. I'm not sure what made me act so stubbornly, but I think it was because I had such little control over the larger aspects of a life — particularly achieving financial security — that I clung tenaciously to those few things I could control. Then, too, I lived so much in my imagination that I expected the others to be content in doing the same. The convergence of these traits often made me a real pain to be around. Our kids still remember me gritting my teeth a lot and hissing volcanic profanities in virtually every sentence.
As unpleasant as I often was, though, I was by no means a total loser. From our earliest days together, Norma and I shared child rearing duties equally and peacefully. I changed diapers as much or more than she did, often cooked our meals, routinely washed the dishes and tended to the kids, all with a high heart, while Norma took classes at the various colleges where I was teaching, worked out in exercise and dance classes and acted in local musical theater productions. Even when we were just scraping by, I would unhesitatingly take out loans to buy her musical instruments or equipment and supplies when she decided to become a professional photographer. When our oldest daughter showed an interest in music (beyond her high school band), I took her to shows, even when I could afford only one ticket and had to wait for her outside.
As much of a hard nose as I was, nobody cowered or ran for shelter when Daddy came home. More likely — and much to Norma's chagrin — Daddy would flop down in the living room with the kids and watch cartoons or Monty Python on TV. By the time our last two were in high school, Norma and I were living in separate residences and did so for the next 30 years, an arrangement in which neither of us could do much to annoy the other.
As each of our six grandkids came along, I turned more and more into a pussy cat. I doted on playing with them, babysitting them and listening to their stories. I was still cautious with a buck, but I had substantially more of them to spend, which both improved my peace of mind and provided me the satisfaction of giving scads of bucks away to people and causes I believed in. These days, I'm damn near bearable.
There is one thing, however, I denied my children and grandchildren and for which I feel no apology. I had and have an absolute disdain for organized sports, and to the extent that my offspring were attracted to them I found them even more objectionable. The other night, our youngest daughter visited me, and we were talking about what a splendid person Norma had been and why we loved her so much. Although I had to ask her for details, it turned out that my daughter had played on her schools' basketball teams from the fifth through eighth grade. I guess she never expected me to attend her games, and, of course, I didn't. But she recalled looking up into the bleachers after making a basket or a particularly good play and being disappointed if her mother wasn't there to cheer her on. I felt sorry for her, but I knew if our lives were to re-wind she'd never see me up there either. I don't know the extent of my son's involvement in school athletics, but I recall going — at his mother's insistence — to a track meet he was in and just yearning for the whole thing to be over. If our oldest daughter was into sports — and she may have been — she had the good sense not to bother me about it.
I know the conventional wisdom in child rearing is that a parent should support those activities that most interest the child, and I believe that's an educationally sound concept. But my thought was this: What if I bore myself into a stupor supporting my kids in junior high or high school sports and they get good at them? That would only lead to more involvement and greater pressure on me to show approval for activities in which I saw no value. What if they became good enough to play college sports? Where would my torment end? I visualized the day might come when I had little or nothing in common with my own children.
I found no joy nor took any pride in my kids being good at something that came to nothing outside the gym or playing field, in sharpening skills that were their own end rather than steps toward something personally or socially useful. So they could sink a basketball from 100 feet away or batter their way through a wall of human flesh to reach an arbitrarily established goal — so what? What did it really amount to? As I saw it, a score or an athletic feat left no lingering residue as would, say, writing a song or building a bookcase — something that existed in addition to and apart from the doer. I also detested the tribal aspect of sports, the instinct that makes one particular player or one team emotionally cherished above others. If it's athletic excellence one appreciates, why should it matter which team or player exhibits it?
You might think my antipathy toward sports arose from some childhood trauma. If so, I can't recall what it was. In grade school I was taller and swifter than most of my peers and always among the first picked when we were choosing up sides for running or ball-whacking games. Even back then, though, I was just as happy to stay indoors at recess and read about the Greeks and Romans. I had pretty much lost all interest in sports by the time I reached high school, regarding them as mere playground delights. But I acknowledged their usefulness in attracting girls. Wanting desperately to do that, I spent exactly one afternoon trying out for basketball (and getting a mercifully sidelining heel blister in the process) and an entire day trying out for football. I remember lying on my back in the football field, the sun seeping through my closed eyelids, my head throbbing, my mouth tasting like dry wall and thinking I would rather die celibate than endure any more of this misery. So I didn't.
(I once dreamed up a sport that might appeal to both the cummerbund and corndog sets. It's called “ballet demolition derby” and involves the dancers racing across the stage and arcing themselves gracefully into each other until only one is left standing.)
Three of my grandsons played high school sports, including football, and reports are they were good at it. But loving them as I did and do and worrying as I did about their safety, I never watched them play. And I never wanted to. To my great relief, they also excelled as musicians and artists which enabled me to avidly support them in worthwhile endeavors.
To my own kids, I say, if sports were ever important to you, I'm sorry I let you down. But rest assured I would do it again without a second thought. Even a devoted father has his limits.
(Please send your comments or questions to stormcoast@mindspring.com with “And Then There's This” in the subject line. And thank you for reading.)
