A famous Conservative Commentator–whose name I choose not to mention, because she thinks she’s doing good and I don’t want to hurt her feelings–has her son enrolled in team lacrosse: league, uniforms, coaches, field officials, sponsors, parents cheering on the sidelines, the works.
The kid is five years old.
Somehow I find it impossible to believe a child that young ever said, “Mommy, you know what I’ve always wanted to do? Play lacrosse!” That idea came out of Mommy’s head. Talking about it on the radio, she said the little tyke was feeling pressure on account of other kids roughing him up on the field, so she counseled him to tough it out, and rough them back.
The child is five years old.
Is it really so terrible for a little child’s development to sit on the floor playing with building blocks, while Mommy does the ironing and the two of them talk to each other back and forth? Is it really so old hat to play in the sandbox with another little kid or two?
Five years old, and she’s got him all togged up for lacrosse?
I don’t know about you, but something about this really creeps me out. Maybe it’s just too much regimentation, too much conformity, too much status and role-playing way too soon in life. The child will get more than enough of that later on.
Someday they’ll come up with some kind of uniformed, sponsored sport that neonates can play, some kind of proto-soccer that doesn’t require standing up or walking. Get ’em into competition really early!
And, above all things, get ’em used to being spoon-fed by authority figures.
And then, Ms. Big-Time Conservative Commentator, watch the fun as you try to persuade your children that their teachers and their college professors and their government are not right all the time, and should not always be listened to… Just try.
I used to play games with my kids when they were that age or take them for walks. I did not force them to play in team games.
Five seems a bit young. In an ideal world, team sports can produce some benefits, but this in far from an ideal world and the coaches, etc, are not always good role models.
I’ve played team sports, and I can tell you this with confidence–sports brings out the worst in most of us.
Unfortunately, the idea of good sportsmanship and fair play seem to have been lost along the way.
Good sportsmanship? Fair play? [Laughs hysterically]
Our adult softball team had guys on it who had been in Little League, where each and every one of them learned to be a spoiled rotten little prima donna who can’t hit. They turned the team into a snake-pit.
Unfortunately, Little League has lost its way in many places. My concept of team sports is to work together as a team to do your best. If your team wins, great. If your team loses, you sincerely congratulate the other team on a job well done. It shouldn’t be about winning at all costs. Such games should teach skill, the value of hard work, sportsmanship and cooperation. Winning or losing is only of limited value.
Mostly it seems to be about political infighting, spite, back-biting, and undermining any teammate who does better than you.
Everything it should NOT be about.
IMHO, people have lost the sense of what sports should be. It’s a SPORT, not a military campaign. It doesn’t really matter if one team of the other wins, the contest is completely arbitrary. Games can be enjoyable, but they don’t strike me as something to be taken all that seriously.
I understand that there’s a lot of money at stake in pro sports, but that does not equate to productivity. The fact is, if all pro sports ended tomorrow, it would affect the pocketbooks of team owners, players and concession owners, not to mention the people that gouge you for parking your car, but these are service sector profits, not production based.
My first organized sports was when I was nine and played in Little League. Until then, my friends & I just supervised ourselves when we played sports stuff.
That big time conservative commentator may be living her love of Lacrosse through her five year old, but at least she is not teaching her five year old how to work a vest bomb for the jihadist cause.
Kids already have too much organization. That’s why my folks wouldn’t let me play Little League. Would I rather play ball to my heart’s content, or play only when someone else says I can?
Never having been the athletic type myself, I was content to cheer my brother on when he was in little league baseball. Mostly, though, the boys in our neighborhood made up their own games – football, baseball, hockey – all in the street near our house. They all had fun, worked out their ‘penalties’ and had a good bit of exercise in the process.