Tongue-In-Cheek … Foot-In-Mouth

Back in the 60’s, when my generation was growing up, our parents loved and cared for us, BUT their parenting was characterized as “hands off.”  And as long as you were not being dragged away by an alligator, they pretty much left us to our own doings. They NEVER got into our faces, hovering over us vulture-like overly concerned and excessively worried about every single thing we did.

Back then, we kids could actually ride our bikes (get this) WITHOUT our parents first descending upon us and feverishly piling on padding and helmets until we looked like little linebackers desperately attempting to peddle down the driveway on our tricycles. We could also ride in the back of the family station wagon without having to be restrained by several thousand seatbelts until we were tied up so tight we looked as if we were being restrained by a squid.

In the 60’s our fathers taught us how to swim not with the help of “swim instructors” or “organized swimming classes,” rather, they picked us up by the scruff of the neck and the seat of our swimming trunks and toss us into the deep end of a pool while of course shouting “this is how I learned to swim…so SWIM!”  And unless we found ourselves in some sort imminent danger like, for example, drowning in the deep end of a pool, our parents pretty much left us along.

But nowadays parents are basically busybodies who need to know EVERYTHING their children are doing, thinking, and saying. And they get VERY involved in every single facet.  And therefore, it is NOT uncommon for a full-grown adult mother to be seen cracking a chair over the back of another mother during their daughter’s 3rd grade dance recital, just because mother number one became upset with the fact that HER kid never gets to play the part of the tuffet in “Little Miss Muffet,” even though her kid could care less, and is far more interested in playing with the tassels dangling down from her new dance dress.  BUT mother number two’s kid ALWAYS gets to play the part of the tuffet, even though mother number two’s kid would much rather play the part of the spider.  And so mother number one doesn’t think this is fair, and is sick and tired of this tuffet crap, and so someone needs to die, like mother number two.

However, mature adult men are not off of the overprotective hook, either.  In fact, they are just as childish as grown-up women when it comes to getting TOO involved in their kid’s activities.  But with men, they become especially out of control when it comes to sports.

Just last weekend I attended a friend’s seven-year-old son’s peewee baseball game.  One of the spectators, a father, who obviously had a kid on the team, kept nudging me with in the ribs with his elbow, and LOUDLY praising how good a ballplayer his son was; however, from my vantage point, it looked to me like his son had developed a sudden deep uncontrollable interest in an anthill, not to mention that he wore his glove on the wrong hand and had a piece of hard candy stuck to the side of his head.  But he looked very intelligent, and was most certainly a key cog in this game.

Anyway, his father could not just let the kids have some fun conducting his entomology class and NOT paying any attention whatsoever at all to pitching, catching, hitting, or other bothersome baseball-related nonsense.  Nope, dad was very busy LOUDLY rattling off highly detailed baseball strategies from the stands.  Most of his plans went directly over the kid’s heads, as evidenced by the fact that while he was droning on about a 5, 4, 3 triple-play, they were engaged in an enormous pig pile on the mound.

EXAMPLE

“Okay, now kids, listen up. We’re going to try for a 5, 4, 3 triple play.  This is very easy to execute.  Okays, so when the ball is hit to 3rd base, Johnny, Johnny, JOHNNY!  Get you finger out of your nose.  Now, you pick up the ball, touch the bag with your right foot, and hurl the ball to Louie who’s guarding 2nd base.  Now, Louie, Louie, LOUIE! Stop looking up at the airplane.  You catch the ball, step on 2nd base with your left foot, and toss the ball to my son Stephan on 1st base.  Stephan, Stephan, STEPHAN!  For God’s sake, stop playing around with those ants!  Listen, catch the ball and step on 1st base with your left foot, and viola we have executed a triple play.”

Anyway, join me again next time where we will talk about how some parents will get overly involved in destroying their children’s self-respect by doing such things as: making their fourteen-year-old son, right in the middle of the schoolyard, which is littered with bullies and a bunch of giggly girls, give mommy a kiss followed by mommy asking her now mortified fourteen-year-old son “if he had on clean underwear?”