Life holds a lot of surprises for our children. For the most part we understand that our job is to teach them the ropes – which sometimes cause callouses and often outright burns.
Its a rare situation that gets my mother-hen-back-up and, honestly, my mothering style has been to point my children (gently) in the right direction, give them the tools and allow them to fashion the life and direction they sense is right for them. I’m more apt to complain loudly about a slammed door when I am trying to sleep at night than a major life mis-step.
I’ve made my own mis-steps over the years .
The sorts of things that make me mad are the not fair or just stupid things like the time the field hockey coach was forcing my daughter to run lap after lap even though she was complaining of pain.
It turned out my daughter had a hairline fracture.
Or when she was complaining that it was hard to breath (and still had to run laps). Turned out she had exercise induced asthma.
Or when my son and a friend were mugged for their Halloween candy.
But I didn’t try to find the older kids mother.
Basically I don’t like it when my kids are doing something especially good (They are pretty good kids anyway), or are especially excited about something, only to be left feeling angry, confused or disillusioned. Its going to happen. It does happen but sometimes it really shouldn’t.
I know my son’s year in Uganda ended innocence in a way though he expected some of the conditions there, couldn’t have imagined the rest. The experience changed him forever.
His experience with a well known (highly secure) airline during his recent trip to Israel and Jordan with a college friend could have done it but again, it wasn’t completely a surprise (they take great offense about the visiting Jordan thing). That said he came back with some astounding pictures of the Middle East.
No. The incident that has me wanting to call people with influence and yell in their ear is this.
Day before yesterday one of my son’s friends called with an extra Red Sox / Yankees ticket. My son is a huge fan – even made sure to watch the games over the internet when he was attending school in New Mexico. He was incredibly excited (If you are either a Red Sox or a Yankees fan you understand this). The match up is a big deal. He canceled a dentist appointment to go. I think that was one excuse even the dentist office would accept.
They left for New York late in the morning wearing Red Sox hats and shirts.
From what I understand, shortly after finding bleacher seats and having what seemed to them like a friendly “We are fine with you cheering for your team and we will cheer for ours” conversation with the Yankees fans that surrounded them they went for drinks. Upon returning they were met by Yankee Stadium security personnel who, using very unfriendly and fairly nasty language, told them they would have to leave.
You have to understand that they had only been there for about a half hour, had spent quite a lot of their hard earned money to attend, and at no time were told why they were being ejected. My son is still mystified and spent a good portion of yesterday feeling very angry as well.
Now to be clear – I don’t think this should happen at any stadium to any fans. I am not singling out the Yankees but I am singling out Yankee Stadium personnel. It seems as though there should be a more reasonable process (first) so at least sports fans know why they are ejected.
I am not usually the cynical type but this smacks more to me of rotten behavior on the part of the other teams fans and poor follow up on the part of the security folks.
If you learn that not everyone can be reasoned with and that people can be especially,randomly cruel while trying to enjoy a baseball game on a beautiful summer afternoon – when do you learn that there are some things that are just about fun and sharing a common bond?
Do those things exist anymore?
I mean – this is baseball! Its supposed to be the pastime that proves to us that sportsmanship and good clean fun are alive and well in America.
Are they?
Wow, that sounds crazy! No reason for the ejection given?
I’m pointing Corie to this post as well, as she’s a huge Red Sox fan in a relationship with a huge Yankee’s fan! When she was living in NYC, she would get lots of nasty looks and comments when she wore her Red Sox hat or t-shirt around the city. Robbie now wears his Yankees hat around Boston, and I certainly hope that the Bostonians are not as mean/rude!
As to the beginning of your post, I completely agree with the picking your battles attitude that you have to have when raising kids. We have tried to be the same way with ours when wrongs have been done to them. (And right on with the slammed door in the middle of the night…why is it they can’t seem to hear how loud it is in a quiet house!)