When Families Collide
 

We've been spending a lot of time with another family because our kids participate in the same sport. Unfortunately, we are not terribly compatible. Pete and I have an atypical relationship. Because of the way we're wired, we don't have the usual gender based distribution of responsibility.

I like to think we are a marriage partnership in the truest sense. We try to choose the rational over the traditional when it makes sense. This has lead us to develop respect for one another as one of our highest values. This is how our love for one another is expressed. We are both pretty quiet and laid back, which is where our difficulty lies.

Our friends have a male dominated household. The Mrs. is meek and it is generally understood that males are smarter, stronger, and better athletes than females. The Mr. talks at 90mph and if truth be told offends my libertarian sensibility every 8 seconds. When I do choose to argue a point he heres but does not listen just moving on to the next tale, which we've already heard innumerable times.

None of this matters, except when his son attempts to treat my daughter as he treats his wife. I'm not trying to raise Hillary Clinton here, so my kid usually just glares at him when he gets stupid instead of chewing him out. We had a fencing tournement yesterday in which my daughter, the youngest competitor, finished the day 4 and 4 but did poorly in the direct elimination part of the tourney, losing to his older more experienced son. She hasn't been fencing well against him lately and I'm thinking he's in her head a little bit. She was unable to shrug off a seating anomoly, getting upset that the seating was determined by the second round robin pool where she was 1 and 2 rather than the combined results with the first pool which she won at 2 and 1 and low point differential. (there are countless ways to run a tourney)

She now understands how the system worked and how in the future she should save her energy in the first pool and fence harder in the second. The problem was the father and son thought is was important to explain long and loud to her about the way this type of tournement worked even though they didn't understand it themselves. Pete and I intervened too late and lil' Pete was emotionally unhinged prior to the direct elimination, just beating an inferior fencer and then losing badly to the son.

She got played. There were tears. She's learned the hard lesson that she should walk away from gamesmanship. Of course, we still have to hang out with these folks twice a week so writing this was my way of figuring out what went down and blowing off steam. I think we've figured it out...

Everyone on your side came away a little smarter.
Everyone on their side came away entrenched deeper in their ignorance.

Their son will be prepared for a world that won't be there, when he's grown.
Your daughter will be prepared for what the real world will be, when shes grown.





Then she'll give him blue balls, break his heart, and fire him. :haha:

Man, that sucks. At least this kid isn't in her class at school where he could subtly harass her every single day. Are there other nicer families at these events that you could maybe pointedly hang out with? I bet if you were always engaged in conversation with other women especially, they would be uninterested in joining.

Then she'll give him blue balls, break his heart, and fire him.

Oh now Thats a tag line if I EVER saw one !!!

No real advice for you, you seem to have a handle on it, but been there, done that, you have my sympathy. It can take the edge off the enjoyment of your daughter's acheivement and skill if you are constantly having to watch her interaction with these people as well and monitoring your own interaction with them. But you'll all come out wiser for it in the end.

I've got to say that sometimes kids sporting events can be a seething mass of opposing forces socially.

I have a lot of issues with the parents of some of the kids my boys play football with. I don't approve of the ethics (or lack of) shown by some parents, or the highly competitive behaviour exhibited by said parents - which of course leads to a lot of conflict between the kids.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good thing to be competitive, but correct me if I'm wrong here. I thought the competition was supposed to be between 'our' team and the opposing side. Not between the boys (and girl) in the team.

I also believe there's competition and there's poor sporstmanship. The latter is the thing which bothers me.

Anyway, we've stopped associating with the families who I don't feel offer the best examples to the kids although because it's unavoidable at practice and game days, the kids still get to learn about what not to do, so I guess that's good in a way.

;)

We can stay away during tourneys but we have such a small club that we'll always have a lot of contact. On the upside she's learning a lot about how other families operate and I got to give my always look at how a son treats his mother speech. We're going to hit a couple tourneys they can't because of age/gender restrictions so we don't get automatically linked to them because of club name. It's funny you mentioned talking to women because he did keep his distance while I was talking to a couple Moms.

I was thinking that I was being a little rough on them as they do have other better qualities but sportsmanship isn't one of them. The son actually pretended he was bumped in a cor a cor and was awarded a touch. I'm afraid they will eventually reap what they sow, I've noticed he gets hassled a lot more on equipment by bout directors who he's p.o.ed by arguing inappropriately. He's also been abusing his inhaler as a way to slow down matches when he's out of breathe from being out of shape not from an asthma attack. I saw a girl have a real asthma attack and lose 6 quick touches, so I see why a director would be lenient.

Fortunately, we see a lot more good sportsmanship than bad at these events. One woman my daughter fenced with told the scorer when my daughter wasn't given a touch the director had called even though it was a close bout. I had a cool conversation with two moms who were saying nice things about my kid even though (maybe because) she beat one of their teenage sons. The older fencers really want to teach the younger ones, because there is a sense of continuity almost immortality in the sport, when you pass on what you've learned. There are two old guys who've been barbing each other good naturedly, ever since my 12 yo girl beat one of them. Now the guy who lost has been trying to engineer a bout between the other old man and her. funny stuff. Thank you all for the kind words and thoughts.

Our daughter begins "smart start" basketball this Saturday. She's 4. I am just as interested in watching other families as I am in watching her. The next 5 or 6 Saturdays should be interesting.

Thanks for posting this, I'm putting it away in my mental file for the next decade :).

You'll be suprised at how your own competitive nature rises up when its your kid out there doing it. Just try to remember that you're the adult. :)

4 year old in an organized basketball league? :eek:

Must be a tall kid...

Coach to kid; Do you understand teamwork?
Kid; Uh-huh
Coach; Do you understand fair play?
Kid; Uh-huh
Coach; Do yo understand cooperation and sportsmanship?
Kid; Uh-huh
Coach; Good, go over and explain it to your parents.


Thank you, thank you, Don't forget to tip your servers. :D

Actually, she is tall for her age, 95%-ile. That's not totally why we're doing this though. This is just an introduction to basketball, basic ball handling, maybe 'passing' to another kid. It's not likely going to be very organized. They are 4, not 14 :).

#1-Maybe B-Ball is in her future, maybe not. Grandma played B-ball, so we thought it would be fun for Kid to share that with her. (I stink, totally. Not only am I short, I have NO talent at B-ball. None. Nada. Zilch.)
#2- Organized sports are typically good for a person's self esteem (dependant on the parents of course)
#3- Her daycare is not in her school district. We are hoping to meet some parents that are in ours, and have the Kid meet some kids she might actually go to school with.
#4- It's winter, in Iowa. The high temps for this weekend are supposed to be 0 F Kid needs to burn off energy somehow, since we can't get outside.
#5- Its way cheaper than dance or gymnastics :)

My father competes with me about everything, every conversation, you name it... I can't get a handle on it. I don't do it to him, not my personality. I don't know why or what to do. Not the same thing... but weird.

People are weird bro. Well not you and me, but you know, the others...:)