Daddy = Dummy
Laid Off Dad | April 2If you’re a regular playground papa, you’re bound to come in contact with other daddies whose ideas of parenting make you scratch your head. (In some cases, you want to scratch your scalp clean off your skull.) I’m not all that interested in routinely calling out doofus behavior, because I think we daddies derive more from celebrating the good rather than ridiculing the rotten. That said, there are times when the dummies must be called out.
Like the slack-jawed twit who brought some 8-year-old boys to play baseball near where TwoBert and I were practicing the fine art of crawl-soccer. He started with a little infield practice (with one of those softer, Safety Baseballs) and began hitting hot smashes that these kids had no chance of fielding. Several grounders reached us, but he wouldn’t stop until I dived to block one that otherwise would have hit TwoBert in the head.
From there, the kids started a new game: Pelt Somebody With The Ball. This is a standard among young boys, who are by nature hard-headed and stupid, and dads can be forgiven for letting them play it out until somebody takes one in the melon. But this guy decided he wanted to take part in the game, which ended when he pegged a kid in the eye. His sage counsel as tears streamed down the boy’s face? “Shake it off, kid.”
If there’s one thing I want to teach my boys, it’s that “being a man” doesn’t necessary require having to withstand pain, especially when it’s inflicted by an arrested adolescent who doesn’t have the brains to let the kids play on their own. Oh, and when my kids are older, you won’t find me slapping ground balls at infants’ heads, either.
This sort of thing (sadly) validates my sense that people have been devolving where consideration of others is concerned. I think my sense of this stems from my idea of some kind of Victorian archetype of manners as the ideal for social protocol, combined with a widely accepted observation that customer service sucks accross the board, and other parents in the park do things which are so inconsiderate as to border on sociopathic behavior.
you know, it is awesome that the dad wanted to play “with” his kids and be active and have some fun….but what ever happened to the adult still has to be the adult…..my husband is more overprotective than I am in most departments and no infants around, I would be the one slamming ground balls at kids trying to help them practice….(I’m not stupid enough to do it in an inappropriate place). And, for that matter, I might play dodgeball with my kids too….knowing and understanding that I am the adult and I have to set the example of good sportsmanship. End it all with the “shake it off” comment which pisses me off and me husband seems to use endlessly…our kids are really tough but sometimes, you just got a rub an ache and cry too.
By the way, no every child is fortunate enough to have a physical education teacher for a mom who enjoys all that hard nose crap…and they are fortunate enough to have a father who isn’t living his eternal professional athlete dream as well…..
use some common sense…bottom line, wouldn’t you say?
“It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” Maybe the guy was just waiting for that.
I might have joined the game of “Pelt Somebody With The Ball” and nailed the guy myself just for being stupid enough to endanger my kid. We’ll see how well he can “shake it off” when I aim for a nether region.
Apparently, my lack of sleep due to daylight savings time is making me rather mean and crabby. No one throw balls around me today.
Amazing, isn’t it? The most interesting thing is that the child will have such difficulty as an adult showing emotion/pain because his dad taught him to “shake it off”. Sad. Great idea to get out with your kids and play, but bad idea to stunt their emotional growth!
People like that piss me off. I’m with freezio. Where has the concept of common courteousy gone?
I’m find that the balancing act is tough between allowing Oliver to juggle knives and wrapping him in bubble wrap. Knowing which falls qualify for “Good fall!” and which require him to be comforted. I do know that the father in question has fallen and badly. He needs to be picked up. By the short hairs.
The worse thing is he isn’t only inconsiderate himself but he’s teaching it to his children. His disregard for another person’s infant is bad enough, but when he doesn’t comfort his own children he’s not setting an example of empathy either. If the child gets no consideration for his pain, why would he ever take another’s into consideration? It’s just a sad cycle.
Last Winter, during the only real snow around here, I playfully decided to toss a few snowballs into the neighborhood fray, after my 5-yr old son got beaned, and his return sorties fell shorter than George Mason’s loss to Florida. One kid, especially, was being pretty mean. Little lob towards this kid, and the poor guy turned to look at me exactly at the point of intersection with the iceball. Bloody mouth, I feel horrible (but with a little “well, don’t be so mean next time” feeling in my sub-cranium), apologize, and we’re all pal’d up later. It’ll teach me just to work with my son on his aim, velocity and 3-d vectoring, and never pull the artillery string myself. I’m a dummy.
I don’t know, maybe in an evolutionary way it’s a good thing he’s going to knock off his own offspring. But his tact here is the simple strategy of making sure his kids know he is more powerful than they are in order to keep them in line in teh future. The sad flaw in his plan is that when they see any weakness in him, they will kill him and eat him.
“It’s either college money or bail, pops”.