Today I attended my five year old cousin's t-ball game (a kid's version of baseball) and watched the behavior and interaction of the parents there. At any baseball game, there are two opposing teams, and many of the social "rules" at a t-ball game revolve around this fact. For instance, there are two separate bleachers for the parents to sit in, one located behind each team. Parents always sit in the stands behind their team; you would never sit with parents of the opposing team. Also, parents typically cheer for children on their son or daughter's team but not for children on the opposing team. The parents are there to support their child, but the parents do not directly participate in the game. For example, a parent would never run onto the field to catch a ball or interrupt the game to show a child how to hold a bat correctly. Although the parents will cheer for their kids, they rarely approach the players during the game.
There is also a code of behavior for the parents while sitting in the bleachers. In the stands, parents sit by people they know. The better you know someone, the closer you sit to them. A married couple sits very close to one another while acquaintances sit slightly farther away. The people sitting towards the front of the stands remain seated unless something very exciting happens-then they stand up and cheer. It is considered polite to remain seated so that the people sitting behind you can see the game without standing up. The parents talk amongst themselves, but they only discuss small talk, not serious issues. It is also considered rude for a parent to spend an excessive amount of time on a cell phone discussing business. For that matter, it is rude for a parent to not pay attention to the game. For example, one father had his laptop out and was working throughout the game. Other parents made numerous comments about how rude this was. Another rude behavior at baseball games is being excessively vocal. Once in awhile, a very vocal parent will argue with the umpire about a decision. All the other parents appear embarrassed by the vocal parent's behavior, but they do nothing to stop it.
To Americans, much of this behavior is expected and typical at any sporting events. However, an outsider may have trouble knowing where to sit, who to cheer for, and what to talk about. An outsider's behavior may accidentally offend some of the other parents, causing the outsider to be rejected by the group.
Once I started analyzing this behavior, I realized that it is very competitive, especially for a baseball game played by five year olds. After all, five year olds are there to have fun and winning shouldn't really matter. Yet the parents act in a competitive manner; they don't associate with the opposing team, they only cheer for their own team, and they often debate calls with the umpire. All in all, the parents take the game much more seriously than the kids do. Why do you think parents take their children's games so seriously when the goal is to have fun, not to win?
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Parents see their children as an extension of themselves and are typically fiercely protective of their children.
ReplyDeleteWhen parents try to identify too much of themselves in their children I think they start to take things far more seriously than they should. I think sports, or any form of competition brings out the worst in people generally.
Combine a parent that overly self-identifies with their children, over protectiveness, and competition and you have set the stage for irrational, sometimes ridiculously so, behavior by parents.
Winning really isn't everything and kids need to know how to lose (and lose well) just as much as they need to feel the satisfaction of success; each are equally important skills to learn if you are going to make it in the world. Besides, I personally just enjoyed just playing sports as a kid, the winning was nice, the losing sucked, but the playing was...as they say in the commercials....priceless.
I think parents try to raise their children in a way that give them a better, more happy life than they had when they grew up. Parents who were not as athletic as they dreamed to be as a child would encourage their kids to be athletic and succeed--almost as if living their childhood dream through their kids. Also on the other side of this would be the parents who have always been very athletic and competative and wish to see their children be very successful and athletic. With the opposing teams' parents (and the way they set the stands up so they are on opposite sides), they suddenly seem to become part of the game as well in a competative sense. Who can cheer the loudest? Who's son is the fastest? Who's son is the best? It's unfortunate, but I think these attitudes stem off from the parent's childhood.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Sometimes parents are more serious and excited than their child when they cheer for their child. And watching them is fun, you know? I think why parents is competetive is because adults consider other things such as their identity, status, and pride more than enjoying a game. Adulds care about how other people judge them and their child, I suppose. On the other hand, children do not care so much about how people think about them. In conclusion, parents and a child have different ideas.
ReplyDeleteI think its because parents see their kids as the best. So when their child is put into a competitive situation they want to cheer on their child. I think they see the other parents cheering on their kids and think that they should do it louder. althought we see it as being kind of ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteParents have little versions of themselves out on the field. There is a part of them that feels a pride completely unmatched by anything else. They feel their pain, they feel their accomplishment, they feel their joy. I can remember when my daughter was in dance class at the age of three. I was more excited at her first recital than she was. In fact, she didn't want anything to do with it. Oh how I was mad. I was completely surprised at my inner feelings. It was not an outward emotion, but I wanted to cry and carry on. Obviously I didn't because I'm not a psycho parent, however it really caused me to take note on how invested I had become and when she wasn't interested I had to step back and re-evaluate why we were doing this to begin with. Lesson learned and I never did it again. I waited for her desire to bloom into her own interests, and at the age of 13 she began her sport of choice. Horseback riding. It's now my pleasure to watch her ride.
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