The real reason parents attack one another with baseball bats during sports games

And with the completion of the final game this morning, soccer season has ended for all three of our kids. Kendrie had a great year --- landed on a winning team, with involved parents, a fabulous coach, and enjoyable teammates, almost all of whom go to her school, so lots of opportunity to make friends. She was really worried at the outset about playing on an all-girl team, but it wound up being a huge blessing and she had a blast.

Kellen’s season wasn’t quite as successful --- he loved meeting his team mates (everyone was new to this team, like him) and his coach was pleasant, but they got rained out of almost every practice. Seriously, out of ten weeks of the season, they only had three practices. The boys were competing against teams that had played together for years, and although they had a lot of natural talent on the field, they never quite got it all together and ended the season 1-9. He still had fun, though, and made some new friends, and that’s what counts.

Brayden’s season, well, was sort of a wash out. It had been almost three years since she played, so we purposely put her in a different league than the other two … a less-competitive league, run out of a church. We thought it would be a good way for her to get her feet wet, and become familiar with the game again, in a more casual way. Not as much stress; not as much competition. Good in theory, but in practice, this team was perhaps, too casual.

The coach missed half the practices and games, and we often had another coach or ref or volunteer step in and take over. There were only four girls on her team, and they played four-on-four soccer, so if a single girl from her team was absent on game day, which happened with alarming frequency, they had to borrow a player from the other team, or let someone’s sister play, or play one person short.

Brayden was the ONLY one of the four who never missed a practice or a game the entire season. The other three girls all missed at least two games, and about half the practices each. There were even a few times that Brayden was the ONLY one to show up for practice, and she was the only one to show up on picture day. One of the other girls on the team missed, in a row, a practice, then a game, then another practice, then another game. This was near the beginning of the season, and we assumed she had quit the team. When she finally showed back up again, she said she had been grounded for two weeks, and that was why she had been absent.

This actually sparked a conversation in our house about responsibility to your team-mates, and how Blaine and I would never ground our kids from a sporting event where they were a team player ….. simply put, we don’t think that’s fair to the other kids on the team. Groundings, in our opinion, should be about restricting TV or computer or telephone time, or being made to miss a birthday party or a playdate, or taking away a Gameboy, or whatever. When your daughter’s soccer team is in a four-on-four league, and there are only four girls on the team, I just don’t think grounding a girl from a game, and handicapping the other three members of that team, is appropriate or fair. But hey, that’s just me. Since Parenting magazine hasn't called with my Mother of the Year award, it's quite possible I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

Something I did this season – something I try to do every season – is take pictures of the other players on each team while I’m taking photos of my own kids. Then I print out the best twenty or twenty-five photos and put them in a small brag book to give as gifts at the end-of-season party. I’ll be honest, it’s a little bit of a hassle, but I love doing it. I spend about five dollars a kid on the photo printing and books, which doesn’t sound like much, until you consider I did it for the four girls on Brayden’s team, the ten boys on Kellen’s team, and the 13 girls on Kendrie’s team.

And I don’t even mind spending the money (although I *did* find some cheaper books on the internet and you can bet your sweet bippy that’s what I’ll be using next time) but the real investment is the time I spend downloading, uploading, sorting, organizing, and photo-shopping these pictures. It's not out of the ordinary for me to take over 500 shots in a single weekend. Picking the best action shots, then cropping, zooming, adjusting brightness and level contrasts …. I really want the kids to enjoy receiving them, and I love for the parents to be happy with them, so I (gladly, and I really do mean gladly) spend hours every weekend on this project, from the beginning of the season to the end. The happiness on the kids’ faces when they see these pictures of themselves (or, the pretend-happiness on the parents' faces that they fake just to be polite … I don’t care) makes every minute and dollar spent worthwhile. Truly, it’s a labor of love and I don’t mind doing it.

Except.

(You knew there would be an “except”, didn’t you?)

Last night, the three other girls on Brayden’s team had a swim party and sleepover (but not Brayden, because our rule is no-sleepovers with families we don’t know personally …. But our over-protectiveness is another blog topic for another day) and they were all coming to the game together this morning. We arrived a few minutes early, and I took my chair and set up by the side of the field, ready for the game to start. Brayden was waiting in our van (still pouting because we wouldn’t let her sleep over and made her come home at 9pm because {and I quote} “we are the meanest parents in the world!!!”).

The other parents on Brayden’s team haven’t been incredibly friendly, and we most likely wouldn’t recognize one another on the street. Another dad showed up and set up his chair next to mine, waiting for his daughter to arrive from the sleep over. The girls were running late, and the referee came over and asked the people on the sidelines if the team was going to show up. (Because our coach wasn’t there again today … imagine that.)

This dad said to the ref, very politely, “The girls had a sleepover last night and my guess is they’re running a few minutes late.” After the ref walked away, the dad turned to me, who he didn’t know, and said, “Not that it matters if they show up anyway, they’re terrible.”

And I sat there, just looking at him, and then he laughed this sort of patronizing laugh and said, “Oh, did I just say that out loud???” This was the very same dad, mind you, who kept his daughter from the games and practices whenever she was grounded.

I sat there, fuming, and I wanted to ask him, did he KNOW that one of those girls he was talking about was my daughter? And just how was the team supposed to get any better when he wouldn’t bring his OWN DAUGHTER to practice with her team mates?? Or let her play in all the games? Or when the coach wasn’t even there half the time???

But because I have no spine (No, seriously, no spine. It’s a medical miracle I’m able to stand upright) I just sat there, with my mouth shut, with the photo album of his daughter’s pictures in my hands. Pictures I spent my own time and money taking, and tweaking, and getting developed as a gift for him.

And I thought very seriously about throwing his set in the trash.

Because, yeah, that’d show him.

Ok, so it wouldn’t show him anything. But I think it would have made me feel better.

(Yes, I'm still a little bit angry about it .... can you tell?)