Vol. 118 - A Good Sport

You are who you are when no one is looking

I’m constantly wondering if I’m doing a good job as a father. In fact, if anything, I tend to default to the idea that I’m not doing such a great job, that I need to be better, kinder, tougher, more patient, more demanding, more lenient, softer, harder, et cetera, et cetera.

And while I know that idea that my fatherhood is lacking is more or less untrue, and that I am doing at the very least an okay job at fatherhood, this mindset allows me to continue to strive every day to try and be a better father.

I think anyone who wants to be half decent at this job does the same.

Often, when I see my son being selfish or hearing the other kids at the playground yelling his name and telling him to stop doing this or that, I look inward and I look to my wife and I try to determine what we might do better to create a kid who isn’t selfish or one who isn’t annoying on the playground (and then I remember that all kids are selfish and all kids are annoying on the playground at some point or another).

But recently, I’ve heard a few things that made me think, “Hey, you know, Em and I aren’t too bad at this.”

And I know those moments are legit because they’ve both come when my son thought I was nowhere near him.

Exhibit A: My son races BMX. Every Friday, we load up the car with his bike, my daughter’s strider (track nights always kick off with strider bike races and it’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen), and my bike (yes, he convinced me to buy a BMX bike and start racing with him. Results haven’t been pretty).

My son is a ravenous competitor and a fine line Emily and I are trying to walk is how to stoke that fire while also creating a kid who is a good sport and a team player. It’s not always easy but he’s predisposed to hate losing and I don’t see the point in trying to snuff that spark out.

Recently, after a race in which I wasn’t competing thanks to a non-BMX-related hamstring tear, I walked over to the starting hill. From the crowd, I could hear something banging on my son’s bike and wanted to make sure nothing was broken. Having just lost his heat by half-a-bike-length, I fully expected to encounter a sullen or teary-eyed little boy. Instead, what I came upon was my son comforting the kid who finishing in third place, telling him what a great job he did and that he was proud of the little boy. He patted the boy on the back, reminding him how important it was to race hard, all the way to the finish, which is exactly what the little boy had done. The kid was inconsolable but that didn’t stop my son from keeping on with the encouragement.

After a few brief moments, he noticed I was standing behind him, taking in the entire scene. I leaned over and I whispered in his ear that I’d never been prouder of him.

Exhibit B is basically the same story except in this instance, it was after the kids’ race at the Philadelphia Marathon. We flew up for the weekend to cheer on a friend who recently finished chemotherapy and was running the half. As Emily and I both went to college in Philly, we look for any chance to go back to that weird and wonderful city.

And, as she always does, Emily found a really neat event to occupy our kids. Just a few short feet past the marathon’s finish line, there was a kids’ race, organized by age. It was a first-class event, with a dedicated announcer, race officials, and even a pace bike. Our son would be racing roughly four-hundred meters against two dozen other six-year-olds.

When the gun went off, our crazy competitive son shot out like a fireball and dominated the race, leading from wire to wire (it was just a kids’ race but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t gloating on the inside).

After the race, I ran to the corral where parents could pick up their kids. And, just as he was after the BMX race, there my kid was, comforting a little boy who he beat, telling the little boy he ran the best race he could and that he was proud of his effort. I watched as my son patted the teary-eyed boy’s tiny shoulder. I watched the little boy eek a smile through his tears as my son grabbed his hand and tugged it above his head for a forced high five.

Maybe it’s because my son knows what’s it like to be the crying kid on the bad end of defeat. Or maybe he’s as preternaturally predisposed to kindness as he is to competition. Whatever it is, our son is exhibiting things that Emily and I have so desperately tried to instill in him.

We still have a long, long way to go as parents and there are so many things we can be doing better, no doubt. But, if it’s true that our kids are a reflection of us, then it’s great to see them mirroring the good, even if it only happens when we’re not looking.

Actually, especially if it happens when we’re not looking.