A Tip for Dad
Sunday, August 16th, 2009Article by: Roy Exum / Chattanoogan.com
(This opinion piece was originally posted on Chattanoogan.com on 8/7/09. Mr. Exum is a well known former sportswriter and editor who wrote for the old Chattanooga News Free Press, a paper his family owned for many years. Known then for the human interest angles he often observed, he has become something of a story himself in recent months. Many people in our community have followed both his struggles and successes through contributions that can only be described as transparent. While commenting upon a wide variety of topics, he often returns to what may be considered his first love, sports. This particular article was pointed out by one of our dads, who thought that the beginning of the year was the perfect time to be reminded of a broader perspective.)
I have known a good number of men and a few women who were in the United States Marine Corps and not a one ever told me boot camp at Parris Island was fun or easy. On the other hand, I’ve yet to meet a one who did not consider the steamy South Carolina boot camp anything less than sacred soil because that’s where “Semper Fideles,” a Latin phrase meaning “Always Faithful,” first takes roots for any who would ever wear the globe, the anchor and the eagle.
The Parris Island Depot wasn’t designed to be a nice place. It was designed to enable young men and women, some who would go into harm’s way, to stay alive, to lead and follow, and to be successful.
Some would call the drill sergeants too mean and too hard. Others might call them worse. But, again, all of the world recognizes the transformation that occurs in just 12 weeks.
That said, allow me to introduce a well-known fact. Parents of recruits are neither invited nor allowed to come and watch. Oh, the glory of graduation day is a time of great family celebration and quite storied, but the U.S. Marine Corps doesn’t allow daddies, so to speak, to hang on the fence.
While I hardly hold myself up as a good parent, perhaps the best advice I ever received when my two were growing up was to never, ever, attend a practice or a class of any kind. Yes, you be waiting in the car when the last bell rings. You always stop for a Coke and a candy bar. You listen and you cajole and you give your opinion, but don’t you dare interfere in the wonderful process of allowing your child to become their own person.
No coach can ever replace a daddy. Just as true is the adage no daddy can ever be as effective as a coach, not when the sun is hot, the pads are popping and the only ones who hear your groans and whining are your teammates who, if history will serve itself, were doing a bit of grousing too.
Johnny Majors, minutes after a wonderful athlete had quit the Vols in a colorful huff, sat dejectedly on a bench in the coach’s locker room one day and held up the fingers on his two hands. “I can’t name this many mothers who allowed a child to quit, but daddies are different, brother.
“A boy’s father will be a big cheerleader at first, but then his heart gets in the way. ‘That coach ought to be playing you more. You are better than the others. That coach just doesn’t understand you. I know what I am talking about! You are being mistreated.’
“The guys who never were good athletes are the worst dads,” John said that day. “They try to live [vicariously] through their kids. It is awful what they do to their own sons. Oh, there are some who are helpful, but that’s the mother’s job, to dust ‘em off, help lick their wounds and all of that, but it is also the mother who shakes ‘em before dawn and feeds ‘em a good breakfast before she says, ‘You get yourself back out there!’”
Oh, you make sure you go to every game, every play, every recital. When the PTA meets, you sit on the front row. When teacher conferences are held, you get there early and, if there is the slightest ripple, you do whatever it takes to quell it and quickly.
But don’t you watch practice. It not only puts pressure on the child, it will make the other players feel sorry for the poor kid whose daddy becomes the farthest thing from the buddy that child needs when he climbs in the car with his hair dripping wet.
I can’t name a daddy who wants to see his son get whipped. I don’t care whether it’s at football practice, on a loading dock during a summer job, or standing by a broken vase in the floral department. The thing is that whippings, be they great or small, direct or subtle, literally or figuratively, are quite common on the path of life and learning how to take one is a youngster’s rite of passage.
If a child has to read a book to get extra credit, you read it at the same time. Great conversations are born when that happens and, as with anyone who takes an active role in homework knows, you’ll learn more than your child. But when he stands to recite, you let him trust his own feet. A great day is when he learns how to stand alone.
Just as a sentry might shoot you if you tried to get in the gate at Parris Island when very knowledgeable men are “building Marines,” heed the same advice when wonderful people are giving similar lessons to your children be it at age two or 46.
Be there for your kids, but, for goodness sake, don’t dare try to take their place. So help me I’ve seen too many guys who rue the day when they tried so unsuccessfully to do just that. And, believe me, I’ve seen too many times when it didn’t turn out like even the purest heart hoped it would.
A kid needs to learn to stand alone. What that means, pure and simple, is you don’t need to watch them do it, but, Lord have mercy, join in the applause because it is so wonderfully deafening.
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