You Struck Out? Wonderful! It Wasn't Always Like That

I was talking to my friend Evelyn the other day about childhood. Specifically, we were reminiscing about summers spent in the streets playing baseball, riding bikes and running around the neighborhood seemingly without parental oversight. As recently as 40 years ago it was still possible for mothers to tell their kids to go out and play without worrying about what might happen to them.
When I was a kid we spent summer days playing hardball in the street, touch football and other ball games from morning till dinnertime. After dinner we were back out there for more. We organized ourselves into teams choosing sides, the older boys usually doing the choosing. If there were an odd number of kids it might mean as the youngest or the worst player you were left out. It happened every day. Not a single kid in my neighborhood had a nervous breakdown because he didn’t get picked that day.
We didn’t have adults coaching us either. No fathers showed up wearing baseball caps, ready to supervise our games. We didn’t have to put up with practice two nights a week so we could play one game on Saturday morning. We played two and sometimes three games a day, often with as little as three guys on each side. A pitcher a first baseman an outfielder and a little imagination were all we needed. Our mother’s did not come out to watch us play. In fact if a boy’s mother showed up it usually meant he would be leaving and we would need little Jimmy after all if we wanted to keep playing.
And you can be sure that striking out with the bases loaded was never met with a few words of encouragement let alone praise. In those days one of your teammates would no doubt say, “You stink Lenny. Why don’t you go play with dolls?” It hurt to hear those words but the next day we were out there again trying to make like Mickey Mantle. In the process we learned something about resilience.
The world has changed beyond our wildest imaginations since I was a kid. Homogeneous neighborhoods gave way to subdivisions around the same time married women entered the workforce. Without all the moms around to secretly keep an eye on their progeny, giving the kids free run of the neighborhood became impossible.
Fast forward to the brave new world we live in today. I have attended my grandson’s little league games. “Way to go Timmy. Nice swing.” This after the kid swung three times and missed a ball sitting big as a grapefruit on a tee. I find myself wondering how these kids are going to cope with failure and criticism later in life when everything they do is met with a cheer.
The praise is constant in our politically correct world now. The experts have somehow convinced us that we can do permanent damage to a kid’s psyche if we even hint that he’s not as good as every other kid out there. Results are irrelevant. Effort, talent and determination are not important if you’re a kid. Apparently, showing up is the great equalizer. The really stupid thing about this is that the kid getting a pat on the back for letting the ball go through his legs can easily tell the difference between the tepid sign of approval (You’re still a good person Jason) and the all out riot that takes place when one of the other kids manages to hit the ball over somebody’s head. Imagine an error prone boy's shock twenty years later when his boss tells him he’s fired if he doesn’t make a sale soon. (But I looked for the customer’s office. Is it my fault I couldn’t find it on MapQuest?)
There’s probably nothing to be done about this. Certainly I’m not suggesting that adults tell the lousy players they stink. But that type of talk isn’t even allowed kid to kid. If one of them were to say, “Hey Brian, we lost because of you,” any parents overhearing that remark would be all over the poor kid who said it, making sure he knew that it’s better to say nothing if telling the truth will hurt another boy’s tender feelings.
Who knows, maybe it’s better this way. I never liked being told I wasn’t any good at something. Inevitably though, it happens. I get criticized. It hurts. But the next day I just try to make like Andy Rooney again.

Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.