Incompetence and Loathing

When you're not good at something, you develop an aversion to it, even more so if you're ridiculed because you're not good at it, and you retreat into something you are good at, and value it more highly than what you are not.

I was always the last or next-to-last kid picked for a team in gym class. I still can see the utter disdain with which the jock team captains pointed to each of us in turn as we were selected, directing us to join them with a mute finger or head shake, not even uttering a name, because they often didn't know our names. We were the anonymous uncool kids - unusually heavier or thinner than most, or a dozen IQ points more or less than most.

Sometimes the jock held a ball under an arm, or bounced it, while he chose who would play on his team; we waited, secretly thinking "pick me, pick me," until there were so few kids left, the humiliation of getting picked last became inevitable.[1]

Those that have an athletic aptitude (or are are even just adequate) don't understand the self loathing and resentment that germinates when this ritual is repeated weekly.

Someone called into a radio sports show recently and expressed this very idea. Although the radio hosts were polite (they happened to be Christian radios hosts that were also sports enthusiasts), they immediately responded with reasons why sports are valuable (builds character and social skills, etc).

They didn't understand, because they couldn't. Their response was loud and enthusiastic, which in the context of sports often substitutes for substance. The caller might as well have been talking Greek.

My opinion: If your child is athletically incompetent, don't make them play. You have no idea the torture you may be forcing them to endure. It's not medicine. They won't die without it. And they may emerge scarred and bitter. Some kids got it, some kids don't. Let each excel at what their good at, on or off the field.

I realize most ordinary people that kicked or hit or dribbled or otherwise successfully maneuvered a ball through an obstacle course as a child will disagree with me. They simply haven't looked closely at those on the other side of the competitive equation.

None of this is meant to suggest we shouldn't get back up on the horse when we fall off. I'm just saying choose the right horse you're going to ride.

Stretch yourself in a way that will make a difference.

 

[1]
Skilled dehumanization is learned early. It's no wonder young people grow up knowing how to devalue adults. Horrible events like slavery, euthanasia, genocide, abortion, etc, can't happen if you don't train early.

I must give credit to one of my middle school Phys Ed teachers (we didn't call it "PE" in those days, it was "Phys Ed"): He started out by picking two team captains who then in turn would choose up sides, but when there were only a dozen or so of us left, most of us the athletic dregs of middle school, he stopped the selection process and simply split us down the middle, sending a half dozen to one team and a half dozen to the other.

He was a big man, with a big heart. He had young kids, and just maybe they weren't athletes.

When I started this, the Summer Olympics in London were in full swing. TV coverage continued for two weeks after, not because there was much more of value to say, but because the world threw an expensive party, and because far-flung locations and beach volleyball make for good ratings. I watched more of it than you might think and enjoyed more of it than you might think; I enjoy others enjoying themselves; that is after all 99% of parenthood and holidays and other nice things.

Started: 2012-07-31