Way Past The 3 Rs

Well, I haven't hunkered down to work on the memoir, so I might as well blog and write something. Life's been great and busy, which I imagine it is for many of us.

A few weeks ago I tried to rouse Miguel from his usual teenaged state of nighttime inactivity.

"C'mon, Miguel, brush your teeth, put in your headgear, and then we can watch some Dick," I said.

"Dad, that doesn't sound right."

"Dick Van Dyke. Dick Van Dyke," I said, referring to the classic TV DVDs we'd been viewing before bed. We'd started with Andy Griffith. "Why does it always have to be about that?"

"Because I'm 13," he responded.

And then I was thrust back to my own hormonally driven adolescence and I remembered, with all too much clarity, the irreverent humor and endless joke about sex, sexual acts, bodies, breasts, and the like that I shared with my friends.

So I realized I can use some of his reactions as teachable moments. This morning, for example, while I'm home with laryngitis (proving that God does have a sense of humor) and general malaise, I watched Miguel play one of his PS3 games, in which he skateboards through urban settings. His self-designed character was shirtless and sported a bikini-clad babe tattoo across his ripped abs.

"Miguel, what's up with the tattoo?" I asked. I am sure at this point he would've preferred I'd gone to work.

"It's just a tattoo," he said.

I then launched into a brief discussion (OK, I did most of the talking) about what it means to objectify women. I am pretty sure the concept of objectifying anyone went over his head, as it would've mine all those years ago. But I hope my message will eventually seep in.

"Miguel, I just don't want you to see women as functions of their bodies," I said as he manipulated his toggles.

For him, it's a game; for me, it's about life and values and how we position ourselves in the world. And, as he finishes eighth grade and enters high school amid a flurry of social interactions and experiences, I want my voice to be a prominent guide.

While I willingly accept the opportunity to help mould my teenaged son, I am not ready to explore sex education or anything related with Maya. Sometimes, though, I have no choice.

Last night, as she was getting ready for bed, she looked at a photo of Verna, Miguel, and me and said, "I was still in Mommy's tummy."

"Well, Maya, you were still with God in Heaven," I said.

"I was an angel?"

"Yes, you were an angel," I said.

"What happened to my wings when I was born?" she asked.

"God took them," I answered.

"Before I came out of Mommy's tummy?"

"Yes," I said.

"Is that how babies get born, from the tummy?" she asked.

"Some babies do," I said. "But most babies come out from the vagina."

Her eyes widened and she looked at me. "Really?"

We then had a discussion, with her asking most of the questions, about how God helps push the babies down the canal and then the doctor or nurse helps deliver them.

I was almost about to tell her about the stork and just make it easy on myself. Eventually we stopped talking about babies and birthing and she picked out of book for me to ready before bed, Fancy Nancy. But sometimes it's easier to deal with a slightly somnambulant teen versus a highly inquisitive kindergartener.

Parenting. Oy. I mean, joy.

Not Makin' Whoopee

I promise this entry will not contain graphic or lurid details of sex education.

Honest. I promise.

It’s more about values, and how we pass on moral messages to our children and fortify ourselves as role models. You know, do as I say and do.

On the way home from school yesterday, Miguel shared with me the day’s sex education lesson.
Kids can ask any question they want. The question was: Which is better, oral or anal sex?

“It wasn’t my question,” he said.

“What did the teacher say?” I asked. For some reason, the question was posed to the language arts instructor, not the science one, who teaches the unit.

“She said, ‘That’s a personal question,’ Miguel said. “So which is better?”

I will not divulge my answer, nor reveal my response to his next question: “Have you ever had oral sex?”

My answers are unimportant. I will admit that I was speechless as he fired his questions much more rapidly than I felt equipped to answer.

I always knew I’d be Miguel’s go-to guy for all matters of sex, relationships, love, etc. Verna ceded that responsibility to me when Miguel was a toddler by virtue of our shared gender. Even though I am fully committed to offer age-and-developmentally appropriate honesty to my children about sex, my conversations with Miguel have always been slightly awkward.

He first asked me about babies and sex when he was eight. After I gave him a very brief introduction into sexual reproduction, he looked at me as if he’d just swallowed castor oil and raw eggs. From time to time, as he’s approached puberty and adolescence and his body has begun to change, there have been additional talks. I have tried to be as matter-of-fact as possible. Call me Jack Webb, Mr. Dragnet: just the facts.

Oh, I editorialize. I’ve thrown in a few things about protection, emotional readiness, not wanting to be a grandfather for at least 15 years. I am not even sure I needed to go in a few directions, but Miguel’s teachers have informed us parents that teenage sex (oral and otherwise) happens earlier and earlier.

Yes, I shudder. At 13 I was content to stand in the lunch line close enough to girls to inhale the fragrance of their shampoo. The world may have changed slightly when it comes to the sexes and sex in the 21st century.

So when I got back to work yesterday, a little addled after Miguel put me on the spot, I sought out the comfort of two male co-workers. They laughed with me as I retold the car conversation, and then one said, “It’s great that he could talk to you.”

And that’s when it hit me: yes, it is great he can talk to me. And he wanted to converse with me. I have not initiated a conversation yet about sex education. He was the one who came to me with the permission slip, and Miguel has usually shared with me the various sex education lessons. I have confined myself to asking the very general, “How was school today?”

To which he invariably replies, “Fine.”

Or I might say, “What’d you do in school today?” and he will offer, “Not much.”

But with sex education, I haven’t paid closer attention to the unit than any others. Partly because I am swamped with life, work, and just getting the kids fed, to school, and to their activities.

I do know, however, the awesome responsibility I have. And it’s not really about sex. Miguel barely has girls on his radar. He texts a few, but they are in the larger context of reaching out to friends. It is really about learning how to navigate the emotionally confusing and often physically awkward world of relationships, friendships, and the delicate social dance of teenagers.

Several weeks ago, after I mentioned a new female friend, he said, “Is she hot?”

“Miguel, that doesn’t matter,” I said, feeling as if I were banging my head against a wall and wondering if he was actually listening to me. “It’s what’s on the inside.”

But I bought him two posters of Megan Fox, which now adorn his bedroom wall, so what message is really bounding through him?

Welcome to my contradiction.

I still hope (and pray) Miguel learns about girls, young women, women, relationships, and, yes, sex, by the examples I’ve tried to set for the past 25 years. Time will, um, tell. I am not sure I want to know all the questions, but I am ready with answers.

Growing Up

While Miguel and I were watching the Olympics last night, I asked him, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

I don’t know what prompted me to ask, but maybe I was curious because I am reading a book about parenting (Becoming a Jewish Parent by Daniel Gordis). Of course, for some strange reason, I picked the most inopportune moment to query him: we were watching the four-man bobsled competition, in which the US earned its first gold medal in 62 years.

“An athlete,” he answered. “Baseball or basketball.”

I couldn’t help being a parent at that moment. “Do you have a fallback position in case you get injured?”

“A doctor,” he said.

“What kind?” I asked.

“One who works with kids.”

Yes, I beamed inside. My son the doctor, crowed the Jewish parent that I am. But I was a little sad, too. I wondered if Verna would live long enough to see Miguel realize his dreams and become a professional athlete or pediatrician (or any other choices he makes). Time will tell, I know.

When Miguel was six he announced that he and his schoolmate, Oscar, wanted to room together and become janitors at the zoo when they were older.

“We’re not going to get married,” he stated firmly.

“That’s OK,” I said, trying to be the supportive parent.

Later he said he and Oscar could always adopt children. I quickly went to Verna and said, “Miguel’s gay. And a chorus from Seinfeld erupted, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

And there isn’t. But I am a product of the larger society and radical-liberal-vegetarian-commie-pinko-Jewboy that I am, I am also imprisoned within very traditional notions of how life ought to be. So while I intellectually support equal rights for everyone, on a visceral level I was disappointed that Miguel wasn’t opting for the wife, two kids, dog, and picket fence scenario that has clogged my mind for so many years.

Verna probably said something about me overreacting, which was true, but, hey, I’ve refined anxiety and neuroses to award winning dimensions. And the reality is I will love and support whatever decisions Miguel makes, whether he is gay, straight, Democrat, or…oh, never mind, or becomes a Trappist monk.

I phoned Oscar’s mom, a friend of ours, and she just laughed. She hadn’t heard about his career goals, but she found it touching that Oscar and Miguel were close enough to ponder a future together.

Miguel’s revelation yesterday got me thinking about my dreams so very long ago. The first career I envisioned for myself was as a mechanical engineer. I have absolutely no reason why I chose mechanical engineering, because as an eight or nine year-old I had nary a clue what a mechanical engineer was or did. In fact, today I still couldn’t satisfactorily explain the details of a mechanical engineer’s job description.

The first vocation I recall choosing was that of consumer advocate. I wanted to be a lawyer just like Ralph Nader, one of my earliest public heroes. I loved that he fought against corporations that betrayed the public’s trust and cared more about profits than people. I even spoke about the legal profession to a friend of my parents who was a Legal Aid attorney.

The next time I confronted grown-up career goals was in high school. We had to take one of those seemingly useless personality achievement tests that determined, based on the answers we gave, what profession best suited us. My results came back as teacher-social worker-guidance counselor.

At the time, having just turned 18, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I “grew up”. I was fairly smart, but lazy and had elevated procrastination to an art form of the highest capacity.

However, that prognostication was pretty close to where my heart truly lies. I taught school for 12 years, have continued to tutor for another 11, and spent a year as a funeral counselor. Now I work with elders in an independent living retirement facility.

I guess I am really impressed that Miguel knows what he wants to do. Or at least he has an idea that may change, evolve, mutate, or dissolve several times over before he reaches adulthood.

We will nurture his dreams even if I was taken aback by his declaration. Medical school is so hard and the profession so demanding, that I wonder how he will deal with the challenge. Not that I doubt Miguel’s resolve, but so far he is happiest with a baseball, basketball or football in his hands or watching any televised sporting event. I can’t yet picture him hunched in a college library study carrel, sucking down massive quantities of caffeine and pulling another all-nighter as he struggles through biochemistry.

Last night, though, I was reminded that the present often bears little relation to the future. I ran into an old friend, whose son I taught 15 years ago. The son was a spirited kid, rock solid build, who, despite being super bright, couldn’t hold his behavior or focus together in class. After running a successful landscaping operation in the Caribbean for a few years, this “kid”, now in his mid-twenties, his proud father informed me, is currently getting his master’s degree at Berkeley in project management. The student I knew so long ago probably couldn’t have spelled the words project management (OK, I am exaggerating).

So, to borrow an Olympic motif, Miguel should reach for the gold (or silver or bronze or forego medals) and settle into a career and life path that satisfies his deep desires as a human being.

Yes, I am being corny yet again. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

The Best Offense is a Good Defense

Verna met with her oncologist yesterday. One of the things the doctor said was she hopes that Verna will be able to tolerate her chemotherapy, due to start in mid-November, for several years. The oral medication, Xeloda, is designed to keep the cancer from spreading out of Verna’s bones and into major organs.

I figured I should share some of what we learned at the oncologist’s with Miguel. He is 11 and knows that Verna’s breast cancer has metastasized to her bones. A few questions rumbled through my mind as I pondered how to broach the subject with Miguel: do I tell him before school and risk ruining his day? Before bed and cause him nightmares? During the later afternoon while we are tossing a baseball or football or playing Nerf basketball in his bedroom?

We’ve told him all along, “The doctors and nurses are going to do whatever they can to help Mommy get better. If that situation changes, we will let you know.” So I didn’t see anything wrong with sharing some of the information we got from Dr. Greyz yesterday morning in her office.

“Miguel, what does the offensive line in football do?” I asked him this morning as we drove to school. His carpool buddy was home sick, so it was just father and son at 7:45 on a chilly Wednesday morning.

“They block,” he said, somewhat confused by my question.

“Right. They’re supposed to stop the defensive linemen and other defenders from breaking through and getting to the quarterback,” I explained.

He was still confused.

I continued, “That’s how the doctors hope that Mommy’s chemo pills will work. The chemo will prevent her cancer from leaving her bones and going to other parts of her body.”

He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke he said, “Can I play football?”

I am reading Real Boys by William Pollack, a noted Harvard psychologist, who advises not to answer “We’ll see” or “Maybe” when a child requests something and you are unsure if you can deliver. Pollack favors total honesty with some good old fashioned explanations. So, if one of your children asks for something beyond the family’s current financial means, don’t just put them off by offering a “We’ll see” or a “Maybe later.” Be honest and say something like, “Maybe we will be able to afford that in 6 months, but right now…” Or, “What are some ways you could earn extra money to help pay for it?”

Pollack’s advice ran through my mind as I formed an answer to Miguel. I was also close to laughing because after I’d explained about Verna’s chemo, Miguel’s first response was about playing football.

“Mommy and I are not that happy about you playing football,” I said. Miguel knows we are worried about potentially serious injuries he could incur.

“But I am going to need the practice if I’m going to play for the Oregon Ducks,” he said. Miguel has been a devout Oregon Ducks fan ever since we spent time in Oregon in 2002, en route to Vancouver, and later for a week in 2006.

“What about playing baseball or basketball for the Ducks?” I responded.

“What’s wrong with football?” he said. “And I’m so good at it.”

The conversation kind of ended right there. Even though Miguel is a skinny, built for non-contact kind of guy, he wants to race down the football field and catch the winning TD. Verna and I, on the other hand, have visions of paralysis and severe head trauma.

But he does love playing football. I’ve been throwing deep bombs and short distance almost precision passes to him for several years. He dons a football helmet, mouth guard, and gloves and we practice on the field in our park or the street near behind our home. Lately, we’ve been doing punt returns, where I loft the ball high above him, which he retrieves and then tries to barrel past me for a ‘touchdown’.

Until Sunday. That is when he swept past me again with ease and I fell to the ground and nearly tore ligaments in my knee or severely bruised the bone.

So I told Verna about our conversation, and she said, “Are there still youth games going on? Maybe we could take him to one.”

Miguel has a friend who is smaller than he is and plays Pop Warner football, so our ‘you’re going to get your less than sturdy gridiron butt knocked around way too much’ argument doesn’t wash with Miguel because of his buddy.

I know that Verna is hoping Miguel will see a game up close and personal and immediately shun any present and future connection to organized football because of its real and inherent dangers. We also know that is highly unlikely given that he is a preteen and sees the game as a thrilling adventure.

So the next time he asks to play football we may have to bribe him out of it or resort to the time-tested response of “Maybe. We’ll see.”

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream...Part 2

I yelled yesterday morning.

I was pushing Maya in her stroller just after we left Miguel when we passed a 7th grader headed towards the middle school. Two friends of his passed him on bikes, and one of them sort of taunted him by saying, “Hey, how’s it going?”

The long blond haired walker, who was hauling his backpack, immediately responded, “F*** you.” Then he paused for a brief moment and unleashed two more f-bombs at the kids cycling away from him.

I turned back and shouted, “Hey!” The kid glanced back at me, surprised, I think, that he’d been caught. He just kept walking to school, silently.

Maya looked up at me and said, “Why are you yelling, daddy?”

Had someone told her about my pledge not to yell?

“I screamed because he used bad words,” I said.

That seemed to satisfy Maya because she didn’t ask me anything else. She may have also been preoccupied with our mission that morning before I dropped her off at preschool: hot chocolate at Starbuck’s.

I didn’t feel badly about raising my voice. On the contrary, the kid needed to know his behavior was unacceptable, especially in front of a three-year-old munching on a S’mores-flavored Z Bar.

So then I started wondering about why some people think it’s socially permissible to unleash a torrent of swear words in public? I am no social or personal prude, but I think restraint can be an admirable value and goal to work toward especially in view of minors.

Miguel and I were at a San Francisco 49ers preseason game recently, about six rows behind a drunken 30-something in a Bruce Lee t-shirt who kept pointing haphazardly at people around him and shouting, “What the f*** are you looking at? You pussies. What the f*** are you gonna do about it? Huh?!?”

Then he’d point at his t-shirt and raise both middle fingers to further taunt those around him. Fortunately, no one rose to the beer-sodden challenge of the loser and attempted to shut him up, thereby possibly instigating a larger incident.

But Miguel and I did see a few fights in the stands, which I am sure were fueled by excessive amounts of alcohol. He was slightly scared, and I was extremely uncomfortable and unhappy. At least, though, we hadn’t paid for our seats. They’d been a gift from friends.

Now I know all I had to do was either text (OK, I have never texted) or call security and the offender[s] would be removed from the stadium. But I didn’t. It was easy to shout at some unknown 12-year old walking to school, but scarier about being part, even in an anonymous way, of a confrontation with an alcohol-addled hothead.

I think I did say something to a guy at an Oakland A’s game once because he was just behind Miguel and me. He was swearing at some of the players from the opposing team and he may have insulted Ken Griffey Jr.’s mother. So I wasn’t going to let his verbal excess in Miguel’s presence continue. He quickly acquiesced without any further problems.

I am not advocating a return to 1950s civility, but I do wonder if in this age of social networking some people feel emboldened to speak their minds in whatever fashion they prefer at particular moments?

Not yelling is still my goal. Just don’t swear within earshot of my family or me and then you can avoid provoking my inner and outer screamer, which might be ironic since I am begging for an infusion of social restraint.

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream...

I have a loud voice, which surprises no one who knows me. Verna used to hide in the bedroom when I used the phone in our cramped San Francisco apartment in the early 1990's. My normal voice is booming and it drove her crazy. I am the guy who can deliver a speech to 250 people in a crowded hall and not need a microphone for everyone to easily hear me.

Having a voice that vibrates the air close to the speed of sound helped me when I was a schoolteacher as well. I had to raise it slightly, what I called yelling and what others termed screaming at ear-splitting decibels, to get everyone’s attention at the school and in several nearby towns.

But I consider myself fairly normal, meaning as a parent with two kids I yell at times when I am angry, but I don't think I overdo it. Maya doesn’t like it all when anyone raises a voice to her. She says, “Don’t be mad at me,” and then cries. Miguel, I always thought, seemed rather nonchalant when I vented at him or expressed displeasure with a scream. He always had a detached look on his face and seemed to be saying, “Whatever.”

As it turns out, however, I was wrong.

Last Friday night, Miguel admitted my loud voice or yelling scares him. I don’t recall now only three days later what triggered our conversation, but it was an eye-opener. Not that I am a candidate for anger management classes, but given Verna’s health these days I am going to be more stressed than usual, so I need to control myself before things do spin off their axis. What I mean is just because I may be relatively calm most of the time doesn’t make me feel good about scaring my son.

“Miguel, I never knew my yelling scared you,” I said that night. “You never showed that it bothered you.”

“I felt it internally,” he said. “It caused an internal conflict.” Then he smiled and added, “We just learned about internal conflict in English class.”

So now Miguel is using literary terms to describe his inner being when his father occasionally yells at him. I immediately internalized this revelation and went around muttering to Verna and myself, “I can’t believe Miguel’s been scared by my yelling.”

I felt guilty and ashamed. Anger has its place in parent-child relations, but I felt crappy that my loud voice scares him. So I declared to Verna and myself, “That’s it. I am not going to yell anymore.”

“Yeah, right,” she said. “Why promise something that is next-to-impossible?”

Thank you for that vote of confidence, honey. But Verna is a realist and knows that most of us have various boiling points at which we erupt. And she certainly knows mine quite well given that we’ve been together for more than 19 years.

But I have been known to alter my lifestyle nearly immediately in the past. I became a vegetarian within a week in 1979 after proofreading a friend’s freshman English composition paper about the benefits of a plant-based diet (OK, I abandoned it several weeks ago). And I started running to train for a marathon in 1978 right after talking about amazing athletic feats with the security guard in my college dorm.

So I do believe I can change and I have faith in myself. I know that yelling is considered normal, but why can’t I avoid losing my temper except with political cretins and anti-semites?

The true test, I know, comes with time. As Verna approaches cancer treatments (chemo or radiation) and Miguel nears being a teenager and Maya remains her amazing and temperamental-at-times self and I am balancing a job as a funeral director, part time teacher, tutor, and freelance writer, I will find myself overcome by daily frustrations and anxiety. It will be easy to lash out at those closest to me. Or…

I can be like Gandhi (did he ever yell?) or another modern day saint. Does one have to be sainted to avoid yelling? Hey, weren’t the saints just regular people who accomplished the extraordinary until after they died? Anyway…

So far I have passed the tests (OK, it’s been about two days) I have imposed on myself. Yesterday, Miguel, our teenager-in-training, somehow clogged his ears several times when I asked him to put away a few things. Then he finally got up and just dropped the items on the landing going upstairs. I felt the anger the rising and my response was about to be, “Miguel, what’s your problem? Are you listening or not? Put those things away in your room exactly where they belong!”

But I didn’t. I just repeated myself a few more times, with a mild warning about being imprisoned in said room, and Miguel reluctantly completed his task. Not that anger is wrong, but I liked being in control.

Then Maya, who hadn’t taken a nap and was feeling a bit frayed by life, started acting out over something everyone else on the planet except her would've deemed trivial. My first impulse was to rage, “Maya, stop it right now!” But I didn’t. I let her flail on the floor and then asked her if she needed a hug. She ignored me and continued crying. Finally she stopped and I read her a book on the couch.

If she had persisted with her temper tantrum and even yelled, I wonder if that would’ve caused me an internal conflict?

I Fought The Law and The Law...

A woman in line behind me for Belgian waffles at the Farmer’s Market last Sunday told me I was a criminal. She was debating with a friend whether or not to wait for the warm and sweet and homemade breakfast treat.

“They’re worth it,” I chimed in. “Easy for me to say, but I buy them for my kids every week.”

She noticed I was wearing bike shorts and my bike helmet. “So you biked here?”

“Yes. My wife is actually at obedience class with our dog, so our son is home with our daughter.”

“How old are your children?” she asked after deciding the waffles were worth it.

“Our son is 11 and our daughter is three.”

“Oh, you can’t leave him alone with her. It’s against the law in California for children under 12 to babysit, even for a sibling.”

“Really?” I was flabbergasted. “We’ve done it before…”

Halt! I realized then that I was such a big mouth. Not only did she catch me committing a crime, but now I was admitting to more disregard for the law. But how was I to know it was illegal for Miguel to be home alone with his sister? Must’ve happened after that insipid Macaulay Culkin movie.

California is one of a handful of state that regulates babysitting rules and regulations even for family.

I was shocked, kind of blown over as if I’d been pried loose from a tree in a torrential storm, as reality sunk in. We trust Miguel because he has earned our trust. We wouldn’t leave him alone at night or for more than an hour, but he has demonstrated sound judgment and gentle care in regards to his sister.

I was really shocked because I never intended to be a lawbreaker. Then I started thinking about other crimes. Occasionally, I have left the kids in the car while I’ve dashed into the video store to return a movie. I roll the windows down and leave them a bowl of water for crying out loud!

Now the mere act of biking for an hour and shopping at the Farmer’s Market while our soon to be a middle school-aged son cared for his active sister and the dog violates a California statute. He was alone with sister and puppy for about 60 minutes.

So now that I am a scofflaw and a bad parent, a potent mix of detestable and irresponsible, let me attempt to share what I’ve learned about my criminal ways.

Well, nothing.

I’m no civil libertarian (I wear seatbelts, a bike helmet, and pay taxes to a centralized authority), but I do believe the government is going to have to trust Verna and me on this. If we didn’t think Miguel could ably handle sitting for Maya, we would’ve made other arrangements.

But I have learned some basic guidelines for having older siblings watch younger ones. From Genevieve Thiers, a pregnancy and parenting expert: “In order for the younger siblings to obey another sibling, they need to start seeing that sibling as an authority figure. The most credible way to establish this is through your actions. Find ways to let your kids know that, for instance, Cindy is now a ‘grown-up’.”

Second, “one of the chief problems with siblings sitting for siblings is the fact that there's no incentive for them to do it right. With a professional babysitter, there's a clear contract: They sit well + you pay them = everyone's happy.”

OK, scratch that last idea. We do not pay Miguel to watch Maya. We call it part of his family responsibilities, which also include folding his laundry, setting and clearing the dinner table, and taking in the garbage pails.

Another website says parents should decide when an older child is mature enough to watch a younger sibling. But I also realize now that even though we trust Miguel he doesn’t know CPR and is unaware of any emergency-hospital contact information. He knows to dial 911, but how would he react if Maya started choking or seriously wounded herself?

Now that Miguel is a mother’s helper (one of our neighbors pays him a small amount to watch her almost 3-year-old son while she is in the house) it makes sense—legal and common—to have him take CPR training and acquaint him how to deal with random emergencies.

But I imagine we will still trust him with Maya for an hour or so some mornings or afternoons as the need arises. Just don’t tell any officers of the court or kindly folk in line at the Farmer’s Market. Big Brother is watching and eating.

Fair or Foul?

Little League parents signed a pledge at the beginning of the season that we would behave in the stands during games and at practices.

I should’ve known better.

Years ago, friends of mine in Connecticut, Ed and Denise Sanady, told me Little League horror stories: parents red-shirting their 10-year-olds so they’d be drafted by better teams and dubious scouting. I was astounded. How could adults poison what is essentially a kids game? Their stories left an impression on me, but apparently not enough.

Now that I am an adult with a son on a Little League majors’ team (the Yankees), the road to hell, er, Nirvana is paved with…

Last night, we played the A’s, a team we’d nipped a few weeks back when their centerfielder’s throw sailed past the catcher and threw the backstop with the bases loaded. The A’s were ahead, 3-2, in the bottom of the 4th when they erupted for seven runs. At one point, there were either two men on or the bases were loaded. The A’s batter ripped a hard shot just past the kid on 3rd. He had to quickly scoot out of the way to avoid getting pummeled in the stomach. The ball skidded foul into left field.

Amazingly, the umpire, who is just a teenager, ruled the ball fair, which emptied the bases. Yankee parents roared foul loudly and incredulously as one, two, three A’s runners circled the bases.

The Yankees head coach, Ron, calmly walked out to the umpire, who called in his associate, another teen, from the field. They explained that the ball had hit the 3rd base bag, so it was therefore fair.

The umpire was wrong, as all the parents so clearly and plainly saw. But that is not the point.

Verna and I teach Miguel that 1). You let the umpires rulings stand and you don’t argue and 2). You move on quickly and quietly.

We did neither. I did yell, “It was foul.” Once. Then I shut up. But the collective chorus was not silent for a few minutes. Another parent shouted. One grandfather said he was going to write to the League president. He said it to us in the stands, so it was possible the young umpire behind the plate did not hear him. But still…

An inning of two later, Miguel came up to bat for his second time. He sliced a ball hard and foul down the leftfield line. I chimed in, “Was that fair?” just before one of Miguel’s teammates from the dugout yelled, “Was that fair?”

Uh-oh. We weren’t modeling for our kids. We’d violated several rules—challenging anything from the stands—and ignored the oath we’d signed in January.

But it was hard. Not only were the Yankees getting beaten, but there were two or three blatantly wrong calls against us. Losing isn’t as bad as feeling cheated. Woe is us.

As the parents were fuming and the steam was rising out of our ears and foreheads, I knew we were wrong. The dictum has to be that the umpire is always right, especially when he is a kid not much older than the players. Sports and other competitive contests are imperfect dramas, but we still must respect their essential core. It’s just a game.

Well, for some at least. There is another team, the Blue Jays, which won 20 of its 21 games last year. Their only loss came to us, 2-1, on a daring bunt by Miguel. The Blue Jays are undefeated this year, and have beaten us twice already. They are good. But they are bullies.

One of their players tried to entice one of our runners, Connor, off second base after he’d doubled by politely asking him to step off the bag so he could straighten it. If Connor had moved, he would’ve been out. Only the umpire can call time.

The Blue Jays, who drafted last this year by virtue of winning the league championship last year, engineered the first pick in the draft (in the eighth position) because they recruited his father to be one of their assistants.

See, league rules state that a player must be drafted by the team for which their parent coaches. So the Blue Jays quietly brought in another helper in order to land the top prospect even though they chose him last in the first round.

I sometimes wonder how much better youth baseball would be without adult intervention. A few weeks ago, after one of the Yankees’ practices, the parents organized a virtually impromptu barbecue. As the parents munched and chatted, the kids played various baseball-type games on the grass beyond the centerfield fence. They played pickle and a few other games, laughing and joshing with each other, with tackling thrown in for good measure. Silliness reigned and they didn’t come up for air until we called them over for dessert.

Youth baseball without parents would be great, certainly for the kids. No adult intervention would mean less stress and more fun, I am convinced. I’m going to lobby the board shortly.

Yeah, right.

S-s-s-sex

Miguel’s fifth grade is class is finishing up their 8-day Family Life unit, which is just a code word for Sex Ed.

Last week, after he saw a film on the male anatomy, he said to me, “That was creepy.”

“Why?” I asked “You know what penises look like.”

“I don’t know. It was just creepy.”

A normal response from a slightly immature 11-year old, I thought.

I picked him up from school the next day after the teacher had screened the film on the female anatomy.

“Today was even worse than yesterday,” he said in response to my question about his day.

With Miguel on the cusp of puberty, Verna and I are glad he’s learning more details about the various changes his body and soul are about to undergo. But we also wonder if he’s a tad young for some of the topics.

Do fifth graders really need to know about AIDS, HIV, and STDs? His teacher, who is wonderful, said, “Yes, they do. Middle school kids are already sexually active in some places,” which is a good reason why the focus is on abstinence.

Miguel still protests loudly if I even suggest he finds another girl fascinating. So Verna and I want to protect his innocence for a couple more years. We know the raging hormonal torrent is inevitable, but why rush Mother Nature?

On the other hand, it’s not as if Miguel was clueless about the facts of life. He’s known the basic outline of where a baby comes from since he was 8. He asked the questions and I answered them.

Last year he got an involuntary refresher course when one of his classmates, another 10 year old at the time, told Miguel and two other boys in their class that he had a girlfriend, they’d had sex, and he could hook up Miguel and his friends with her so they could “hump together.”

“I knew he was lying,” Miguel said at the time. But I had to review the finer details of sex and reproduction with him because of the boy's fabrications. After we went over how a man and women get pregnant, Miguel looked at me as if to say, “I didn’t really need to know that, dad. Again.”

A few weeks ago, Miguel and I were outside with one of our neighbors, Rich, who was going in for a vasectomy that weekend. Rich casually mentioned having to go back in a few months to have his seminal fluid tested. On our way back inside the house, Miguel asked, “How does the man get the stuff out of his penis?”

Oh great, I thought, here comes the masturbation discussion. Miguel looked at me incredulously after I answered him.

Even though he said he all the Sex Ed. was creepy, Miguel wanted to test me last week before he went to bed.

“What is the thing inside the body that regulates it?” he asked.

“Biological clock?” I answered.

“No, it has to do with growth,” he said.

“Pituitary gland,” I said.

“Correct. What does the woman use to block her menstruation?”

Yes, he really asked me that. I said, “Tampon.”

“Correct.”

So I gathered that Family Life wasn’t as creepy as Miguel had said. At the very least, he was learning and happy to share his knowledge with us. As long as he doesn’t end up sucking on a bottle of Woolite curbside, as Gene Wilder did in Woody Allen’s Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex, But Were Afraid to Ask, I think we’re OK.

OK, more than OK.