"Control" in a very Interesting Sense

“Mommy you can’t control me” was the retort by my daughter as my wife and her went back and forth about her bangs early this morning before school. There I times where I need to mind my own business and apparently this was one of those occasions. However; I am learning when to speak and when to remain silent and it does appear I have a long way to go!! I didn’t remain silent and basically became the referee between these two. I can see this is going to be a long road as my daughter approaches her teenage years which won’t “officially” occur for another two years but my daughter has always been mature for her age so we are getting there quicker. As I mentioned keeping my mouth shut would have been the operative thing to do but I did speak to both my wife and daughter. I explained to my daughter that we (my wife and I) as parents have the right to control you anyway we seem fit but do try to let you make her own decisions.

This is the approach I like to take because ultimately mom and dad won’t be around for the big decisions which I won’t list since it is a frightening list and my daughter is only 10 years old. I believe controlling the child is a negative mannerism and I am all about positive. There are times where control is the only way to go but “bangs” may not have been the appropriate subject for this discussion. Nonetheless I tried to impress upon my daughter that mommy is only doing what is best for you and if you can’t see because your bangs are in the way then a haircut maybe in order. My daughter wasn’t crazy with my words and on the same token I spoke with my wife about picking her battles properly. If we get hung up on the “little stuff” and really life is mostly made up of this little stuff; the big stuff becomes really complicated.

This was a wonderful way to start the day with my daughter pouting and my wife in a defiant stance. I did my best to bring levity to the situation reminding my wife that it really isn’t that important which didn’t go over well at first or maybe even second. In any event the two glaring parties calmed down enough to walk to school in relative peace. Yes, this is only the beginning and last night came another one of these moments as we discussed our daughter’s involvement in the band. I am all for trying seeing things and monitoring how things go but my wife is much more cautious.

The band is another commitment for our daughter to go along with the demands from fifth grade, softball and religious classes. Somewhere in between she has to be a 10 year old hanging out with her friends and having fun. I remember the extent of my activities were Little League and basketball which didn’t happen at the same time. I would play basketball every Saturday morning and after school and I don’t remember my parents participating much in these activities. I would go to practice by myself and walk to school on Saturday for the practices as well. Now there has to be a “shuttle” service transporting our children to and fro all these activities. I can see how life moves so fast because everyone is going a million miles an hour.

Apparently my daughter wants to be involved with the band because it is “fun” but upon further inspection I believe my daughter doesn’t want to fall behind since she just started playing next year. Being involved in the band would cause her to miss 30 minutes of class once a week and adds an additional 30 plus minutes of daily practice. We started adding up all the time my daughter would be involved with school and other activities; we had to stop at over 3 ½ hours on top of attending her normal 7 hours of school. There really isn’t much time to be a “kid” with all of this involvement.

The tricky part for us as parents is come across as less controlling than meets my daughter’s perception. I would like her involved with the band as long as she is having fun and learning something. This goes with all her activities. I’m not sure how this translates to religious classes but I think I am adding my own jaded perception to this but hopefully there will be some type of fun in that as well. We ended the conversation with having our daughter think about it and her initial comment was, “I don’t like making decisions” which gets us back to earlier this morning as my wife was too controlling in my daughter’s opinion. This is very confusing for a 10 year old and I would guess there are many parents who would automatically make the decision for their child but I do want my daughter in on the conversation. Ultimately my wife and I will make the decision we deem appropriate for our daughter but getting there is certainly a journey.

My son had his “tryouts” which were more of an evaluation as he had the opportunity to hit three pitches, field two ground balls and catch two pop-ups. He didn’t make contact on any of the pitches and in his defense a majority of the children didn’t make contact and the balls were coming in much faster than a seven year old can throw. He did well with the grounder but the pop-ups glanced off his gloves. I noticed that my son is lacking confidence when he gets on the field. I have practiced with him in the non-competitive environment and he is quite good but something happens to him when he steps on the field. I believe he will gain this confidence with the proper coaching and I’m not sure if he got the proper coaching in New Jersey since my son told me he didn’t like his coach because he was always yelling. I don’t know how true this is but last night none of the coaches were yelling they were there to instruct.

I can go back to my days as a teenager when I umpired the Little League games and couldn’t believe how much the coaches yelled at the players and me as the umpire. There was one coach who nearly came to blows with me as he disagreed with a call I made. I have never understood this and it still baffles me how adults can act younger than the children. Anyhow my son did his best last night and will be put on a team next week as practice will commence thereafter. It was great wonderful watching my son take part in this activity and I got to meet the person in charge of the league and shake his hand for the excellent email.

Finally, today I received word on a job opportunity and this is more of a career opportunity. I accepted and will start September 1st. This is a great opportunity and at the very least I will earn base which I can count on along with a very good commission structure. I am switching gears and getting out of administration into marketing. I look forward to this opportunity because my main job will be talking with people and building relationships. I am very excited and grateful for this opportunity.