Monday, April 15, 2013

I've had moments in the past 14* years when I was positive that I was the worst parent in the world. I'm sure every parent has had those moments.

I watched something this weekend, though, that confirms that I am neither the worst, nor the best parent in the world.

The Kid's team was playing in the championship game of a tournament. It was a pretty intense game, both teams were playing hard and it was becoming pretty physical, as basketball sometimes does. During a play right in front of the bleachers, a player from our team and a player from their team crashed in to each other. Their player fell down, our player, displaying remarkable balance, managed to stay standing up and got the ball.

Their player, in what I assume was a desperate moment, wrapped his legs around our player's legs in an effort to stop him. It was a dirty play. The referee saw it and called it a flagrant foul while our player was trying to extricate himself. Shit happens, as long as no one is bleeding, the game continues, right?

Nope, the mother of the flagrant fouler flew off of the bleachers and punched our player in the chest.

Yep, a grown woman ran into the middle of an organized sporting event and punched a 14-year-old boy.

Before I can even wrap my brain around what was going on, the mother of the punched child sheds her hat and sunglasses and launches herself at the woman who is assaulting her son. (fortunately for the assaulter, 4 or 5 guys from the tournament managed to break up the situation before any real damage happened)

I generally like this mom, she's kind of loud and funny, entertaining enough I even excuse her occasionally wearing her sunglasses inside, but now that I know she has the reflexes of a Jedi (and still came out of this with her false eyelashes in place), I've upgraded her from "generally like" to "genuinely like".

The moment of the day, though, came from our team mom. She had been sitting next to the Jedi mom when the whole situation happened. She saw the Jedi drop her accessories and come out swinging. "I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop her," she said. "But I saw her shirt was riding up and her chonies were showing, so I reached over and pulled her shirt down."

That is some wisdom right there - recognizing that sometimes there's no way you're going to be able to change a situation and the best you can do is to make sure that no one's panties are showing.

Additional nuggets of wisdom? Basketball games are not Mexican wrestling events where the spectators are allowed to participate. Also, don't put your hands on someone else's child**.



*15 years if you include the time when I was pregnant

**and if you do, don't be surprised and/or argue when you get tossed out and have the cops called on you. And don't get me started on the parents next to us who thought the whole thing was HIIIIILLLLarious. Sorry, if you're not mortified that someone representing your team just assaulted an 8th grader, you shouldn't be trusted with houseplants let alone children.

Labels: adventures in shitty parenting