My 7-year old daughter is playing Upward basketball. I like the program for the most part...it's positive and encouraging. They look to get the kids involved, even the ones who don't really understand what is going on. When a kid makes a mistake, they'll stop and try to explain what happened. They pray with the kids, they try to help them remember what is important, they teach the idea of sportsmanship.
Of course, there is always the problem of parents who live vicariously through their kids, who act at the games like they have serious money riding on the outcome. Because Upward is an outreach program of some sort for the church that sponsors it, they allow kids to be involved who may come from homes where Christian values are not encouraged. And occasionally this will mean that there is always at least one Vicarious Vic in the crowd.
So my daughter is one of those kids that needs some encouragement. She's a bit of a slow adapter...she's played two seasons of soccer and the first year she really didn't get it. If she kicked the ball, that was good...but by last year there were times where she looked like Gareth Bale flashing down the wing. Not always, of course, but she generally understood what was going on: 'if you have the ball, try to score it in the other team's goal...pass the ball to your teammates...if the other team has the ball, try to kick it away.'
When she started basketball, then, we knew that there was going to be a learning curve for her. She hasn't played much, and though her coaches look like they know what they are doing and are encouraging the kids to have fun, she's a bit behind. On defense, she knows to put her arms out and try to do something that looks like guarding whoever she is matched up with. But on offense...not so great. Though we have worked with her on dribbling, it's not a sure thing yet. If she has the ball in the open court as if she is a point guard, she will take 3-4 dribbles and stop, not quite sure what to do. If she somehow comes across the ball in a crowded spot, she's likely to just pick the ball up and run with it. Even at her level, that's still not allowed. Her shooting is more like an overhead throw. Some of the other kids her age are much more advanced...they can dribble, stop, and shoot and pass. But for Elizabeth, she's just not quite there yet...next year she may be Chris Paul with the ball, but for now, she's got a lot of work to do.
So last Saturday she had a couple of incidents where it was obvious she was out of her depth. One time she ran with the ball. But the guy in the row behind me who was videotaping every minute of the game for posterity's sake, when his daughter is the next great star, had a play-by-play account of everything that she (and other kids) did wrong, and he was not shy about expressing them. "Oh, come on ref...she's travelling. Jump ball! You gotta be kidding me." Remember, these are 7- and 8- year old girls.
As much as I hope that my kids enjoy sports, I want them to keep some perspective about it all...and this will not be easy with Vicarious Vics around.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Should Christians be sports fans?
I'm reading a book called 'Among the Thugs' by Bill Buford, a book about soccer hooliganism in the 1980s and published in 1991. Fascinating account of what it's like to be an extreme sports fan. It makes me not quite sure I want to go and spend some time in England watching soccer matches someday. I don't want exactly want to be knifed or have people pee on me from above because I'm some kind of American wanker.
It makes me think something of sports fandom, how dangerous to the soul it might be. Maybe there is not this kind of extremism or violent mob mentality in American sports, but the sociological questions of what it means to be a true 'fan' are fascinating. Last night we went up to my evangelical Christian university's gymnasium to see the men's and women's basketball teams play basketball against another university. It wasn't a terribly interesting game, but to watch sports fan scream at officials, yell at the opposing team, and act like this is of vital importance makes me think. What are Christians to really think about sports?
For most of the last few centuries sports was held at arms' length by the organized church. It was viewed as being frivolous, as edifying body rather than spirit. But in the late 19th century the YMCA started to appeal to youth with the idea that sports was important for both their body and their mind. Promoting this idea of 'virile manhood', churches and church-related organizations started pushing sports, thinking that it wasn't just enough to preach. Naturally much of the 'religious' element eventually got pushed out...would anybody consider the "Y" a 'Christian' organization now? Probably not. But they certainly have some good waterslides...
Now that my children are getting older, they are starting to play sports. It's not that they are that interested in them yet, but we want them to try things. So Elizabeth is now playing 'Upward' basketball. It's a fascinating operation they have...they teach kids how to post up or execute a good cheer even as they are trying to get them to hear a word of Scripture and teach character. I can't really find anything wrong with it...but over time, will Upward move away from the Christian foundation it is trying to promote? Will its emphasis on outreach eventually mean that it doesn't stand for much at all, so as not to offend?
The idolatry of sports is one of the great dangers to the modern church. We have so much free time, so much discretionary income in our American culture that we have the means to obsess about what a group of men wearing a certain uniform do. In some cultures it turns them into lunatics that go rampaging through European cities. Others have a less dangerous activity, perhaps, but their passion is just as strong. It overcomes churches, it divides families, it makes a mockery of those of us who claim that we are to be serving God first and foremost. Lord help us to keep sports in their rightful place.
It makes me think something of sports fandom, how dangerous to the soul it might be. Maybe there is not this kind of extremism or violent mob mentality in American sports, but the sociological questions of what it means to be a true 'fan' are fascinating. Last night we went up to my evangelical Christian university's gymnasium to see the men's and women's basketball teams play basketball against another university. It wasn't a terribly interesting game, but to watch sports fan scream at officials, yell at the opposing team, and act like this is of vital importance makes me think. What are Christians to really think about sports?
For most of the last few centuries sports was held at arms' length by the organized church. It was viewed as being frivolous, as edifying body rather than spirit. But in the late 19th century the YMCA started to appeal to youth with the idea that sports was important for both their body and their mind. Promoting this idea of 'virile manhood', churches and church-related organizations started pushing sports, thinking that it wasn't just enough to preach. Naturally much of the 'religious' element eventually got pushed out...would anybody consider the "Y" a 'Christian' organization now? Probably not. But they certainly have some good waterslides...
Now that my children are getting older, they are starting to play sports. It's not that they are that interested in them yet, but we want them to try things. So Elizabeth is now playing 'Upward' basketball. It's a fascinating operation they have...they teach kids how to post up or execute a good cheer even as they are trying to get them to hear a word of Scripture and teach character. I can't really find anything wrong with it...but over time, will Upward move away from the Christian foundation it is trying to promote? Will its emphasis on outreach eventually mean that it doesn't stand for much at all, so as not to offend?
The idolatry of sports is one of the great dangers to the modern church. We have so much free time, so much discretionary income in our American culture that we have the means to obsess about what a group of men wearing a certain uniform do. In some cultures it turns them into lunatics that go rampaging through European cities. Others have a less dangerous activity, perhaps, but their passion is just as strong. It overcomes churches, it divides families, it makes a mockery of those of us who claim that we are to be serving God first and foremost. Lord help us to keep sports in their rightful place.
We believe what we want to believe.
What's more delusional?
-A Notre Dame linebacker who for three years lives with an exclusively online/phone relationship with a 'girlfriend', who keeps embellishing this lie even after it is proven she is a hoax?
-A world-famous champion cyclist who tells himself that his cheating was justified because everybody else did it?
-Gun advocates who are convinced that everybody is out to get them, that the Nazi government is trying to take their guns because legislation has been proposed to limit the amount of ammo that can be in a clip and to ban the most egregious of weapons?
-Families who live with the thought that it's better to keep enabling family members who keep doing horrible things, because they are worried that they will lose them if they finally say no to them, even if keeping on saying yes accelerates their downward spiral?
One thing I'm learning in life is that people love to hold onto their delusions. I wonder sometimes if everybody is mentally ill, or just that in our world of mega-information that there's too much information now to process, and that we need to return to a simple and less complex time.
-A Notre Dame linebacker who for three years lives with an exclusively online/phone relationship with a 'girlfriend', who keeps embellishing this lie even after it is proven she is a hoax?
-A world-famous champion cyclist who tells himself that his cheating was justified because everybody else did it?
-Gun advocates who are convinced that everybody is out to get them, that the Nazi government is trying to take their guns because legislation has been proposed to limit the amount of ammo that can be in a clip and to ban the most egregious of weapons?
-Families who live with the thought that it's better to keep enabling family members who keep doing horrible things, because they are worried that they will lose them if they finally say no to them, even if keeping on saying yes accelerates their downward spiral?
One thing I'm learning in life is that people love to hold onto their delusions. I wonder sometimes if everybody is mentally ill, or just that in our world of mega-information that there's too much information now to process, and that we need to return to a simple and less complex time.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
My brain wants to explode but the mouse ears strangling it won't let it
About six months ago my 7-year-old daughter switched her allegiance from NickJr to Disney Channel. Since my 5-year-old son basically does what she tells him to do, mostly gone are the days of Team UmiZoomi, Dora the Explorer, & Blue's Clues. I'm not too terribly sad about that, but Yo Gabba Gabba and Wonder Pets always brought at least a bit of humor to me, being written by hippies likely stoned as they wrote and produced the show.
So now we are living in the age of live-action Disney hell. Each show produces about as many episodes each year as a regular network does of their show, but they have the advantage of re-airing the shows somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 times in a 30-day period. And they do. Sadly, my kids are not yet at the age where they get bored after a second viewing of anything...if anything, they want to watch these shows again and again, like they did with Toy Story or Finding Nemo a few years ago. In fact, when their shows are not on they will grab the tablet and go onto Netflix to watch their shows again. There are some episodes of Good Luck Charlie Elizabeth has literally watched 20 times.
How do we rate these shows, now they are tattooed onto my brain? Here's five of the shows they watch the most, from best to worst:
Good Luck Charlie: I actually went onto Netflix and gave this three stars out of five. It's not horrible and better than most of the sitcoms on the networks. The star of the show, high school hottie Bridget Mendler, has a future ahead of her. Her brothers are funny, the parents aren't too terribly cartoonish, and while the little sister/title character was sadly miscast it's a show I don't mind watching (at least the first time or two). It's the simple story of a family in Denver of three kids where a fourth (Charlie) and fifth (Toby) are born, and they have real situations that are always handled with humor and class. It's not afraid to tell the truth that failure sometimes happens. Hot Bridget films a video diary for her little sister Charlie since she won't be around when she grows up.
A.N.T. Farm: Tells the story of 'Advanced Natural Talent' kids at a high school. Features a young singer, her brainy friends, and a few adults who play the baffoon. Completely and wholly the product of a writer's desperate mind, it has nothing to do with reality. But...it's not wholly unwatchable. The African-american girl as the lead character also may do something in life; she brings an energy to it that transcends the storylines of stupidity that were never written by anybody anywhere close to a school for gifted kids. I'd give it about 3 on a scale of 10.
Dog With a Blog: Last season on GLC the younger brother Gabe had a kinda-girlfriend who would have made an interesting recurring character, a violent pipsqeek that he had to take to a cotillion. Whatever...but this is what Disney does. It tests kids out in other shows and if they look good, they give them their own shows. The best idea they had was to blend a family and give them a dog that could talk, but only the kids could hear it. And, the dog blogs. It sounds like a can't-miss concept, I know...but it's awful. The sweet (and now annoyingly overacting) girl has an older brother who looks like he oughta be in a straight-to-DVD Bill and Ted prequel. The parents overact worse than the kids. And it's simply a ludicrous show. It's only been a few episodes, but I hope that the dog snaps and bites their heads off and it turns into an HBO prison show where he tells about his dark spiral into murder. I'll also give this a 3, but out of 100.
Jessie: Now we start getting into shows that make me want to punch walls. Here's a family living in a beautiful multi-million dollar condo in New York City. Four kids, at least two adopted, of course ethnically diverse (black and Indian). They have a butler who is a buffoon. And they hire a wanna-be singer from Texas, Jessie, to be their nanny, because the parents must certainly hate these children as much as I do and can't ever stand to be near them. But the new nanny is shrill, condescending, and dates the doorman of the building. Tonight's episode she was thinking of how she would tell him how she could not move in with him. This is a Disney channel show for small kids? I despise this show in so many ways. But it's not half as bad as...
Austin & Ally: Now we get to the reason that much of the world hates America...sometime in the past we exported to them this show and they can never forgive us. I don't blame them...it's awful. It features a Justin Bieber wanna-be (Austin) who sings in Miami. He has a songwriter friend (Ally), a fat kinda-Cuban manager who is incompetent (I don't care who her name is) and a doofus friend who is a mini-entourage (ditto). I have no idea what they do because I'm out of the room, looking for Advil when they come on. But I think they work at a music store? At a mall? Who cares? I've never been in a real fight in my life, but if I ever meet the person who greenlighted this show, I will sucker punch him/her. You think I'm kidding.
I must mention that over the holidays they had a special one hour Austin/Jessie/Ally special where Austin has to go to NYC to sing at Times Square on new years' eve and they meet Jessie and her brood. It involved planes, helicopters, and taxis and I kept hoping, nay, praying for a violent crash of one of them. Unfortunately, this never happened, and they lived to make more shows. Alas.
So now we are living in the age of live-action Disney hell. Each show produces about as many episodes each year as a regular network does of their show, but they have the advantage of re-airing the shows somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 times in a 30-day period. And they do. Sadly, my kids are not yet at the age where they get bored after a second viewing of anything...if anything, they want to watch these shows again and again, like they did with Toy Story or Finding Nemo a few years ago. In fact, when their shows are not on they will grab the tablet and go onto Netflix to watch their shows again. There are some episodes of Good Luck Charlie Elizabeth has literally watched 20 times.
How do we rate these shows, now they are tattooed onto my brain? Here's five of the shows they watch the most, from best to worst:
Good Luck Charlie: I actually went onto Netflix and gave this three stars out of five. It's not horrible and better than most of the sitcoms on the networks. The star of the show, high school hottie Bridget Mendler, has a future ahead of her. Her brothers are funny, the parents aren't too terribly cartoonish, and while the little sister/title character was sadly miscast it's a show I don't mind watching (at least the first time or two). It's the simple story of a family in Denver of three kids where a fourth (Charlie) and fifth (Toby) are born, and they have real situations that are always handled with humor and class. It's not afraid to tell the truth that failure sometimes happens. Hot Bridget films a video diary for her little sister Charlie since she won't be around when she grows up.
A.N.T. Farm: Tells the story of 'Advanced Natural Talent' kids at a high school. Features a young singer, her brainy friends, and a few adults who play the baffoon. Completely and wholly the product of a writer's desperate mind, it has nothing to do with reality. But...it's not wholly unwatchable. The African-american girl as the lead character also may do something in life; she brings an energy to it that transcends the storylines of stupidity that were never written by anybody anywhere close to a school for gifted kids. I'd give it about 3 on a scale of 10.
Dog With a Blog: Last season on GLC the younger brother Gabe had a kinda-girlfriend who would have made an interesting recurring character, a violent pipsqeek that he had to take to a cotillion. Whatever...but this is what Disney does. It tests kids out in other shows and if they look good, they give them their own shows. The best idea they had was to blend a family and give them a dog that could talk, but only the kids could hear it. And, the dog blogs. It sounds like a can't-miss concept, I know...but it's awful. The sweet (and now annoyingly overacting) girl has an older brother who looks like he oughta be in a straight-to-DVD Bill and Ted prequel. The parents overact worse than the kids. And it's simply a ludicrous show. It's only been a few episodes, but I hope that the dog snaps and bites their heads off and it turns into an HBO prison show where he tells about his dark spiral into murder. I'll also give this a 3, but out of 100.
Jessie: Now we start getting into shows that make me want to punch walls. Here's a family living in a beautiful multi-million dollar condo in New York City. Four kids, at least two adopted, of course ethnically diverse (black and Indian). They have a butler who is a buffoon. And they hire a wanna-be singer from Texas, Jessie, to be their nanny, because the parents must certainly hate these children as much as I do and can't ever stand to be near them. But the new nanny is shrill, condescending, and dates the doorman of the building. Tonight's episode she was thinking of how she would tell him how she could not move in with him. This is a Disney channel show for small kids? I despise this show in so many ways. But it's not half as bad as...
Austin & Ally: Now we get to the reason that much of the world hates America...sometime in the past we exported to them this show and they can never forgive us. I don't blame them...it's awful. It features a Justin Bieber wanna-be (Austin) who sings in Miami. He has a songwriter friend (Ally), a fat kinda-Cuban manager who is incompetent (I don't care who her name is) and a doofus friend who is a mini-entourage (ditto). I have no idea what they do because I'm out of the room, looking for Advil when they come on. But I think they work at a music store? At a mall? Who cares? I've never been in a real fight in my life, but if I ever meet the person who greenlighted this show, I will sucker punch him/her. You think I'm kidding.
I must mention that over the holidays they had a special one hour Austin/Jessie/Ally special where Austin has to go to NYC to sing at Times Square on new years' eve and they meet Jessie and her brood. It involved planes, helicopters, and taxis and I kept hoping, nay, praying for a violent crash of one of them. Unfortunately, this never happened, and they lived to make more shows. Alas.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Dreaming of Princesses
This coming week on Disney channel is "Princess week". Mulan, Tangled, Cinderella II & III...and of course, the premier of the newest shows, something called 'Sophia the First'. Basically, Disney channel is busy reinforcing for little girls out there this notion that they are all princesses, that they will have their princess ball, their prince, their little piece of royalty. Of course, I'm sure there is plenty of other merchandising about this princess kind of lifestyle for the girls as well...be it games, wigs, dresses, whatever...for a very reasonable price, your little girl can be the princess that she has always dreamed about.
It's interesting that in this time of relative gender equality that there is such a longing on the part of little girls (and especially their mothers) to return to this image of a princess. For years we've been telling them that they can be athletes, doctors, presidents, whatever they want to be...and many of them, at least for a little bit of time, want to be a princess. I suppose that this is true gender equality finding its home in the 'whatever you want' category...now that they don't have to BE princesses or nurses or mommies or teachers (the only four hopes of little girls 2/3 of a century ago), now they can be that as a part of their feminism.
But what does it really mean to be a princess? Yes, people dance in your village in front of you and there are all kinds of balls to attend...but what of the reality? How do people really feel about a princess?
In truth, it seems strange that we want to encourage royalty, being of course a democratic country whose history prides itself in throwing off English royalty. Yes, we still pay far too much attention to the British royal family, only as long as they don't really have any kind of power. Our national foreign policy throughout the 20th century in the United States was obsessed on ensuring that nations had some form of democracy...and so we were entirely suspicious of any kind of country where royalty (the type of social system princesses necessarily must live in) is that which is in charge. Indeed, have we also not focused on strongly on the end of royalty in places like France? We are suspicious of those who are not democratically elected, and even celebrate power to the people. We've seen it necessary that such people are eventually overthrown, killed even in order that democracy will thrive. No royalty here, and that is good.
So why, then, are we so tolerant of our own daughters who want to be princesses? Little happy princesses eventually grow up to be tyrant queens. We might have TV shows about them now...but years from now, will we be calling for their violent deaths?
It's interesting that in this time of relative gender equality that there is such a longing on the part of little girls (and especially their mothers) to return to this image of a princess. For years we've been telling them that they can be athletes, doctors, presidents, whatever they want to be...and many of them, at least for a little bit of time, want to be a princess. I suppose that this is true gender equality finding its home in the 'whatever you want' category...now that they don't have to BE princesses or nurses or mommies or teachers (the only four hopes of little girls 2/3 of a century ago), now they can be that as a part of their feminism.
But what does it really mean to be a princess? Yes, people dance in your village in front of you and there are all kinds of balls to attend...but what of the reality? How do people really feel about a princess?
In truth, it seems strange that we want to encourage royalty, being of course a democratic country whose history prides itself in throwing off English royalty. Yes, we still pay far too much attention to the British royal family, only as long as they don't really have any kind of power. Our national foreign policy throughout the 20th century in the United States was obsessed on ensuring that nations had some form of democracy...and so we were entirely suspicious of any kind of country where royalty (the type of social system princesses necessarily must live in) is that which is in charge. Indeed, have we also not focused on strongly on the end of royalty in places like France? We are suspicious of those who are not democratically elected, and even celebrate power to the people. We've seen it necessary that such people are eventually overthrown, killed even in order that democracy will thrive. No royalty here, and that is good.
So why, then, are we so tolerant of our own daughters who want to be princesses? Little happy princesses eventually grow up to be tyrant queens. We might have TV shows about them now...but years from now, will we be calling for their violent deaths?
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