Footballs and Fathers

I wanted my boy to lose his football game.

Football is something that his father wants him to do. It’s something that his father is pressuring him to do. Yeah, if he didn’t want to do it, he might say something. Except that he’s been yelled at enough by his father to make sure that he doesn’t speak his mind at any time in the future. His father is psychologically and emotionally abusive to all who surround him, and my 10-year-old is a people pleaser. So it’s highly unlikely that he would say anything to upset his father. And it will be a hard lesson for him in the future. Unless he’s content with doing what everyone else wants. If he is, he shouldn’t have any problems. However, if he’s like everyone else on the planet, he’ll probably want to do his own thing at some point, and then he’ll have to either do what he wants and feel the pain of others not approving, or he will have to do what others want and feel the pain of denying himself yet again.

So he’s playing football, and probably will for the foreseeable future.

And on Sunday, he was playing the team that beat his team last year during the playoffs. The coaches were making a big deal about the game. The other players were making a big deal about the game. So, like a good People Pleaser, he was making a big deal about the game. Plus, nobody wants to lose. Losing sucks.

I saw my 10-year-old standing on the sidelines, waiting to go in, trying to talk with his father, who is a bald, fat coach on the team. I want my 10-year-old to go someplace else, someplace safer, someplace more healthy, someplace less pathologic and psychotic. But he doesn’t. He wants to stay next to his father.

And it makes me mad that I’m here at this stupid game.
And it makes me mad that I’m surrounded by people yelling and screaming for their children, and not always is it positive yelling and screaming. Sometimes it’s positive screaming. Yup. “Positive Screaming”. I emphasize that because I’m hoping you will pick up on the oxymoronic nature of the phrase “Positive Screaming”.
And it makes me mad that my 10-year-old is involved in a sport that he’s really not very good at, but his father has told him he’s going to get a scholarship playing.
And it makes me mad that my 10-year-old comes away from every game speaking negatively of his teammates and the other team’s players. I feel like that negativity is inspired by his father. And yes, I’m aware that I’m doing nothing but being negative here yet blaming the inspiration for the negativity on his father.
And it makes me mad that I’m sitting here wishing for my boy to lose.

I see football as something that is being forced on him by his father. I see it as an unhealthy obsession from his father. And so in my head, it’s more about proving his father wrong than about him losing his game. If he loses, his father is wrong. If he wins, his relationship with his father is strengthened.

Which is stupid, because right now, he does nothing but talk about his father when he’s with me. Makes me even more mad. I want him to talk about anything else. But he talks about how great it was when he and his father went to the movies. He points out where his father lives, even though we’re not even really close to his father’s house. He looks forward to going to his father’s house so he can collect his $20-60 per month allowance, depending on his grades.

And I feel badly that I want him to lose.
I want him to lose, and I feel like a shit for wanting him to lose.

And then… he loses.

And I’m almost happy about it. Until I hear his father telling him that they lost because “the other team was playing dirty”. This pisses me off all over again. It can’t be that our team wasn’t as good as the other team, or that the other team just played a better game than us today, but that the other team played dirty. This takes away all power to get better in the future, or to make different choices next time, or even to get over it quickly. It means that somebody cheated. You’re the better player, but you’re still a loser, and there’s no way to get better, so you’ll have to keep losing in the future. It’s absolutely ridiculous. “The other team was playing dirty”??!! My good god, you’re a fucking pussy!

It’s hard to let him walk down that road towards his father. Maybe he will be happy in the future. And I tell myself that is all I want for him. I want him to be happy. But it’s kinda like saying you want a drug addict to be happy, and so you don’t take away his drugs. There is a difference between healthy happy and unhealthy happy. Right now, my 10-year-old is happy with his father because his father hasn’t found fault in him yet and still wants to spend money on him. If my 10-year-old speaks up about anything that goes against his father’s wishes, the favors will end. The attention will end. The gifts will stop. We all know this because we’ve watched it happen with my 15-year-old. Even if this behavior doesn’t change, this isn’t the basis for any kind of healthy relationship.

But I guess very few relationships with our parents are healthy.