Submitted by tony on August 6, 2008 - 9:04am.
by Tony Chen
Has anyone else been following the seemingly endless Brett Favre
Saga?
It has been in the news for a few months now. If you haven't been keeping track, it's sorta
like this: Football is a family
business. So, it's like having your
older son run your family business for 16 years while your younger son waits
for his chance. Your older son retires,
and then unretires, three or four times--the guy loves the business so much, but
he's also getting old. Meanwhile, the
poor ole younger son thinks it's his chance to shine every time older brother
retires, and then has to wait some more each time he unretires. I can only imagine the family dynamics,
huh? Add on top of that the fact that
this is a public family business, which means management has been getting some
heat (I wouldn't be surprised to see some heads roll). You know it's bad when a former White House
Press Secretary flies out to brief the family on how to handle the media.
This got me thinking about how the headlines would play out
on ESPN, if they covered my family, the many decisions we make, and how I as
the "management," would be seen by my kids and by the media (in this case,
other parents).
Basically, it seems like there are four different kinds of "management"
decisions.
- Good
decisions that look bad to other parents
- Good
decisions that look good to other parents
- Bad
decisions that look bad to other parents
- Bad
decisions that look good to other parents
Obviously, the most intriguing ones are No. 1 and No. 4.
Back when I was single, I was flying to New Jersey and the parents in the next row
were totally ignoring their screaming kid. I thought to myself, "What kind of
parents are you slackers? Don't you see
your kid needs you?" Meanwhile, the dad
casually flipped through his newspaper, yawning. I was disgusted.
Looking back on that now as a parent, they most likely had
their reasons for ignoring their child at that particular moment. Sure, they got the hairy eyeball from other
passengers, but maybe they were teaching something valuable to their kid (or at
least, I hope so--that kid was LOUD!).
This is a No. 1-type decision. They could've easily made that a No. 4
decision and just shushed their kid. The
whole plane may have applauded at that point, but maybe this was a critical
point in that kid's life. Who knows. More
power to them.
Is my parenting impacted by who else is watching me? Should I parent differently based on who's
around?
The other day, I was at the pool with my two-year-old
toddler. He loves watching the bigger
kids jump off the diving board and actually looked at me saying, "Baba jump,
too?" So, even though it was a little
risky, I told him to sit on the bench near the pool while I went over to jump
in. He was so intrigued by it that he
wanted to jump in with me the next time.
So, with him in my arms, I walked over to the very tip of the board,
asked him again if he wanted to jump with me, and then SPLASH ... he's never been
deeper in a pool ever before. We got
out, and he was rubbing his eyes, but he was happy. In the meantime, I was getting that "glare"
from the moms who had been watching what had transpired. Good call or too dangerous? I'd do it again. Since that time, Meme has been constantly
talking about that jump. (Note to self: remember to take off your
glasses when you jump in the pool). Now
the real question, would I have done it again if my wife was around?
Not that I have anything to hide, but I'm just glad that there aren't millions of parents hanging onto my every word and papparazzi capturing every mistake I make.
(photo credit: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images North America)
