First, let me start by shouting out, "Peace!" to my pacifist friends out there. I feel you, but I just had a flashbackSo, on Monday, my son got into a fight at soccer practice. I was sitting on the sidelines chatting it up with my new Black-like-me single, co-parenting, tech telecommuting soccer mom friend when from the corner of my eye, I caught that David Banner you-wouldn't-like-me-when-I'm-angry look in my child's eyes. I had no idea what had happened; but a mother knows her son, and without another thought I jumped out of my chair and ran to grab him. It was surreal. I felt like I was moving in slow motion. Well, actually, I was. By the time I got there, he had already kicked one of his teammates, punched another and been hemmed up by the coach
Once I got over the embarrassment (because who wants to be *that* parent), I focused on my child, admonishing him for his behavior like most good parents would. It took him a while to calm down, but finally he did and apologized to his team and his coach. I learned later from my son, that after he'd told his teammates, who at the time were on the other scrimmage team, that his team had three and theirs had zero, "the whole team" had told him to "shut up." That's a bad word in our house. And, it was enough to trigger his anger gene.
My child has a temper, and in the moment that anger overtakes him and the few moments after, he really is out of control and completely fearless. The first time I saw it in him was when he was two, just a little tot. He was sitting in a two-armed chair at the dining room table. His father was pretending to rough me up, just playing, and I was telling him to stop. The next thing I know, my little one was standing up in the chair screaming at his father to stop hurting his Mama. I went to calm him as I explained that Daddy was just playing. But, as quickly as I set him down on the floor, he had run over to his father, whose biceps are the size of my waist when I was 22, and started trying to whoop his...well, his knee...he couldn't reach Daddy's ass. He was not playing. He had every intention of taking this man down. He has a temper...and a dislike of injustice. And, the truth is, he got it honestly.
So, flashback to the flashback. Just a few minutes ago, as I was thinking about the Monday incident, I remembered Brad Ross and Andy Zangrelli. Long story short, in sixth grade, my entire soccer team used to call me "Tar Baby" while my coaches did nothing. Story of my youth...I was the lone Black child on the team, and even my "friends" left me hanging when it was time to choose sides in the game of race. Weekly, my father would counsel me to just ignore them. And I did. And, nightly for a month, I had nightmares that involved me dropping my teammates' major organs onto a cold operating room floor. I kept them to myself, but finally, unable to ignore both the team and the dreams, I asked the coach to do something. He opted for the give-a-lecture-to-the-entire-team-in-front-of-her-and-isolate-her-even-more approach. And, it worked...for five minutes...until Brad Ross, during the guilty silence shouted out, "OK. We'll leave the Tar Baby alone!"
Before I even knew what had happened, I was standing in front of that boy slapping and punching the hell out of him. When I realized what I was doing, I sprinted and hid behind the coach. My father came to pick me up. Through tears I told him about this horrible experience. And he chastised me for not employing the words-can-never-hurt-me technique.
Andy Zangrelli. Eighth grade. Same story, different soccer team. Italian-Chinese kid on my soccer team calls me "Nigger girl." (Even then, I was thinking, um...does this kid realize he's not white?) I kick him in the shin, drop him to the ground and do enough damage to break his rec specs in half. Again, I end up in trouble and have to call his house to apologize.
OK. So, you get my point. I think history was repeating itself at the U8 Galaxy practice on Monday. Yes, the offense to which my son reacted was different, but my offense as a parent was the same. Sure. There were better ways for both of us kids to deal with the pain and humiliation we felt. But, we were kids, moved to draw on whatever strength, whatever power we could muster, to defend our spirits. And, our parents didn't get it. They didn't stand up for us, and they didn't empower us. They made us wrong without acknowledging our pain or our desire for justice or our disbelief in that moment of trauma that using our words would do a damn thing. (Of course, having stood on both sides, I now know that our parents were doing the best they could. So, I won't blame them/me/us. In fact, really, they got it. They just didn't know what to do about it in the moment.)
Fortunately, I don't go around trying kick ass every time someone hurts my feelings anymore. I've grown, learned other ways of dealing or fighting back if necessary. I've even learned the art of ignoring. And, I'll work hard to guide my son to that place, too, holding onto faith that he will get there (before his twenties, unlike his Mama.)
But, in the meantime, secretly, I will find comfort knowing that he's carrying a can of vintage whoop ass in his back pocket in case of emergencies.
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