Monday, January 09, 2006

I'm wrestling with this problem....

Ok, so we are new to this kids wrestling scene. Just when I learned the rules to basketball and football, softball and baseball, my kids throw new sports at us. Volleyball for K and wrestling for B. Volleyball, I know from school - at least enough to enjoy watching the game. But this wrestling is a WHOLE NEW WORLD. I HAVE learned that being a ref for one of these meets might be a good job for me - they spend LOTS of time lying on the floor...checking to see if those shoulders are on the ground. But I'd have to learn that sign language they use so.....
Anyway, the kids wrestle 3 times throughout the day. Each match is 3 minutes long and then they wait about 1-2 hours between matches so you have this 3 minutes of excitement and then you sit and wait and wait and wait until your son is up again.
Yesterday, we did out waiting on the bleachers behind a young mother with low cut jeans and a short top on. She had a HUGE tattoo on her lower back - an underwater scene. And enough of her was showing that....well, we were pretty sure she had no undergarments on. We were with other families and of course our 14 year old sons were sitting with us; Amazing they chose not to run around quite so much yesterday...just kidding. But really, it was quite annoying. I finally asked the other mom with us if she thought the lady had an epidural before getting that tattoo. IT was really big. Whatever, I wish women would cover themselves a little better....
Lots of people were yelling "down in front" or "we can't see" during the matches. Should we have told her "we see too much" or "cover yourself please" or "sit on the top row." I would never have the nerve but sometimes I wish I did.
I also wonder about how young we start kids in sports. When the wrestling team is so little that they walk in being lead by their coach, all holding hands like preschoolers on a field trip, you wonder if it's a little early. And when the boy with a bloody nose had to go to the girls bathroom with his mom because he couldn't go alone to the men's, you wonder if it's a little early. And when the little boy's uniform had to be taped together in back to keep it from falling off, you wonder if it's a little early......
We let our kids start pretty early in sports (about age 7) so I'm convicting myself when I wodner these things. We just spend so much energy and money and TIME for these activities I wonder if that's why some kids grow up with such a sense of entitlement and expectation that their desires come first. Where do we draw the line between encouraging your kids' interests and allowing their schedules to dominate your life?
One last question. Shoudl girls be in wrestling? The champion of one of the brackets yesterday was a 14 year old girl. She took down every boy she wrestled. I wondered if some boys hold back when up against a girl because some of those holds are pretty "intimate". In fact at one point yesterday it looked as though her uniform and sports bra were being pulled off....YIKES. One of our coaches will not work with the girls - not because he diapproves but because he will not put himself in the position of anything being misread when he's teaching her.
So what do you all think....?

1 comment:

Beaner said...

Hmm...good questions to wrestle with! HA!

Here's some of my thoughts:

1. tatoos - I have one, I want another one, but they hurt A LOT!!!

2. Girls - Wear underwear. And nothing is grosser than a plumber's crack on a girl. AND....if you're a chubby girl, please don't wear hip huggers!! I don't want to see your fat roll hanging out of your pants! (I might put some of this on my blog too!)

3. Wrestling - If you want to have a cauliflower ear, then go for it! If you are a girl & you wrestle, that's great, but....only wrestle other girls. It's just not right for girls & guys to wrestle each other (until married!)

Those are just my opinions!!!