Youth sports are insane
Grownups need to get a grip
Another week, another sick kid. My daughter on Wednesday threw up in the car, I took the nearest turn (into a cemetery, as it happens) and, while I tried to clean up, my son started screaming about the smell and how he needed to get out.
I feel like I say this every year now, but this has been the most relentlessly brutal season I’ve ever experienced in terms of constant illness. But better, warmer and healthier days are coming!
🏀 1. Let kids be kids
Today is the last day of basketball season for my 5-year-old son. I have two takeaways: Basketball is probably not his sport, and youth sports are much more awful than I realized.
I knew youth sports would be annoying. I’ve read takes and books on the subject. I recommend Timothy Carney’s book, “Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be,” for criticism of youth sports and other facets of culture that put too much pressure on parents.
I’ve entered this phase of parenting with a pretty good understanding of what I’m getting into. But I still wasn’t prepared to see the lengths to which fully grown adults will go in order to instill hyper-competitiveness into children who are still young enough to wear pullups at night.
Here are some things I’ve seen this season:
A coach’s wife recording video of a full game for the purpose of film review (complete with some snarky commentary from me sitting behind her).
A maniacal coach prowling the court like he’s in the NCAA Tournament, shouting, among other things, “I need three (passes)! I need three!”
My son’s team ran up against another team full of players so absurdly tall and physically advanced — allegedly because its coaches had the league’s best players scouted and put them all together by claiming they were close friends and should be on the same team — that my son’s team failed to make a single basket against them.
It hasn’t been all bad. There’ve been some games in which the teams were equally matched and the kids spent more time goofing off than playing serious basketball. Those were fun!
But, already at the 5-year-old level, I’m seeing coaches and parents put pressure on kids to take a single sport seriously. Some kids at this age are already bouncing from league to league during the same season, including travel basketball.
That will not be our family’s journey. I don’t really know what to do about this other than to keep searching for leagues that let kids be kids.
We had good luck with a baseball league last year. My son started out not understanding how to swing a bat or throw — and progressed to the point that he went on a long hitting streak, developing a clear sense of pride over his improvement.
But, in between those hits, what he really loved to do was lay down on the field, kick up dirt and toss his glove around when he was supposed to be fielding. Which is totally fine! He’s 5!
I fear having him wind up on some team with a lunatic coach like the ones I’ve seen this basketball season. Fortunately, his coach now is a friend’s dad who has treated basketball as more of a game than a competition.
Other coaches seem to be in it for different reasons. By the looks of things, these overbearing grownups are treating 5-year-old basketball as a chance to satisfy their own childhood dreams.
💸 2. Bettors take the under on DOGE
This was a really bad week for the U.S. economy. Economist Michael Hicks is already predicting recession based in large part on the uncertainty President Trump has unleashed.
Will all this chaos result in long-term benefits?
Betting markets, which is to say people who are willing to put their own money on the line to back their predictions, say no. Elon Musk’s DOGE will cut less than $1 billion from the federal budget, bettors say, reflecting plunging expectations.
As you can see, just a few weeks ago, the expectation was about $300 billion in cuts. Bettors have not been impressed with what they’ve seen in recent weeks.
🏘️ 3. What I wrote
I published two columns this week for IndyStar:
Mailbag: Todd Young might need to sacrifice himself for his principles
Fishers’ attack on investor-owned homes will lock out families
📰 4. What I read
David Shoemaker on John Cena’s incredible, long-awaited heel turn:
There is a certain irony in Cena’s turn coming at a time when even the most jaded fans were willing to root for him because of all he’s given to the industry over the years. Even the “Cena sucks” contingent seemed on board for a rote valedictory tour. There was always an accidental genius to WWE’s reluctance to make Cena a heel—staying the course allowed him to be the company’s biggest hero and villain at the same time. When Cena talked about turning heel, he talked about doing a reversal on his core principles—hustle, loyalty, and respect—but the truth of the matter is that those cereal box paradigms were exactly what was so grating about him in the first place. His earnestness, his prepackaged heroism, is what made him so loathsome. Now, fans were grateful above all else. Or maybe they were just happy to wave him goodbye.
In the end, just like Hulk Hogan in 1996, and just like Andre the Giant in 1987, the only thing Cena could do to make the fans happy was to turn on them. It took him long enough.
Monica Hesse on her employer’s ill-defined new mission for the opinion section:
My return to work coincides with Jeff Bezos, owner of The Post, announcing that the Opinions section will now support and defend two pillars: “personal liberties” and “free markets.”
I was writing about how couples’ abilities to plan their own families, and women’s abilities to control their own pregnancies, are essential personal liberties.
How the right of women to move through the world without being harassed is a vital personal liberty, how the right of men to escape the confines of traditional masculinity, if they want to, is imperative.
How the right to free speech protects you from the punishment of law but not the consequences of society. Other people are free to think you’re a jerk, to boycott your products or revoke your dinner invite if you say racist, sexist, homophobic things.
How it hurts exactly nobody if a transgender teenager wants to use different pronouns than the ones they were born with, and how you don’t get to yell “parents’ rights!” when a parent’s goal is to prohibit their kid’s gender expression but yell “child abuse!” when a parent’s goal is to support their kid’s gender expression.
I believe that there are books in the library I have no interest in ever reading myself, but I would be mortified to demand their removal, because you never know what kind of book is going to save someone’s life.
I believe that vaccines should be mandated. Because “my body, my choice” is a good rallying cry when we’re talking about an event that occurs within one woman’s body, and a bad rallying cry when you’re talking about a communicable disease in which the cough coming from your body can send a dozen other people’s personal liberties to the hospital.
I believe that if we’re interested in preserving the personal liberty of, say, reproductive choice, then we should also be interested in the policies that can help women and families have truly good options: subsidized child care, paid parental leave, rock-solid public education.
Am I still standing firmly on the pillars? No idea. Does anyone else see the pillars? Are the pillars talking to you right now?
But I don’t know where else to stand. Because above all else, I believe that we live in relationship with one another, and with our government, and with our country. And I don’t know if that belief is about free markets, but it’s definitely about priceless communities. About the tax I’m happy to pay to be here with you all.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading!