THE NAME OF THE GAME

JULY 20, 2021 – Yesterday evening I watched our five-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter attend “soccer practice.” This was her fifth week of the community sponsored activity. The kids learn some basic skills led by a couple of very laid-back “coaches” who excel at herding cats and squirrels. Our older son, Illiana’s dad and former soccer player, assists.  Parents and grandparents are generally low-keyed about the whole scene, but a fair amount of tongue-biting occurs among the “spectators.”

Illiana isn’t the only participant who marches to a different drummer, but she’s consistently the one who follows a drummer out of the practice area altogether; the one who, off to the side, spins like a ballerina while the other kids are moving soccer balls around cones toward the net; the one who picks up one of the cones, turns it upside down and scoops up a soccer ball, then says to another kid, “Do you want a giant ice-cream cone?”

I want to yell, “Illiana! Put the cone down! Dribble the ball around the cones like everyone else is doing!” But such an outburst would put me out of sync with the rest of the supportive families sitting passively, keeping their cool in the shade along the sideline. My “need” to conform inhibits my “need” to get Illiana to conform. I grapple with this paradox.

Hope springs eternal, as I watch Illiana line up with the other kids for a round of “red light, green light.” A coach stands in front of the goal at the end of the mini-pitch, and the kids—each with a soccer ball—stand at the opposite end.  When the coach shouts, “Green light!” the kids dribble their soccer balls forward. When the coach yells, “Red light!” the kids “freeze.” Whoever reaches the goal first wins a round of spectator applause.

But at the first “Green light!” Illiana hears her own drummer again. Instead of moving forward in an upright position, she decides to get down on all fours and move the ball forward with her shoulder. Again, I want to yell, “Illiana! Stand up like the other kids and move the ball with your foot!” I restrain myself, though, knowing how such a call-out would be perceived.

On the other hand . . .

Do the other parents and grandparents wonder why I was not intervening to make Illiana conform? Perhaps they were being too nice, and the pressure to conform in this regard—being “nice”—is overpowering the need for conformity in how Illiana should move the soccer ball down the grass.  After all, this is soccer practice, not some kind of free-for-all with a soccer ball.

Just then I catch myself. What my wife and I find so endearing about our cheerful little granddaughter is her originality, her unfettered imagination, her free-spirited approach to play at our house, and . . . her ability see a plastic cone turned upside down and holding a soccer ball as a giant ice-cream cone.

Conformity will have its place and day. For now, imagination should be the name of the game.

(Remember to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.)

© 2021 by Eric Nilsson