When Karen, Emily & Stan are PISSED|Softball Is For Girls

As normal, it’s Thursday evening and Karen and Beth and Emily have their daughters dropped off and are dragging their chairs out to sit and chat while practice is going on. At the fence, Stan and Ben are standing watching the new players and analyzing their swings. The new girl the coach recruited to pitch is warming up with another new player who is a softball catcher.

Karen is clearly upset. Her daughter has played for this coach for 3 years, has always been his starting pitcher and has, without consulting her, brought another girl onto the team. GASP!!! And, oh to make matters worse – this girl is a BEAST I tell ya, A BEAST! She deals! She’s had her name in the paper multiple times, and is slotted to do big things, with D1 colleges already looking at her.

Yeah, so Beth is pissed. And Stan, well he is pretty damn IRATE too, because his daughter is the starting catcher but the idiot coach was worried that she wouldn’t be able to handle the new kids movement. And making matters even worse, Emily’s daughter is now fighting for short stop with the other new girl the coach brought out for the year. Damn Coach, what was he thinking trying to field a full team with 11 girls!!!

What a load of crap, right? Where is the coach’s loyalty? He is such a jerk.

One pissed off parent is enough, but 2-3, at the same time, and you got trouble. And of course, in their sleep hindering, headache inducing, drawing conclusions to soon butt-hurt fit of jealousy – they have to have allies. So they slide in little innuendos when they talk to the other team parents, make faces, display body language when the new girls are playing that needs no words, mumble things to their daughter, and stew and stew and stew.

And from where I sit, you can already see all that brewing. Bubbling and rumbling and forming a stank cloud over the practice field.

When new kids moms arrive, they are snubbed a little, and decide to sit away from the piercing eyes. While the kids all seem to be getting along and having a good time, they are also looking over at their mamas and papas and can sense the stank cloud is coming from their asses.

Oh, yeah…kids know, they know their parents faces.

You can pretty much get it from here. It’s an age old story of parents who are so jealous because another kid is maybe, possibly a little more skilled than theirs – that they get their panties in a huge wad and play out their insecurities through backhanded and passive aggressive maneuvers that destroy teams, all while smiling and pretending that they are above such school kid jealousy – while the new parents have been nearly ostracized – all because they decided to commit to your team, a decision that families do not take lightly. I bet the coach even told them that he has a “great group of girls and parents who are so kind,” and now he looks like a liar. They may be wondering what else he lied about.

So seriously peeps, what the actual hell are you doing? Do you not have enough faith in your own kid to let them compete for what they want? Do you act this way because your terrified that your kid will crumble under the pressure? What if she learns something? What if she is pushed harder and improves more than lessons and practice alone could ever achieve? What if the new kids are just kids who love the same sport as your kid, the same position even…Shouldn’t you be happy that they joined your team?

Why are parents so damn insecure and fragile, creating scenarios in their mind that their sheer fear and anger actually bring to fruition??? These other kids, they are on the same team as you, and there is a pretty good chance that all of the kids will benefit from fresh talent on the team, making the entire team better.

This is how teams get ruined. This is what so many parents do, take up hating on other children, because they are insecure that their own kid won’t be able to cut the mustard. Get. OVER. YOURSELF!

Why not take a lets watch and see approach? Why not welcome anyone with the goal of making your team more successful?

What the heck is wrong with us? Look, we get it, its your kid and you want them to be happy. But chances are they are still going to play their position, and chances are they aren’t mad until they are under the pressure YOU put on them.

We are begging you, please stop this. Please stop this behavior. Your kid will be just fine. But what you cannot do is use your emotions to bully new team members, or team members who play the same position as your kid. You can’t go around blaming coaches for having enough players to make a team.

We see this above behavior happen every year, and we see it all the time, and we have seen it with parents who you never thought would react this way. We have also seen this destroy good teams, and hurt a lot of kids in the process. We get it…it can sting to think your kid is being replaced. But the fact of the matter is that there will always be someone better than you or your kid at something. Suck it up. Work hard, adjust, be a team player, be a good example, and don’t become this person, suffering from such self inflicted pain and anger that it makes you become a miserable bully.