Friday, October 17, 2008

Friday is for Football

Friday is SO much football day to me now. It's like a glamorous shadow cast over the whole week. Who would have thought I would care about JV football? But I do, just as I learned to care about reptiles, and giant sequoias, and vintage fashion, and the spare-tires-hitched-on-the-back-of-some-SUVS, because of what Charlotte Mason calls "the science of relations" (but perhaps, it should be called an art in a way). In other words, because my kids care about those things. Aidan's the spare-tire fan, in case you are wondering, and the day that our neighbor across the street allowed him to open the back DOOR of the SUV with the spare tire hitch was another day wrapped in glamor.

In the "School is Different from Home" category -- the other day Sean, home from school at 6 pm as usual, had finished dinner and was sitting around talking to us. His eyes landed on Paddy and he remarked incredulously, "Paddy is just this little munchkin that never stops talking!"

To us this was not news, of course, but I suddenly realized how odd a 5- year old must look to a 15 year old who spends the majority of his time with much taller people -- adolescents and post-adolescents, people with gruff voices who say "Dude" instead of well, whatever Paddy says all the time (we usually tune him out, I guess).

In the same category, Sean is not taking Health, but a lot of his friends are, and a few weeks ago they had to carry around an egg for 24 hours and bring it back unbroken. And this was supposed to teach....? Something along the lines of "babies are VERY tiny munchkins that are very fragile and can't just be tossed into a backpack which is then tossed onto the ground when you start football practice after school." But if you didn't already know that from personal experience, I am not really sure the egg would help.

(Here is the away game 2 weeks ago -- Kevin got around to uploading it. Sean is #14, in white -- he plays quarterback and also the defender against the wide receiver -- whatever that's called, I'm an amateur enthusiast. Anyway, they won 28-14).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I bet he is loving football! It sounds like coming home from school provides a little culture shock. *LOL*

http://momofmonkeys.wordpress.com/

Geoff Busbridge said...

I remember doing th egg thing! I also remember thinking it was pointless.

At my high school they bought an expensive animatronic baby doll called Baby Think It Over, for the same purpose as the eggs- it felt more or less like a newborn, looked more or less like a newborn, and was computerized. Students had to take it home, and when it cried, hold it and insert different keys to simulate feeding and changing. It recorded length of time let cry, length of time held, and any rough behaviour.

It could be set (by the teacher) anywhere from Nice Quiet Baby up to Very Loud Baby, depending on what the teacher thought necessary. It was used primarily in classes taken by the less academically inclined, less intelligent students.

According to a teacher I had who taught the home ec/homemaking skills courses, the doll was dialed up to Hellish Child for the fourteen and fifteen-year-old girls who thought that having a baby was just like having a doll that would love you back. She said it seemed to sober them.

Willa said...

Sean thought the animatronic baby doll idea was positively evil ;-). I hadn't thought of it that way, but I could see what he meant. There's also a bit of elitism in targeting the baby to the less academic students.

Anonymous said...

I was going to say that I think the egg thing has been around for a while and that it is based on the (misguided?) notion that girls get pregnant because they think babies are easy. But a previous commentor hit that nail and indicated the classist (and no doubt racist) garbage that goes along with it. I suspect that there are lots of reasons that girls get pregnant not least of which is plain old accident (including lack of knowledge of how to prevent such, lack of confidence to get a guy to use a condom, lack of self esteem and thus thinking sex is a way to feel loved, etc.etc). And some teenaged moms know exactly what they are getting themselves into and do a reasonable job considering the lack of support and general bs that they have to put up with.