PUT ME IN, COACH
The conversation of coaching came up last night in the locker room at Sunday Night Hockey, always the philosophers’ circle. The premise was this:
“I don’t know how someone can coach a kid who isn’t his own. When it’s your kid and he wants to play hockey, you coach him because he’s yours: he’s coming home with you and you have to look after him. But I don’t know who has the patience to coach other kids, especially the ones that don’t have a clue. Who has patience for that?”
I know the answer because I am, in fact, one of those people. I’m patient and tolerant of childhood development (it’s also my job as a preschool teacher), even though I don’t have kids of my own.
Why is that?
I’ve thought about it and here’s my answer: because I’m very much a kid myself and remember what it’s like to have someone look after you.
It’s easy to dismiss a child’s behavior as chaotic and intolerable because they haven’t developed the tools that adults have. What I’ve found after years of working in early childhood education is that kids are not so different than adults. We all have needs that we want met, to voice our concerns when we may not know how to, and we act out in ways we have observed and habituated over the years. There isn’t so much different about children and adults except experience and having gone through the ringer of expectations of childhood and into adulthood.
That’s about it: we’re still the same human beings with a hierarchy needs we must account for before going to bed each night.
I think the chasm develops between adults and children when we can’t imagine that we were once like them. I have friends that are outright disgusted at the sight of children, often running away from them because they don’t want to put up with a toddler’s cries or seepages or smells. I find this ironic because these adults were very much the same toddlers with the same cries, seepages, and smells, but somewhere along the way came a partition, a line in the sand that said they are now “developed”. To that, I disagree. I would argue that these adults are very much the same (seepages and smells and all), but they are better at hiding that they made the mess.
Really, that’s all adulthood is: becoming better at hiding the mess.
What kind of person coaches kids and has patience for that? It isn’t the guys in the locker room after hockey who asked the question. This is a very distant problem because, for them, they are very much children in their own right. They haven’t shed the need to look after themselves first and foremost. I think these are men who won’t shed the spotlight for anyone else, who respond to loud stimuli, who need someone else to join in with the loudness of a joke. To them, life is a battle cry, a constant declaration of, “Hey! I’m here and I’m important!”
Which is very much the battle cry of children.
Every child wants to be seen, heard, to be noticed and loved. That’s why every achievement isn’t hidden or shied away from (usually). Kids will put a drawing in your lap, tug on your sleeve to show the tower they built. Are these grand human accomplishments? No, maybe not to the adult world, but to them it is a sign that they’ve made their mark, that they are growing up and growing out.
To matter.
The coaches, teachers, and caretakers of the world who undertake this upbringing understand this. They are not the entire picture, the kid is also part of it.
There’s a sobering affect that comes with becoming a parent (so said the writer without children of his own). All the sudden, you recognize that it isn’t only your life in your hands any longer, but that of this fragile human-shaped pile of organs and soft tissue; this crying, seeping, smelly specimen that needs someone else to care for it or else it might die. When that moment of clarity arrives, it’s amazing the change that occurs in many parents. It’s an important step in the evolution of personhood, to put oneself aside for the greater good, for something bigger.
To put it another way: to have faith.
I’ve often envied those who believe in religion of some kind. Personally, I’m not religious, but that doesn’t mean I’m not spiritual—I do believe in something bigger than myself, which is more akin to humanism (or a faith that we’ll eventually get it together after enough atrocities and setbacks). However, I do respect those who are religious because of what religion is at its core: faith in something bigger than yourself. It means an acceptance of the unknown, of things you cannot control, to trust that there is something larger at work.
In other words, a hope for what comes after.
I would be remiss if I said that all coaches, teachers, etc were selfless individuals who put the needs of others before their own (which is simply untrue: many are in it for a job like any other humdrum profession), but I think there’s an extra ingredient when working with kids that recognizes the importance of passing on the torch, knowing that your experiences can perhaps help in the life of someone yet to live their own.
To my mind, and much like faith, there doesn’t have to be reason why this is. I think some people are just imbued with the capacity to look after others and see to their development. Largely, that’s an evolution in one’s character.
Or maybe it’s someone who happens to tolerate cries, seepages, and smells.
And in a locker room after hockey on a Sunday night, when no one had an answer for who would ever have patience for a such a thing, the conversation eventually moved on, no verdict reached.
Except, I knew.
Because I am one of those people.
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MONSTER HUNTER ERECT RISE
I’ve put in over 30 hours into the PC edition of Monster Hunter Rise that launched on January 12, which is an egregious amount, something I might have felt guilty about had it not been some of the most fun I’ve had this entire winter season. My God is Monster Hunter Rise pure video game fun! Go on a hunt, hang out with a few friends online, build cool looking gear, and enjoy a robust battle system that is so satisfying to master.
That’s all—I just wanted to plug the game again. It looks better in 4K, but it was certainly made for the Nintendo Switch, nothing beautiful; it was meant to be functional at best. I’m holding out for another addition to the franchise, something built for a more powerful console.
Still, Monster Hunter Rise hits the spot and I can’t say enough about it.
30 hours well spent, in this writer’s opinion.
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PEOPLE WHO LOOK GOOD IN HATS
In response to the heading above, I simply recorded in my notes:
“Fuck those people.”
Isn’t it fulfilling to end on something completely vague and incomplete? Oh, and to mention that the art of this Weekly Post-Ed was based on this section. Isn’t this like hearing an anti-climactic ending to a great symphony?
(Supposing this Weekly Post-Ed were like a great symphony. I’ll take the compliment anyway since you mentioned it *smile*.)
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Wishing everyone as well as they can. You’re not alone out there,
