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Who, me? An overinvolved dad?
When he got tossed from a basketball game by his own son, he knew he had to change.
By Andrew Santellafrom the March 7, 2007 edition
Page 1 of 2
I knew I had a problem when I got kicked out of a basketball game played in my own driveway. It was my 5-year-old son who ejected me. I didn't think I'd acted all that badly. Compared with some of the fathers I've seen on the news committing assault and battery at their kids' flag-football games, I was innocent. But after that day on the driveway, I knew I had to change. Because it has to be some kind of warning sign when you start justifying your behavior by comparing it favorably to that of criminals.
My son and I have been playing long games of one-on-one in our driveway. It works like this: We each take on the identity of one of our favorite basketball teams. We announce starting lineups, provide our own play-by-play account of the game, and when something really dramatic happens, we simulate the sound of 18,000 fans cheering wildly. We sometimes act out slow-motion replays of critical bits of action.
Or to be more precise, I do all of these things. My son mostly stands there looking slightly embarrassed.
Thus, one day, the 1991 Chicago Bulls (me) were trying to mount a comeback against the Briargate Primary School Tigers (my son). The referee (me) had just called a foul and the television announcer (again, me) was discussing the importance of the upcoming free throws, when my son spoke up:
"Dad, can I just play by myself for a while?"
I knew it wasn't so much a question as it was a plea. And that's when I saw that I was becoming an overinvolved father.
That would make me just the latest to succumb to a disorder that seems to be running unchecked. There is today an epidemic of dads who won't let go – helicopter fathers, some call them, because they're always hovering. They try too hard, care too much, fret incessantly. You see these guys in a frenzy of parental concern, building backyard batting cages for their kids, hiring tutors and coaches, second-guessing teachers, or enrolling them in placekickers school when they're 9.
There was a time when one of the worst things you could say about a father was that he was distant and aloof, that he was never there for his kid. But my generation, having become fathers, seems bent on guaranteeing that we'll never be accused of not having time for our kids. We'll never miss a school play or a T-ball game, never let our kids navigate a single experience alone.
I never thought I was an overinvolved father, but that game of driveway hoops was not the first time my son had sent me away. Just the week before, he had cut short a game of catch we'd been playing in the backyard, telling me that he wanted to "practice his home runs."
