I Made An Enemy Today

Today I was a timer at the girls' swim meet. When you time, you and a parent from the other team are assigned a lane and time all the kids that race in that lane. They take the two times you get, average them, and that is the time they use.

While you are timing, no other kids or parents should be near you so that you are not distracted or interfered with. As one of the races was about to begin, one of the Dads from our team came over to me and asked if he could stand between me and the other timer. This guy is a piece of work. At every practice and meet I have been at, he is screaming at the top of his lungs at his kid. He seems absolutely beyond furious by mannerisms and tone, but I can't tell what he is actually saying to the kid because he is speaking another language. And here is the kicker, his son is FIVE YEARS OLD!!!!!

At every meet he has done this, all the parents of the other team are like "Oh my, what is his deal!". It's almost embarrassing. There have been times where it has gotten me so upset, I've wanted to just smack him. Well, when he asked to stand between us, I thought I would have a little fun. I told him he could stand between us, but there was to be no angry yelling while we were timing the race.

You should have seen the look on his face. He insisted he isn't angry when he is yelling, he is encouraging the kid. I told him all I had to go on was his mannerisms and tone, and it didn't look to me like he was being encouraging. He told me he didn't know what to say in English to be encouraging. I told him to just yell keep going, keep up the good work or good job or something. That's what all the other parents are yelling.

As the race started, he was mostly quiet. Then he just started yelling Go! Go! Go! over and over again. It kind of made me laugh, because I couldn't believe he actually would do it. Of course, after the race was over, he looked at the card we write the times down on. He went over to his son and was screaming at him again, this time in his own language. If you could have seen that kid, your heart would have broken. But I must have hit a nerve, because during the break, he came over to talk to me.

He again insisted that he isn't angry when yelling at his kid. But then he asked me what was he supposed to do when the little boy had a horrible clock time. I must have looked confused because he told me that his son can do this race in 35 seconds, but today he did it in 41 seconds. He asked if he was supposed to be encouraging when his son had a bad time. He went on to tell me that he gets the kid up and over to the pool at 6am every morning to 'work' him. He knows he can do better, today's time was unacceptable.

So I asked him if he had asperations of this kid making the Olympics or something. When he told me no, I told him I didn't get him then. I asked him why he was putting this much stress on a kid, nevermind a FIVE YEAR OLD!! Shouldn't being a kid be fun, shouldn't joining a swim team be fun? I told him I tell my kids, go out there, do your best and have F-U-N! There's enough stress later in life, they don't need it now.

I'm not sure he felt it was worth talking to me anymore. He said he thought we would never agree. I told him, that's right, I disagree with you 110% and there is nothing you could say that would change my mind.

So, I made an enemy today. But I don't much care. I just feel for that little boy. My wish would be that maybe he thinks a little about what I said to him today. Because I fear for that little boy growing up with a Dad like that. Nothing he will do will ever be good enough. That's not the way I want to raise my kids.