Making the Cut

Newsletter 2024-03-08

My kids might get cut. I mean that metaphorically. I took away their Cub Scout pocket knife for a reason. My thirteen-year-old, Betsy, and eleven-year-old, Mae, recently expressed their intentions to try out for new groups. Apparently their current schedules, which require them to do everything everywhere all at once, don’t keep them busy enough. Betsy wants to join an elite chorus and dance troupe. Mae wants to play tennis. I want my nights and weekends back. I may or may not be rooting for both kids to fail. I love my children, but I don’t love that they want to join everything under the sun. Extracurricular activities aren’t Pokémon; you don’t have to collect them all. If my girls were limited to just the things they’re already in, I would be a happy dad—and they’d be happier kids, even if they can’t see that right now. A few strategic cuts would be good for us all.

The prospect of sports having cuts at all is new to me. At my tiny Catholic elementary and high schools, anybody could join anything. That’s how we ended up with basketball squads with twenty kids, even if we could only put five on the court at a time. The coach wasn’t allowed to kick you off the team, but that didn’t mean he had to put you in the game. I came to appreciate that arrangement. I was bad at everything, but I was especially terrible at basketball. There was no need for me to go out and demonstrate that in front of a crowd. I preferred to stay on the bench with my dignity intact. Okay, I didn’t have dignity, but at least I didn’t have to go home with any fresh humiliations to have nightmares about for the rest of my life. I might look like an adult, but my sleeping brain still thinks I’m in high school with a big test I forgot to study for. If you had asked me back then, I would have been terrified of cuts. In hindsight, being rejected up front would have been a huge time-saver for everyone involved. Coaches wouldn’t have wasted their time on me, and I wouldn’t have squandered my childhood on a sport for which I had neither affinity nor aptitude. After a few years, I didn’t want to be there, and the coaches didn’t want me on the team, but they couldn’t get rid of me, and I refused to be a quitter. Cuts would have saved us all from that impossible situation. It’s too late for me, but they might save my kids instead.