TRY A LITTLE TENDERNESS

Okay so that’s the second time in a week that another adult has had to gently pull my son away from me; this morning it was his teacher and then this past Saturday at his football game. I will state in a completely honest assessment of my parenting style that I don’t attempt to “baby” him (well not too much). But sometimes the comfort of your mother’s arms is just where you want to be. I’m 30-ish (smile) and I still feel that way sometimes. At times you have to give them a gentle nudge back out in the game. “You gotta suck it up son, football is tough,” I said. But then the next play he falls down and a couple of kids step on his hand—in cleats! That would make me cry for my mother too. I was frozen actually, not sure exactly what to do. He's screaming and holding his hand, do I rush out onto the field?  Just then he breaks free of the crowd of coaches examining the hand and comes over to me.  So as he’s sitting on my lap on the sidelines while I try to determine how much soothing is necessary, a coach, in all his mercy senses my cluelessness with just how much tenderness to show a boy, comes and takes Isaiah by the hand, tells him he’ll be okay and promptly puts him back in the game.


I was relieved of course, but there was that instinct, that voice that screams I NEED TO GO GET MY BABY! And there’s the other voice that says mishandling moments like these are how 40 year-olds end up living in their mother’s basements. As a woman raising a man it’s so hard to tell sometimes when to apply the tenderness and when to get tough. So please tell me, how do you know how much comforting is too much and when to take a hard line and send them back out into the game?