Be a Hero!

How many parents have been in this situation?  A volunteer parent asks for help doing some random function in one of your kids activity groups and nobody steps up and raises their hands.  These are the same parents who are openly critical of anything that doesn't go according to plan, but do nothing to help out even when it is very obvious that help is needed.  Tonight we had a mix of those incidents that I had to write about.

My son's Minor League Little League game tonight was played because a tough rain storm lead to the cancellation of the league opener on Saturday.  Everyone was bummed out, but it was nice to be able to get a make up game scheduled so quickly.  One of our coaches was scheduled to work and couldn't make it, so we asked a mother to help with keeping the dugout straight.  Finding that help was the easy part.  The only problem is that we had no umpire available and had to ask for a parent volunteer to take care of it.  We found one parent from our team who was willing and everything was going fine.  After a few innings, the other team had a teenager volunteer to complete the game.  We were grateful that another person volunteered, but the calls were pretty questionable and parents started grumbling.  After a terrible called third strike that was over the head of the batter, our helper mom from the dugout started yelling and the umpire.  Following her lead, the entire team of 8,9 and 10 year olds went after the umpire as well as half of the parents.  I immediately went to our dugout and stated quite loudly that nobody from our dugout would be complaining about the umpire ever again.  At that point, our helper mom said that she wasn't going to stand for it and was pulling her son from the game.  I stopped her in her tracks and asked "What lesson are we teaching our kids if we do that?  We have a volunteer teenager calling the game and we should be grateful for his help!"  She protested further, but calmed down quickly when she saw that I wasn't going to budge.  I further explained to her that baseball was a subjective game and that complaining about balls and strikes will quickly get you further bad calls.  We explained to the kids that in was not appropriate and unacceptable.  We continued to work hard in the game and eventually won because of good pitching and a few key hits. 

I feel very good about how we were able to get the attitudes reeled in and still end up with a positive outcome.  I am grateful for the help of the two umpires who stepped up and helped and for the mom that helped in our dugout.  I never stop being surprised though about how people who are unwilling to help seem to be the biggest complainers.  What is going on with these parents who seem satisfied with accomplishing signing the kids up.  What happened to being parents who take active roles in teaching their kids valuable lessons through sports?  There is a fine line between success and failure for kids as they are on the path to adulthood.  The time commitment for having a kid involved in sports or other activities is the same whether parents are helping with practices or games or not, so why not get involved and help out where you can?  Maybe you aren't the best baseball instructor.  That doesn't stop anyone from helping pick up after practice or ask to lend a hand when it is needed.  The most important part of it all is the fact that your kids will be proud to see you involved and you will find that practice goes by a lot faster. 

So, get involved, the volunteers will be grateful, your kids will be proud, and you will understand better that volunteering for others kids is a thankless job performed by the people who care the most.