The Huddle

“To believe in yourself. To believe in one another. That’s fundamental to being alive.” – Ted Lasso

My favorite moments from any of my son’s baseball games are the few minutes before the first pitch is thrown, when the boys gather on the field for their pre-game huddle. The coaches exchange lineups and handshakes, and the umpire dusts off home plate while the boys unite.

Sometimes they kneel and say a quick prayer and other times they stand in a perfect circle, arms wrapped around each other’s backs, heads bowed, synchronous in their movement and cadence.  I don’t know what they say in that huddle. But I do know that it’s their time to show up together. As a team.

In that moment, there’s no outside noise – no verbalized expectations, coach signals, cheering parents or grunting umpires. No feelings of disappointment or elation. No self-criticism, boasting or envy. I see unity and camaraderie and everything that being on a team is all about. A group of boys who literally have each other’s backs. A feeling that rising tides, do indeed, raise all ships.

Look around a ballpark next time you’re there. Because every field before a game looks similar. Braided arms and bowed heads in a tight huddle. There may be different jersey colors and shoe sizes but those kids have the same purpose on every field.

It’s the calm before the storm that we see so often on social media. Videos of grownups behaving like kids – yelling and screaming and sometimes even abusing their children over infield mistakes, strike outs or even getting picked off.

It reminds me of the time my son got picked off at third base. (A pick off is basically when a runner is thrown out while on base or trying to get back to the base while attempting to steal).

When he came off the base and the third-base player tagged him, it cost his team an out. This was his first game with his new team back in the Fall of 2021. He was nine years old and very upset with himself about letting his team down. Embarrassed and angry, he threw his helmet and himself on the ground, steps from the dugout.

I was mortified.

I didn’t know what to do to control his behavior, and that left me feeling exposed and self-conscious. Leaning over the fence, with gritted teeth and wide eyes, I said, “Get. In. The. Dugout. NOW!”

The rest of the game was a blur of me feeling ashamed over his behavior and worried about what others thought of me, and I debated bringing him home early. I asked the coach after the game if I could take him to the car.

I’m thankful for the coach we have because he looked at me, and very calmly said, “Let me talk to him first.” In that moment, I think I subconsciously knew that our coach understood what needed to be said to a nine-year-old baseball player better than I did.

The ride home was tough for both of us. I was disappointed. He knew I was disappointed. But I didn’t say much, just this, “You looked like a three-year-old out there.” And he cried. I didn’t ask him why he behaved that way. It’s hard for me to even type this but at that moment, I didn’t even care. I was more concerned with how his behavior made me look. What it said about me as a person. As a mom. His feelings about his behavior were secondary on that ride home. I was worried about perception and being new on the team and how I would be received. I was stuck in my own ego.

That night, after he showered and ate, and I had taken some deep breaths and talked to my husband (who was out of town), I sat down on the edge of his bed, and we talked. I asked him why he behaved that way. And he said it was a stupid mistake, and he was upset with himself. We talked about those feelings – the feelings I never considered on the car ride home. We talked about attitude and effort and what you can control and not control. We talked about baseball and how the game’s scale already tips in the direction of failure. And that it’s a tough game but an important one because it teaches you how to navigate disappointment.

I gave him a consequence for the behavior, and then I told him I loved him, and I was sorry I said he looked like a three-year-old. And I reminded him that life was 10 percent about what happens to him and 90 percent of how he reacts to it. And then I went into my room, looked at myself in the mirror, ashamed by not showing up for my son because I was so concerned about what others thought of me.

And I reminded myself that life was 10 percent of what happens to me and 90 percent about how I react to it. And I forgave myself for making my kid feel like he wasn’t good enough in a moment that he felt like he wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t my proudest moment as a parent, but it was pivotal in my journey as a mom.

I now end every single game my son plays with the same words, win or loss. “I love watching you play baseball” and every theater performance of my daughter’s with, “I love watching you perform.”

What I’ve learned over the past few years of watching my kids perform in sports and theater and life is that we as parents, need to separate the person from the performance. Our kids start and end every day at 100 percent. They matter, no matter what. And that’s not to say that they shouldn’t be held accountable for their behavior or attitudes or choices, but what we struggle to do as human beings – raising other human beings – is to remember that we all have innate worth, simply because we are here.

The human experience is not easy to navigate. Neither is baseball. We have a fear of losing in a sport that’s based on losing. So maybe we need to remove the fear from the sport that teaches us the art of failure.

There are pivotal moments in every game where crucial plays matter. And if those plays don’t happen, the outcome is a loss. But never, ever, not for one moment does that mean that the player who misses the fly ball or strikes out or gets picked off at third, doesn’t matter. We need to stop equating the measurement of performance with the measurement of the person. Our kids’ worthiness is not born out of their list of accomplishments or mistakes.

And neither is ours as parents.

We. All. Matter.

When our egos get in the way, our judgement gets cloudy, our feelings get hurt, shame creeps up and we question our worthiness and our child’s worthiness in the eyes of those around us. We measure their successes on outside validation. It’s normal and we all do it. The beauty isn’t in suppressing those feelings. The beauty is in recognizing them and not acting on them because they are just vibrations in the body. We need to learn to hear them and let them pass.

Because if we don’t learn how to control our reactions to feelings, then how will our kids learn?

Our jobs as parents aren’t to mold perfect kids in a world where perfection is valued but doesn’t exist. Our job is to teach them how to cultivate their own self-efficacy and self-confidence. We need to show them that self-worth doesn’t come from success and that language matters. Self confidence grows from knowing that you can handle any emotion that comes your way, and self-efficacy is built in children through mastery of skills and an ability to believe in their worth.

Julie Lythcott-Haims is a New York Times bestselling author of the book, “How to Raise an Adult.” I recently heard one of her Ted Talks where she said: “If our children are to develop self-efficacy – and they must – then they have to do a whole lot more of the thinking, planning, deciding, doing, hoping, coping, trial and error, dreaming and experiencing of life for themselves.”

It’s not about us. It’s about them and their journey.

But our 10-year-old baseball team already knows that – in every huddle before every game.

April 28, 2023