The baseball season is well underway, and as the father of three young sons, it has fallen to me to be their backyard coach. My job, my wife reminds me, is to teach them to throw the ball straight and hard, hit the ball solidly and often, and catch the ball inerrantly.
This is an impossible job. Kids throw balls wildly, hit them well only rarely, and drop as many as they catch. My belief in education and hard work tempts me to resist this truth, and I valiantly work to eliminate wildness, whiffs, and errors in my sons’ play. But a few practice sessions make realists of all youth baseball instructors, and the question quickly changes from How soon can we get these young players playing well? to How good is good enough?
I have always struggled with how much to expect (demand?) of my boys in terms of performance. How good is good enough? My oldest son, David, is a decent player as 11-year-olds go. His biggest assets are he likes to play and works hard to improve. So I can push him to practice a lot, and I can even yell at him a little to get his attention-he responds by getting a determined look on his face as he pulls his cap firmly down over his forehead and hunkers a little closer to the ground so that the next ground ball won’t go through his legs like the last one just did.
But I don’t think David is going to be a great player, and I find myself resisting exerting too much pressure on him. He already is a good enough player-he takes it seriously and likes the game, the practices, and his teammates. He contributes well to his team’s performance. So I don’t want to exert pressure that may make him a little bit better player if the price is joyless baseball. I don’t want him to come to hate a game I love just so he can play better than that bigger boy down the street, the one with the pushy father.
But I also feel guilty about not demanding “the best” from David. Am I selling him short? Am I giving up on establishing a standard of excellence that will serve him in good stead all his life?
I’ve read the psychological studies that spell out the dangerous after-effects of perfectionist fathers creating ulcer and heart attack-prone sons. And I know that some pretty good minds warn about overdoing it. “Do not train boys to learning by force and harshness,” Plato advised in Book 7 of the Republic, “but lead them by what amuses them, so that they may better discover the bent of their minds.” And on the theological front, I remember Aquinas’s definition of pride (which he calls the root of all sin): “Pride is an inordinate desire to excel.” Is there any danger that I am creating seedbeds for pride in my son?
But I’ve also read the studies about what happens to sons whose fathers never challenged them to do their very best. Mediocrity is the new swearword in some circles.
What to do? An all-out effort is called for sometimes-but only sometimes. The secret, of course, is to teach David to discern when an all-out effort is called for and when it is not.
Sooner or later we all have to learn that some things-God, family, and church come immediately to mind-are more important than others. Our circumstances in life and timing often change their relevant importance; but they are all things worth sacrificing for. God calls each of us to tasks. Wholehearted obedience, not selfish perfectionism, should be our attitude toward them.
Instead of deciding which activities should be important to our sons, shouldn’t we be teaching them how to get in touch with God’s will through Scripture and prayer? Then the prioritizing can take care of itself. Until they get to the place where they can make those decisions, we help them choose, of course. Our goal, though, is discerning youngsters, even when hard choices must be made between doing some things only halfway.
Since it was baseball skills that started me on this quest for truth, it may be appropriate to quote the new commissioner of baseball (and former president of Yale University) on the matter. Bart Giamatti in A Free and Ordered Space: The Real World of the University, quotes Rabbi Tarpahon in Pirke Avot: “You are not required to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”
That may not be quite the same as “your best is required only part of the time” but it’s close enough for me as I struggle to overcome being a perfectionistic parent by teaching my son that since being perfect is out of the question, being obedient to a merciful God is a better strategy.
You’ll notice a change on our masthead for this issue. Marshall Shelley, formerly managing editor of LEADERSHIP, is now the editor. For several years Marshall has been managing the day-to-day editorial tasks of LEADERSHIP. He has built a strong staff team and together they have spent long hours crafting every issue.
In making this promotion, Harold Myra, Paul Robbins, and I are matching title with deeds. But we are also joyfully announcing to both Marshall and you, our readers, what a fine job our colleague is doing. That’s something that won’t change.
Terry C. Muck is a senior vice-president of Christianity Today, Inc.
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