They Don't Get It

Why do people think they have the right to tell you how to raise your children?
I had a conversation with a partner in the company that I work for today and he said that "we need to get rid of all the baseball. It takes up to much of our time." We started in March, we have our state tournament this weekend and the World Series in July, which is a week long event. I immediately asked him, "Why? It's only the three of us. Kyler loves it. Why should we get rid of it?" He had no real answer and just said, "He didn't get it."
Then I started to think about how some people don't get it, as they would say, "let baseball consume our lives" and others, our friends and family, who know Kyler completely understand that we did not push him into baseball he pushed us.
Kyler loves baseball. It's in his DNA. Without any prompting from us, when he was about 3 years old we would come home from preschool and he would get his little backpack with his tee ball bat & glove and go out to the back yard for his “bayball practice.” My parents had gotten him a little pitch back for his birthday and he would spend about an hour a day in the back yard hitting and throwing tee balls into this pitch back. He always worked on both fielding & hitting!
He never wanted to watch cartoons only ESPN. He learned his letters by watching ESPN’s Bottom Line. He would go to Pre-school and tell his teachers that Albert had 3 RBI’s last night or that Matt Morris has an ERA of 3.6. They would just smile, they had no idea what he was talking about.
I have stopped trying to justify our life and our choices regarding sports to everyone else. We have never forced Kyler to play anything. We have always said if you want to try something then "you play the season through and quitting is not an option, no matter what."
The lessons he has learned from playing sports and being part of a team are unmeasurable. He knows that you don't win all the time, there is a winner and a loser. If you don't win then you practice harder and you get better. He knows what it means to trust his teammates and for them to trust him, how to take directions, be a good sport and encourage others, how to be responsible for his actions and the effects of those actions. He also understands the result of hard work, determination and perseverance. As another season wraps up his team is currently #1 in Arkansas out of 33 teams, #26 in the nation out of 904 teams (at one point they were #1), they have an over all record of 34-5, scoring 446 runs and only allowing their opponents to score 149 against them, looking back it as been a great season!
Some people won't ever get it and that's alright, I don't expect them to. I'm not telling anyone to do what we do. I just wish they would show us the same courtesy. In the meantime we will continue to go to "bayball practice."