Why I Don't Force My Son to Play Sports

This article is like a breath of fresh air!

http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/why-i-dont-force-my-son-to-play-sports-dg/comment-page-1/#comment-2199198

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Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t have anything against sports. However, I do have a serious problem with a culture that defines a boy’s masculinity by his involvement and success in sports. If your son plays sports and enjoys it, I am thrilled that he’s found an area where he can excel. But right now my son isn’t interested in sports, and I’m not forcing him to participate. Here are five reasons why:

1. I want him to know I accept him unconditionally. I don’t ever want Ben to feel that I will love him only if he behaves a certain way or takes part in certain activities. Whether he succeeds or fails, he will always be my son, and that will never change. My love for him doesn’t depend on him filling some kind of role or being a certain type of person.

2. I want him to forge his own path in life. My son needs to develop his own interests within the context of our support and encouragement. His path won’t necessarily look like my path. In fact, I hope it doesn’t because he must become his own person. We both have similar interests in several areas like music, computers, and Star Wars, but we’re also different in many ways. Ben needs to be free to go his own direction according to his interests and passion.

3. I don’t want him to live for other people’s approval or to make me feel like I fit in. Everyone feels a pressure to conform to society’s expectations. That’s not always a bad thing, but in suburbia it’s often carried to an extreme. If your wife isn’t a stay-at-home mom, you don’t drive an expensive SUV, you don’t have 2.4 kids and they don’t play soccer, it’s easy to feel like a social outsider. I know I have felt that way at times.

4. I want him to know that I don’t measure my worth by his accomplishments. Every good father wants his son to succeed in life. But we must always check our motives. Do we want our sons to succeed for their sake, or for our sake? We’ve all seen fathers who are living vicariously through their sons, trying to recapture the glory days of their youth through their sons’ achievements. We must make sure we are not compensating for our own insecurities by pushing our sons to climb higher and go further than we did.

5. I don’t want him to buy into the stereotype that being a man equals being an athlete. Masculinity is about many things, and sports are certainly one area where we can demonstrate manhood. But being a man is about more than showing your athletic prowess. Being a man is about having the confidence, self-acceptance, and understanding to follow your unique path in life. A real man is comfortable in his own skin and doesn’t need to conform to superficial cultural expectations about who he is and who he is not.

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