Family Challenges

Invisible man on second

Trudging home from work one day recently I heard a shouted phrase that lifted my spirits and transported me to pleasant days of my youth. "Invisible man on second," yelled one of the neighborhood boys.

For the uninitiated: the invisible runner is a device used in pickup baseball games where there are fewer than four players on a side, and, in the course of your team's turn at bat, you have too few players to "cover all your bases."

As I recall, each game demanded a renegotiating of the rules for how many bases an invisible runner could advance on an overthrow, how many invisible men you could use in an inning, and how to handle force-outs and infield fly rules. Sometimes the negotiating took longer, and was more interesting, than the playing of the game.

Watching the kids play reminded me of what Kathleen O'Connell-Chesto said in a recent talk at the L.A. Religious Education Conference. She rued the fact that kids have so little unstructured time to practice negotiating rules among themselves in an effort to make the game more fair and more fun. Back in my neighborhood, we had the slaughter rule, the left-of-second-is-out rule, the four-fouls-and-you're-out rule, and the you-hit-the-ball-in-the-Salvattis'-yard-so-you-go-get-it rule.

Not to paint too glowing (or nostalgic) a picture of the past, but it seems that it used to be that kids had strict rules handed to them at home and the opportunity to create their own rules on the playground. But lately, kids' recreation has become highly structured (Little Leagues with preseason draft picks; soccer leagues that mandate who brings the orange slices; and "lifetime stats" for 12-year-olds), but they're left to their own devices when they return to their house, condo, town house, or apartment. Now it's invisible man at home.

I'm not griping against Little League or parents who work outside the home. But we may be misdirecting our efforts on behalf of our kids. They need clear-cut rules and consequences at home as well as a good dose of free play outside.

As for the latter, "If your kids say they're bored," says O'Connell-Chesto, "pat yourself on the back and say, 'Good job.'" Children need boredom to lead them to their own imaginations, to their inner resources, and to find out who they are without a schedule in front of them.

So if your kids tell you they're bored this summer, tell them there's someone waiting for them in the backyard: the invisible man on second.

 

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