Cheerleading as a contact sport?

While reading a recent Sports Illustrated Issue devoted to hard hits in the NFL and concussions, I came to a realization. For the first time, there was not the slightest twinge of regret about not having a boy to play football with me. I am glad that my girls will never play tackle football in high school or college.  But then it got me thinking about what sports they would play or have talked about playing.

Annie, I think, has her mother's eye-hand coordination and thus will probably not be active in soccer, basketball, softball, etc. She loves to swim and is really good so maybe that will stick. Kelly likes soccer practice, but not the games which is pretty much counterintuitive to an average kid's thought process, but that fits perfectly with Kelly's personality. So not sure if she will continue with soccer or not.  Brigid is very physical right now, so maybe she would like to play football if she has the chance.  But really she is way too young to figure out. With that all said, the one sport that pops up more frequently with Annie and Kelly then any other is cheerleading. 

If it is the kind of cheerleading I remember from my days at Cardinal Dougherty H.S. in Philadelphia, then that seems harmless enough. I remember the cheerleading team as a nice group of girls who tried their best to get the crowd involved in the football and basketball games. They were also the ones out front during all of the pep rallies and spirit days. The most daring thing they did was maybe toss a girl up in the air a few feet and quickly catch her. There were no boys on the team and the girls' upper body strength was not great enough to really get any height on their tosses.  No, my high school cheerleading squad did actual cheers.  Which make sense since that is what they are suppose to do.  Like my favorite cheer:

                "People in the front, let me here you grunt. UGH!
                 People in the middle let me here you sizzle. SSSSSZZZ!
                 People in the rear let me hear you cheer. Yeah, shake that thing."

And then they would do a little shaking and moving of their bodies.  Think maybe I should have spent more time watching the football and basketball games then staring at the cheerleaders?

Today the type of cheerleading done is actually called Competitive Spirit Squads.  Competitive Spirit, what does that mean?  My image of competitive spirit is like the scene from the movie Hoosiers when one section of the stands said "We've got spirit, yes we do, we've got spirit,  how about you?"  And then they would point to the opposing student section and they would do the same cheer back to see who indeed had the most spirit.  But that type of cheering does not even come close.  The Competitive Spirit Squads around today are hell bent on throwing girls higher and farther while they do multiple flips and twirls and then hoping to catch them when they come down.  They do not even do any actual cheers while they are doing these stunts. The routines are usually put to some sort of contemporary dance/club music and maybe everyone once in a while the squad will clap and say the name of their team. As a frequent channel surfer, I've seen a few of these competitions and it struck me that there could be some serious injuries involved with this sport.

A quick Google search on "high school sports injuries by sport" confirmed my assumption.  As I read report after report I almost began to wish my girls could possibly play football.  According to an article by Terry Ziegler on suite101.com, cheerleading is quickly becoming one of the most dangerous sports in America.  The total volume of injuries is not as high as other sports, but when you look at the number of injuries per participant it is staggering. Also, the injuries they are talking about are catastrophic injuries, not your run of the mill sprained ankle or bruises (which still occur alarmingly high in cheerleading). Catastrophic injuries are defined as "fatalities, permanent disability injuries, and serious injuries with complete recovery."  This definition comes from the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  In fact, in the 2008 Annual Report from the NCCSI, cheerleading accounts for 65% of all female catastrophic injuries. 

If the change in cheerleading in the past 17 years has gone from actual cheering and simple pyramids to amateur Cirque du Soleil shows, I am scared to think what they will become in another 10 years when my girls will be going to high school. With visions of scenes from the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - only except for swords and kung fu, the cheerleaders will use pom poms and high leg kicks - I'm thinking helmets and pads may not be so bad after all. For any sport, that is, not just football.

Daddy, DADDY, DAAADDDYYY!!!

Why do kids not have any patience?  Was it somehow not put into their DNA upon conception?  Ten fingers and toes, two eyes, ears, arms and legs, but no patience.  Their bodies even know to grow hair and teeth later on, but still no patience.  They also learn to walk, talk and eat by watching others and trial and error. Love, laughter, and sadness are somehow programmed in and eventually come out.  So is patience just not included in the original make-up and has to be completely learned like the ABC's and 123's?

I believe my parenting techniques are nurturing them to learn this attribute.  I constantly am telling them 'wait a minute.'  Now maybe my minute may be five or even ten minutes later, but I always get to them.  Shouldn't my distractedness teach them patience right there?  For example, Kelly should learn patience because she has to wait a few minutes longer for me to come and wipe her bum, while I check everyone's Facebook status.

Also, telephones do not help children learn patience.  I believe there is some sort of secret device in the phone that makes children want to ask you questions while you are talking.  They can see that you are on the phone, but for some reason they are still drawn to you to ask a question.  Even if the question concerns the littlest thing.  And they will continue to talk to you even when you point to the phone or hold up one finger (the international signal to wait) or even say "please wait."  However, if you were not on the phone and did those same things they would immediately stop talking.  So, my only guess is that there is some sort of high pitch tone that the phone emits like a dog whistle, except this attracts kids instead of sending them away.  Annie's ears are particularly sensitive to this sound, and cannot seem to stop talking to me whenever I am on the phone.

So maybe patience is just a trait that takes a long time to learn.  And as they are learning it must screw something up with their volume control and their eyes.  Because whenever they need you and they can not wait, their scream for "Daddy" just seems to get louder and louder even if you are doing something.  Like, when I am trying to carry a 50lb TV up from the basement and Kelly is asking me for water for her paint brushes. She should be able to see that I am doing something, but for some reason she thinks that by yelling my name several times and louder each time she will get me to stop everything and come help her.

I guess we will just have to continue to work on patience around this house.  But hopefully someday after the scientists and doctors have cured cancer they can create a pill for pregnant moms so kids come out with patience somewhere ingrained in their DNA.  Actually, forget I said that.  I would rather my daughters have to deal with their impatient kids, too!

Laundry Demands from a 6-year old

Annie asked me today when I was going to do the laundry.  I told her I do it every couple of weeks, whenever her basket is full.  She told me some parents do it everyday.  Really?  Is that what she thinks, that I should be doing her laundry everyday. 

She said needs a shirt to wear so she can match with a friend at school.  I told her she has drawers and closets full of clothes to wear.  I also mention that if I did the laundry more regularly that she would only wear the same clothes over and over again.

I am really getting worried for the teenage years when my 6 year old is already complaining about not having enough clothes to wear.  And I have two more after her!  Oh boy!

Update on "Tiger Woods Scored a Goal" post

During my original post about kids, and girls in particularly, asking silly questions during sporting events I forgot to mention that they seem to never outgrow this instinct.  My wife, who is a fairly knowledgeable sports fan, continues to stymie me with her questions while we are watching sports.  And her questions always tend to be about the people not directly involved in the game, but somehow I am suppose to know what they are doing. 

For example, she asked me during the World Series who was the guy in the Giants dugout wearing a golf shirt?  He was on the screen for maybe a split second, behind the manager, pitching coach, and a player.  Ask me a question about any of the people in uniform and I could at least give you a plausible answer.  But no she wants to know who the guy was in the background who happened to just walk by the camera.  This is only the latest example, but she asks at least one non-game related question a game and expects me to know the answer. 

Oh well, at least the shear volume of questions from my wife is not as much as the girls.  And she does make me laugh when she asks them.