Any time adults are playing a game at one of my family parties, a niece or nephew inevitably wants to join. When this happens with Wiffle Ball, we let them get a free at bat in between innings.
Toddlers have an amazing batting average in my family wiffle ball games.
No matter how hard or soft they hit the ball, everyone roars as they take off for first base.
Then, a series of unfortunate instances occur – maybe the ball gets dropped or the fielder falls down while going to get it – so even though he should’ve been thrown out, the kid just keeps on running.
While rounding second base, the fielder overthrows and sends the ball out into outfield.
Now, the toddler feels the thrill of momentum as they round third base, really stretching to turn a bunt-like hit into an inside-the-park homerun. Yet, oddly enough, the catcher drops it again.
We’ve done this countless times for each of my nephews at some point. Yet us adults have never once talked about it.
Frankly, we mostly just want to clear him off the field so we can get back to our own game. But we also do it because we love the kid and want him to feel good.
No matter how obvious it is that we weren’t actually trying to get him out, he still feels like he hit a home run, which technically he did, though nobody really believes it. He is the lucky recipient of spontaneous family doting.
Sometimes, in a family, we’re gracious to each other.
Other times, we’re not.
Last fall, I simultaneously played Mario Kart against both a five-year-old and a two-year-old nephew. I knew I was going to beat the two-year-old because his controller wasn’t connected.
I wasn’t so sure about the five-year-old. He had an unnerving confidence and the home field advantage.
If it had been any other game, I would’ve happily let the kid beat me. But Mario Kart was my game back in the 1990s.
I barely recognized this new version with new characters and entirely different controls. I’d never even seen a Nintendo Switch before, but suddenly my manhood was being tested by one.
Any experienced Karter will tell you that you’re not out of a Mario Kart race until the moment you cross the finish line.
The worse you’re doing in a race, the more the game helps you so that you can go from last place to first as fast as a speeding bullet (by literally turning into a speeding bullet and knocking everyone else out of the way).
So I savaged the kid.
I held nothing back, completely and utterly destroying him by at least a full lap. Fear drove me but I also did it out of pride.
It probably wasn’t nice, but it felt really good at the time.
Things very easily could have gone the other way and if someone had to be embarrassed, I didn’t want it to be me.
There’s no clear line in my family differentiating when a contest goes from innocent fun to cut-throat competition; it often goes back and forth a bunch of times throughout any given day.
This seems similar to where Democrats find themselves right now, smack in the middle of primary season with our doting impulses still running strong.
We’re debating whether to extend the spirit of graciousness trying to keep the party intact, or to push things a little farther to protect a prideful sense of our identities.
I deeply understand the impulses behind each one.
Neither answer is necessarily wrong and you’re not a bad person for choosing one, so just do whatever feels right and live with the consequences.
That’s the good thing about families. Whether we win or lose, there’s always another fight right around the corner. And sometimes a banana.
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