A Difference in Parenting

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Two stories I heard this morning. Although they might be apples to oranges, they bear the fruits of comparison….

I caught this segment on the Today Show this morning and was impressed by the attitude expressed by the parents of 3 year old Cameron Shores who apparently is known as “the wail heard ’round the world” after a video went viral yesterday of an incident that happened at Wednesday’s Yankees-Rangers game.

The video shows a foul ball thrown into the stands in cameron’s direction. Instead of him catching it, a couple sitting next to him (Sean Leonard and Shannon Moore) snatched it. The couple have been unfairly villified, thanks to the video, and New York Yankees commentator Michael Kay:

“Oh my God. They can’t give it to the kid? That’s awful,” he lamented, adding, “They’re rubbing it in the kid’s face,” when the couple posed happily with the ball for a photo as Cameron looked on.

But sometimes a picture isn’t worth a thousand words. Sometimes stories require context.

Instead of feeding into the narrative of the couple as being heartless, the parents of Cameron went on the Today Show to give a voice of reason to what occurred:

“I felt sorry for Cameron and for the other couple because they were made out to be such horrible, cold-hearted people and I didn’t get that impression from them at all,” said Cameron’s mother, Crystal. “They were very sweet and they talked to Cameron a lot.”

The couple was attending their first baseball game and are getting married Saturday. They actually offered the toddler the ball, but his parents turned down the gift.

“He’s three and we’re kind of at that stage where he thinks gets everything and anything,” his mom explained.

And in baseball, much like in the game of life, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

“I never once thought that they should have given him the ball,” said Crystal. “We’re trying to teach him he doesn’t get everything every time.”

Now contrast this parental attitude with another one I heard on talk radio when I left the house this morning. What is the teachable moment to be had in this one? What example is the father setting for his son and is he justified?

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The best part of the interview is when the little boy wants to play with his bat. His father hands it to him and he pretends that it is a gun…’shooting’ at the camera guy.

HA HA HA

Of course, they cut into a replay of the crying scene at the game…..

Wordsmith
you have a sad story with a good ending,
thank you, those story are the proof of AMERICA SPIRIT IS ALIVE AND WELL,
BYE

I didn’t know it is a “custom” in baseball to give a kid a ball that was tossed into the stands. If one came my way, I would have kept it myself. Did this couple who caught the ball know this custom?

Too many announcers like to hype things up to get people excited. Even the announcer on the aos Angeles car chases hypes things up to make it more exciting than it really is. I wonder if the announcer at the ball game saw the video of the parents. If so, I wonder if he thinks he might have been wrong, especially when he found out that the couple offered the ball to the boy, but the parents didn’t take it.