No One Cares

This is how I started my letter to the editor of THE WASHINGTON POST:

The parenting advice given by Megan Leahy in her January 22, 2022 article, “How Do We Help Our Teen Son Deal With Being Too Thin?” is fundamentally flawed.  Based ultimately on an acceptance of his predicament, it would prove damaging to the boy’s psyche.

As the parents describe in their inquiry, puberty and physical development have arrived in uneven fashion among their son’s age group.  So far, he has been passed by.  It’s upsetting, and the teasing has already begun.  

Leahy sympathizes, explaining that not only are teens prone to insecurities, ‘people are born to suffer.’  Supportive parents should allow kids in these situations to ‘cry’ and ‘move forward.’  Listening, reflecting, and ‘providing context’ are important.  These parents could share pictures of once-skinny family members who must have been similarly miserable or expose their son to books and movies in which characters undergo the same struggles.   

You’ve got to be kidding, I thought as I read.  For the Post, printing such an abdication of responsibility verges on an ethical lapse.

Embracing helplessness is hardly a solution for weakness, I wrote.  Any rationalization intended to foster acceptance is a house of cards that would survive neither the stormy weather of adolescence nor any test of time beyond.  

I can’t be the only red-blooded father having this reaction, I figured.  Time and experience teach that teenage angst is actually a summons from the gods, the same call that all warriors, athletes, artists, and statesmen have heard through the ages: it’s time to do your own growing up.  

Instead, this is the standard of courage society is going to advocate?  I decided to type something up on strength training.  

That got me to thinking about the last time I typed something up, to that hockey coach, a copy of the note I posted a week or two ago.  I’ve heard nothing back.  That happened with a football coach; an athletic director who agreed with me completely in a conversation on the subject never followed up, and a father, who after expressing admiration for the power in my daughter’s tennis strokes asked if he could bring his ‘weak’ kid by for some coaching - to which I said, ‘Sure!’ - disappeared.  

No one cares.  I never sent the letter.  

Here’s the solution I was going to offer the poor skinny kid’s parents:

Physical inferiority is a problem that can be solved.  The kid should lift weights.  Using barbells, he should squat, press, and deadlift, exercises that eventually can be done with hundreds - plural - of pounds.  A good coach can establish expectations and a routine based on a young man (or woman’s) age and hormonal maturity.  

Those worried about the danger of it all should ask themselves how kids slung around bales of hay for generations before this age of listening and compassion.  

The boy will see the benefits on the playing field and in his physical appearance, and his parents, siblings, teachers, and friends will admire the confidence born of challenges met.  

Oh, God - it’s probably me, I’ve thought.  People might agree that strength training is swell, but it’s me or my version of it they want nothing to do with.  Still, they don’t seem to have imposed their own programs.  

They don’t know anything about lifting, and they don’t care.  If I were to come along and say I’m a video gamer or a bird watcher, it would hold the same zero relevance to their life.  They could consider me a complete wacko: Dear Coach, the best thing for your team would be an intensive Summer of training at altitude in the Praying Mantis style of Kung Fu . . . 

The other night, I was sitting next to another Dad at a hockey game.  His daughter, a sophomore, ‘is really starting to get the hang of it,’ he said.  ‘She’s been working on skating faster.’

‘It’s time to get her lifting,’ popped into my head, but I didn’t say it.  I have to stop caring as well, which struck me as sad.