I’m going to rant here…
Here is the inherently bi-polar position: We seem to believe that parents should be given the right to parent any way they see fit—so long as that parenting fits popular opinion. If some decision or method of discipline becomes fringe or is decided to be outdated we will publically burn at the stake anyone who engages in those outdated practices. Note: I’m talking about a trial in the court of public opinion and not the court of law. There is an expectation that we all now agree to hate and disassociate with Adrian Peterson because he admitted to spanking his kid. However, is what he did criminal? Is it wrong? Or are we still smarting from the beatings we took from our parents as kids—beatings that in some cases went too far and in others were both well deserved and properly impactful.
The popular media is also overlooking context here, and the public is clearly overlooking media motive here. I’ve spoken about the rule of three time and again. Here is how it works: Someone breaks a big news story. Immediately someone else finds a second story that continues public interest and then there is a 3rd story to further public interest while the first is fading into memory. Try it some time. Look at the local news and note how the biggest stories always happen in threes. If you live in AZ take careful note of how the 2nd and often 3rd story is AZ specific as we attempt to link whatever is going on in the world to our own local drama. This last phenomenon might be standard, but I’ve only ever lived in three places. One of them was Iowa where news was careful to state that nothing at all was ever happening in state as though we wore some sort of ‘stuff-happens-proof-vest. The other was NYC and everything, apparently, was actually about us.
So what is the context here? It is unclear. I can speak from experience as both a counselor and a child who spent time in the courts: The court is a weapon used by bickering parents to wound the other parent and to advance their (often financial) interests. My birth parents were never married and hate each other to this day. As a result of that simmering anger I spent age 3 -16 in the courts dealing with custody and child support issues. I was in family court so often I knew judges by name. I was in the court long enough to actually believe I wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up and have time to have the discussions to pursue that profession. We know from court records and media reports that at least one of the accusatory baby momma’s is constantly looking for more money from AP. We also know she’s lied about his role as a father. We haven’t heard about the mother of the child involved in the highlighted incident, but we do know the case in question was shopped around, brought to grand jury, dropped, and then later picked up again once the climate in the NFL changed.
But all this isn’t even the most important point.
Here is the most important point: The system of idolatry is inherently flawed. When we conflate the actions of an athlete with the actions of a hero we risk going down that slippery slope of unrealistic expectation. We remove the potential for that individual to be human and flawed, and when we take away what they’ve worked their entire life for simply because they are flawed outside of their professional responsibility, we risk creating a system where nobody can live up to the standards established. The climate of the NFL is moving towards this. We are trying to make heroes out of every single player, and this is not a realistic thing to do. I’m sure there are heroes among them, but being a hero isn’t the job. Scoring or stopping others from scoring is the job.
There are obvious objections to my point of view: Isn’t it the responsibility of the athlete to be a fine and upstanding citizen? Don’t they have a responsibility as public figures because they get paid so much to be in the public eye?
I truly believe that parents are responsible for teaching their children right from wrong. I find allies in this belief in the strangest places. Homeschoolers, religious fanatics, hard core right wingers, hard core left wingers all believe that parenting starts in the home. In truth, the main reason books are banned is because some group of parents decides that they don’t want their kids to be taught that stuff. However, I fear that much of what we see on TV about these so-called heroes is a gut reaction to the fact that many American parents leave parenting to the television. Perhaps we should spend less time policing the television then and more time educating the people who should be policing their kids. It takes a village to raise a child, not a flat screen. On the other point, the amount one gets paid and the amount of news coverage they are provided should in no way determine how an individual lives their life or performs outside of the basic responsibilities of their job. We seem to accept this truth when it comes to corporate CEOs and, to a lesser extent, political officials. We don’t accept it when it comes to athletes and, to a lesser extent, musicians. The real problem is the specter of expectation. We expect too much out of people who only have so much to give. Worse still, we’re always expecting the wrong things.
I want AP to come back and score touchdowns for the Vikings and thusly for my fantasy team. I want to ‘bear witness’ to his running and to his Hall of Fame career. The guy plays the game right. He works hard, and he is an exemplar of how to play the game. Too bad that isn’t enough anymore.