My sister and I grew up in the home of an avid UNC fan, our father. When she grew up, she married a Duke fan. Two months ago, she and the Duke fan had a kid together. I asked her to write about it:
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| In sickness and in health. |
Parents pass all kinds of things on to
their children. Hair color, skin tone, blood type, mannerisms. Of course, biological
parents have no control over what the child’s hair color will actually be. It
is all complicated genetic science. And it is all out of the parents’ control.
So no matter who the child looks like, and whether or not the child’s genes
come from her parents, all parents work to pass on values, morals, and the
traits that make up a personality. Yet, even though parents of all types work
to instill these things in their children, they really have little control over
what gets carried on and what gets left behind.
This desire for controlling the
uncontrollable is also true when it comes to sports teams allegiances. What
parents do not want their child to root for their teams? But a child who grows
up in Lexington, KY might just root for the Wildcats instead of his parents’
Fighting Irish. Or a child prone to rebellion may pull for the Buckeyes instead
of her parents’ Wolverines. Or maybe the independent child will not care for
sports at all. It is just as likely that the child carry on the parents’
fanhood, no matter where the family lives. Parents’ choices influence what team
their child roots for, but just like hair color, neither does a parent truly get
to select jersey color.
My son is two months old. Already he has
numerous clothing articles indicating his parents’ allegiances to the Green Bay
Packers and the San Francisco 49ers. I am sure Atlanta Braves and San Francisco
Giants attire will make its way into his wardrobe also. All of this works out
just fine, with the exception of the Packers recent playoff record against the
49ers, there is little contention between my teams and my husband’s. Except for
college basketball.
I have dressed my son in 49ers clothing.
I will not dress him in his Duke shirt, no matter how adorably small it is. My
husband has put our son in a Packers onesie on multiple occasions. He has not
brought out the UNC shirt, which is so much more adorable. When it comes to
which NFL team Oliver roots for, we will be fine as long as he does not choose
the Seahawks or the Bears, but there will be just a little more on the line
when it comes to whose team he fills the championship spot on his bracket with every
March. Though we will not know what team, if either of ours, he will choose for
a number of years, it will be strange to witness him picking his inheritance.
My husband and I really cannot control
what team he roots for, but February 8, as we sat on our couch with our son in
between a Duke fan and a UNC fan, watching ESPN, one thing did become clear.
One thing that we can make sure Oliver knows. No matter who you route for, whether
it is the same team, the rival team, or some other team, when a man like Dean Smith
dies, you remember him. You watch the footage, you listen to the interviews,
you think about how different the game is now because of him. You make sure
your child knows what matters more than a rivalry and what t-shirt he wears.
You make sure he will know who Dean Smith was.
And, as with everything else, you learn
to trade lack of control for unconditional love.
Brittany Harvey is among many other things a graduate of Austin
Theological Seminary and James Madison University.
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