Bekham? Beckham? Beckam?

     Someone wise once said, (and I by NO MEANS am getting this quote exactly right), that our job as parents is not to lead our children where we want them to go, but to genuinely know the person they are, the person they were born to be, and to help lead them where they were meant to go.

     Once again, totally got that a bit wrong, but you get the picture.

     I couldn't agree more. And though I get a lot, I'm talking A LOT, of things wrong as a parent, this is something that I truly, truly, at least try to get right.

     I just signed up my youngest for soccer. I have nothing in the world against soccer, but those who know me best absolutely know I'm a baseball person. Totally. My oldest plays baseball and loves it. Heck, after playing both baseball and soccer (twice) my youngest readily admits he likes baseball better than soccer. It would be sooooo much better if he would simply choose to play baseball this fall like his brother so we would be at the same park and things would be SO much easier on Mom and Dad.

     I will admit, it took every fiber of my being not to just sign him up for baseball. But he said the magic words..."I just want to try soccer again." Yep, just signed him up for soccer.

     Am I one of these sports crazed parents who thinks my child will be the next Beckham? Possible-yes. Likely-no. (Yes, I just had to make sure I was spelling Beckham correctly-that ought to tell you something.) I love sports like the next person, but would much rather my children excel in academics than sports. A lot of those star players only wish they could now work for Bill Gates.

     But the reason I signed him up for a sport that is inconvenient for me and one I don't much understand is because of this... how do I know soccer won't end up being his "thing?" I don't. Which is why I just forked over $140 online and hit "submit."

     My eight-year-old is on the chess team (I have no idea how to play chess). And he is in love with the sport of baseball. I am too, yet, I'm still not sure I know what a forced out is. It's sort of like when people talk about taxes and insurance, I just smile and nod. Those are HIS interests, not mine. Yes, I do love both of them, because HE loves both of him. I love celebrating who he is. Don't all parents?

    I'm afraid, for a few, the answer might be no. I cannot get out of my mind something I saw at a sporting goods store a couple of years ago. A dad was shoving a football helmet on his son's head. His son was whining and grumbling, saying it hurt, and his dad bellowed, "Ya better get used to it!"

     There is not one part of me that thinks that kid truly wanted to play football. All I could see was a dad who probably never made the team and BY GOSH his kid was going to be the best linebacker out there!!!

     I wish I had pulled the dad over to the side and made him sit on the carpet, criss-cross applesauce, for story time and read him the children's book, Ferdinand, about the bull everyone wanted to see fight but instead he was just happy smelling the flowers in the field. And isn't it really all about our children being happy?

     I also remember one time seeing a bunch of grown men watching a bunch of pee-wee players with more intensity than Olympic scouts. It didn't seem to be about letting the kids have fun, or teaching the kids the fundamentals. It seemed like an adult competition carried over from their high school days.

    Why are there so many articles about out-of-control sports parents? Why are parents getting thrown out of recreational complexes? Why are there so many kids with bad attitudes?

     Because, unfortunately, there are still parents that are mad they didn't make the team.

     We all have dreams as parents. We want our child to make good grades, or be the next Tom Brady or Mark McGwire, or be the next one to reinvent the world of computer programming. But those are our dreams. Maybe they are not even close to the dreams of our children.

     Of course we want to steer our child toward success, but shouldn't we steer him or her to be the best person he was meant to be, and not the best person we want them to be?

     Maybe there is a child who freezes during tests and won't get into the best college, but has more compassion than most and will go out and do humanitarian work and really make a huge difference in the world.

    Maybe another child has the gift to make people laugh and will end up working in a children's hospital.

     Maybe you were a star quarterback, and maybe your child doesn't have an athletic bone in his body. But what if he ends up discovering something about DNA that helps us cure cancer?

     We all have dreams. We can't help it. But our kids have dreams too. And the most successful people in the world achieved success because they were following THEIR passion, not someone else's.

     I hope, really hope, that I can really see my children for who they truly are, and encourage them to be the wonderful people they were meant to be. For now that means sucking it up and signing up for soccer. I know it is going to be much harder and more challenging down the road.

     But I hope that maybe, possibly, I can rise to the challenge. I can only hope.

     I'll probably still have to read Ferdinand once in a while.