Parenting with Pete Carroll

I love Football. I love the Seahawks. So I was listening to the press wax on about the turnaround the Seahawks experienced mid-season that took them to the NFC Championship Game this Sunday. News outlets report that after their devastating loss to Kansas City, Coach Pete Carroll called his team leaders together and said, "You have to play for each other." Playing as a "team" something the Hawks were doing, wasn't enough. They had to play for each other.

I started thinking about the parenting issues I'm struggling with right now."That's not mine. That's hers" is a refrain I hear a lot when I complain a storm-devastated bedroom that I cry upon entering. Various things pile around the house because "that's not my job." Sure, I don't want one kid doing all the work for the lazy ones. But, I rethought all that when I heard Pete Carroll's rallying cry. Maybe, they need the chance to develop the character each will gain when they do someone else's "job."

So tonight I gathered my chicks around the dinner table. The Main Man is out of town and so we had coconut-crusted chicken fingers and root vegetable fries (hey, they ate PARSNIPS!) and we had a little team meeting and talked about "playing for each other." Blank stares. The boy engaged at least; as long as we talked in theory. Seahawks. He is, to be fair, the least inclined to scream "It's NOT my fault."

When all was said and done, I'm still not too sure this is going to rock our selfish-dynamic into oblivion. But it is a start. And an hour of TV time, since Daddy is gone and I have to think.