This is a story
about a scrappy little friend of mine named Joe, one of 7, soon to be 8 little
Dutch Kids just through the block
Among my many toys
for teaching delayed gratification
is two sets of boxing gloves and 2 bright red protective head gears. Joseph liked the idea of beating his cousins
one by one in the squared circle…and he shouted to be first in the ring.
Joe’s first
opponent was Tanner, a scrappy little neighbor from across the street who held
his own…and the slugfest went a couple of rounds.
“DON’T HIT HIM IN
THE FACE!”, his mother shouted at her tough little kid—still standing and
smacking his scrappy little friend.
It’s hard to explain to a mom—---the boxing gloves and the face mask keeps the blood well inside the nose of one’s opponent…but the fight did seem to go on and on.
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After five rounds
both kids were breathing pretty hard, so we took a break and I changed Joe’s boxing
buddy… His older brother, James who out weighs his little brother and has much
longer arms.
All bullies crumple
when opposed by superior force and it wasn’t even close….the otherwise
mild-mannered James just stuck out his arm against Joe’s head gear and kept the
frantically swinging Joseph at arms lengths shouting to me:
“ Brother Howe…make
him fight…IT’S NOT FAIR!” (Fairness
always favor’s the young complainer’s point of view.) After a few minutes of being out maneuvered
by a chuckling older brother, Joe threw
off the gloves and stalked off to his room in the basement (IT WAS A FEW
MINUTES) before a sheepish Joe returned to the fun and nobody seemed to notice.
Kids like Joe count
on the attention that sulking and fighting attract. The
good news is it doesn’t take Joe long to jump back in (IT’S ALL PART OF GROWING
UP IN A BIG FAMILY)
GIT/JRH
