MeInMaine Blog

Tag: raising maine kids

  • Helicopter Parents, Taking It Out On The Coach’s Wife You Don’t Even Know.

    You son or daughter are on a Maine sports team.

    That goes above and beyond from the beginning of the season’s predictions. And in fact the last game they win is one “where did that come from” out of the blue big deal. Happy team, beaming parents right? Wrong. The coach caught up in the excitement of playing beyond ability. Having lots of lucky breaks.The right calls is some kind of excited in the school’s history making.

    Maine Little League Teams.
    Fair Play, Sports, Social Mixed Into One Fun Event.
    Jimmy’s Mom and Dad, well, not so much.

    Jimmy is just glad to be on the bench of a winning team. Heck, strike that. Just on the team, win or lose. Regardless of the season’s record.

    Happy to be part of a squad wearing the same colored jerseys. Doing his best to contribute even if only as a cheer leader. If not in the starting line up. Or getting much playing time. Taking stats.

    Mom and Dad see the coach’s wife in a small Maine town at the local grocery.

    They have never been introduced, not traveling in all the same circles. But they just know that is the Jimmy’s coach’s wife. They go out of their way to look annoyed, peeved and returning nothing but a sneer when the coach’s wife at the Piggly Wiggly smiles graciously. Snubbed, made to feel she did something wrong and being the target of snarky exchange to let her know their displeasure by what just took place. Guilt by association with her relationship to the coach. Anger, resentment all channeling to make sure she is not left out of the drama.

    Maine Little League Sports Team Catcher.
    Pretty Important Position, Your Maine Little League Catcher.
    How come? Like the father right after the winning game told the head coach. Nothing about “good job Coach”. Or “way to orchestrate a win and hold it all together to make the home town proud”. Instead of attah boys, high fives and smiles. It’s sour faced and “You should have played my Jimmy more”.

    How come Jimmy did not get put in the game asked under the bright swinging lone light bulb. The coach mentally seated, bound. Tied to the chair in an interrogation like, cell inquisition right here and now.

    Whipped on the coach after the pretty spectacular game. Parents double teaming the coach. Killing the buzz of the win.

    With the parents second guessing his handling of the sporting event even though hello. Our home team won people.

    Ran into this treatment with a lady who had a hockey player son who Mom wanted to see skating, puck handling in the game.

    But instead of letting the coach handle the who suits up, goes out, who is on the bench, she tries to go over his head. Calling the head of the minor hockey league. Working from above to hopefully trickle down to get a reversal on the coach’s decision.

    She asked me to help in the cell calls, politics of hook or by crook to get junior in the game. On skates, stick in hand, hard charging out on the sheet of ice. I watched as kids on the bench cranked their head to see what the commotion in the stands was all about. As I said guys, focus on the game. Eyes on the puck. Heads in the game. Be in gear for your 53 second shift on the fly shift change coming up. Be sharp, be ready.

    I under my breath told the mother we have to think of the game, the coach runs the show.

    And she said I would help you if it was your kid. I told her you have to think of the whole team. Not rattle them during this game now underway and no one, fans included benefiting from a major distraction. Hub bub in the hockey stands. Which happened to be next door in Canada. She clearly, firmly told me “I don’t care about the rest of the team, I just care about my kid.” Whoa, there is the problem.

    We are the front line best advocate for our children as Mama and Papa Bear. Have four, two of each flavor and all different. Needing differently handling, love, attention. But lessons to learn above and beyond the affection for your cubs. Respect for authority has to happen. Helicopter parents, can be all about too much involvement missing the stability a child needs.

    Maine Little League Team Fair Play.
    Let’s Huddle Together, Here’s What We Have To Tighten Up On Team.
    It can be a parent with the best of intentions gone haywire. The term helicopter parents coined in 1969 to describe the parent with the label hyper present, psychologically absent. Dr Haim Ginott wrote about a mother who the complaining son says she “hovers over me like a helicopter”.

    Helicopter parents | Too much presence, the wrong kind of presence.

    And add to it cell phones everyone holds, carries. Cradles in their neck, up to their ear. Or loud and clear beaming in through ear buds, blue toothes.

    That cell phone being described as the longest umbilical cord.

    And with rising costs of college educations, the parent justifying the helicoptering as just protecting their investment. Monitoring the process, progress for the young adult. Who should be the one carrying more and more of the weight of their decision making, education, life on their own out of the nest. Let the coach coach, players play, refs ref and enjoy the sport. Without being a helicopter parent.

    Good luck Houlton Shiretowners, Hodgdon Hawks basketball teams in the state championship playoffs this weekend in Augusta, Maine! Aroostook County is proud of your season’s performance. The skill, confidence, poise, resiliency you demonstrate. You all are one solid unit. Coaches, managers, team players. Each and everyone a solid team that will continue to show class proudly in Saturday’s game downstate. In the pursuit to bring home the coveted gold ball.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com

  • Maine Is Living Within Your Means, Being Careful With Money, Pay As You Go Thinking.

    Picking Maine Potatoes..Dusty, Hot Sun, Long Days But Part Of Growing Up.
    Picking Maine Potatoes..Dusty, Hot Sun, Long Days But Part Of Growing Up.
    Slow Dowh To Live The Good Life In Maine.
    Slow Dowh To Live The Good Life In Maine.

    Around Maine, most folks would consider spoiling a child the worse abuse you could lavish on your sons or daughters. Worse than neglect of that child.

    When money is in shorter supply, better impulse control with that money comes in to play. Kids watching a Maine mom and dad see how hard they work for what they have. How well they take care of, respect whatever they do purchase so they don’t have to run back out to spend more money. Spoiling a child and giving him or her undivided attention, unlimited resources and not insisting they have chores, odd jobs that increase in time and skill as they get older is worse than neglect. They go out in to the world thinking it revolves around them and expect others to treat them the save lavish way. That is not survival of the fittest, or giving something back to earn your keep.

    When Maine kids pick farm potatoes, rake blueberries, dig for clams and help fish or work in the woods, they learn the value of any dollar earned.

    Like their parents, they don’t part with that hard earned money easily unless there is value, quality exhanged with those released dollars held so tightly. When money is not the fuel to run the every day living, it does not become the “drug” to keep those kids entertained, from becoming bored or to waste time.

    If everything is handed to a kid, and nothing is worked for, saved for, dreamed about owning as he or she labors, the items mean nothing special for long when obtained without effort. And just desire for more “stuff”, happens, more material objects to artificially give joy or temperorary contentment. The buying, spending, shopping help kill ideal time that should be spent with chores, household obligations, helping out in the community and making that child’s own spending money. That is real world and creates self sufficient, reliable citizens of tomorrow that don’t have their hand out expecting the world to provide them a living.

    Our Maine youth are not arrogant with an entitlement attitude.

    They are empowered with independence and a fierce pride of workmanship, some control of their own destiny and course of their life. They know their place in the family and that the family would not be the same without them because they contribute, are part of it. Not feeling picked on or abused. Seeing the other members pitching in and working to carry their share too. That makes them more involved, partners in the process. Keeps them occupied in a healthy way too.

    Because Maine is not known as a super affluent state other than pockets of coastal concentrations of wealth, I believe we work harder to create our own existence from the grass roots up. The “necessity is the mother of invention” thinking serves us well and runs thru famliies of three generations..often under on roof like the family farm. When everything day to day does not hinge on having lots of money, or require spending of financial resources a person worked hard to sock away, save, then freedom enters the room and becomes the pattern, rhythm of life.

    Maine’s four season aspect of unspoiled outdoor beauty and license plate label as “Vacationland” means camping, hiking, hunting, fishing local lakes, rivers, streams is the recreation right in our backyard. We’re already in paradise, a heaven on earth setting. And with being the fourth lowest crime state, a sense of local community pride to pitch in and that family is everything, Maine is healthier, sane, simple living. We exist nicely well within our means. Don’t like debt, are not slaves to owing money for anything we don’t really need. Our wants are simple. Family, a house we want to get paid off. Or that we build slowly living in the cellar or in unfinished parts slowing paying as we go with materials and bartered help from friends that we return the favor to. Shouldn’t the country’s government, spending, policies be operated the same down to earth, feet on the ground way? Has that gone out of style or is the pendulum swinging back to minimalist, simple living. Day to day where reduce, resuse, recycle and gain control of spending is the daily goal?

    Maine’s property prices are probably what you are used to divided by three and four or more. Way way less zeros in those real estate selling figures.

    The low cost Maine real estate is one big reason it is easier to live the simple, lower cash outlay life and depend on less of a salary but get so much more quality of living for our kids, families.

    Plus being a little further up here in the right hand corner of the country helps insulate us from all the factors folks do not like about urban areas around cities. We don’t have the crime, smog, traffic, high cost of living. Maine is the way life should be. Inexpensive.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers
    207.532.6573
    Email info@mooersrealty.com