Failure is Always an Option
Over the past month, I’ve been looking for a hobby for my daughter that doesn’t involve a screen. Like most kids her age, she would cheerfully spend twelve hours a day looking at clips of influencers demonstrating how to put on a smoky eye or videos of cats attacking pickles.
I find it all mind-numbing but my parents probably thought the same thing as I wasted countless summer hours in front of an old Atari. At least my daughter is ostensibly learning something although exactly what the benefit of looking like a promiscuous cat might be these days is something I’d rather not devote much thought to.
I was hoping to find my daughter a hobby that involved some sort of aerobic activity which presented certain challenges. My daughter doesn’t like participating in anything that involves a ball which rules out quite a large number of sports. She also isn’t much into any activity that raises her heartbeat over a resting rate which rules out just about everything else other than, perhaps, table tennis which is an investment of money and space that I’m not willing to make.
I looked into yoga but that was a nonstarter. In addition to my daughter’s tepid response, most of the classes take place in the middle of the day, which conflicts with her class schedule. I’m sure her school supports physical education but the thought that they’d be all right with her ducking out for an hour or two once a week stretches the bounds of credulity. I’d also have to attend the class, which, in theory, I’m not opposed to. I could certainly use a bit more flexibility in my life but my daughter’s tepid response meant that I’ll be groaning whenever I have to bend over and tie my shoes for the foreseeable future.
I finally suggested crafts as a possible interest. It seemed like a decent compromise as it would keep my daughter off a screen and required minimal participation on my part. Like all the other suggestions, however, it was quickly shot down. Her complaint being that any craft she’s ever chosen to make never looks like it’s supposed to. I couldn’t argue with her logic but I was surprised by her expectations, namely that any completed project would end up looking as advertised.
After attempting to assemble a few model airplanes as a child the one thing I came to realize was that failure was always an option. Even if I managed to put a P-52 or the Red Baron’s biplane together the end result looked more like something a forensic team would sift through instead of a reliable means of transportation.
I quickly understood that I would never be the kid on the box proudly displaying a Model T or even a canoe to a camera while my parents beamed with pride behind me. There would be no “attaboy” from my father as he gently chucked my shoulder. My mother would never take a picture of a newly completed Space Shuttle and send it to the local newspaper. Instead, I imagined them with a slightly concerned look on their faces and a fervent hope that I wouldn’t pursue a career in engineering.
It wasn’t that my parents weren’t supportive. They just had realistic expectations when it came to their son. I can’t recall ever once hearing either of them tell me I could be President but that was probably because they understood my limited capabilities. After all, I couldn’t even put together a model of an airplane without supergluing the side of my hand to a wing or the top of the table.
It was a humbling lesson to learn at such a tender age but one that’s held me in good stead as an adult. The toys of my youth were built for disappointment or, more specifically, their promotion created wildly unrealistic expectations, and playing with them had a profound impact on me as a child.
At the age of eight or nine, I had a plastic rocket the size of a butter knife that, given enough water, pumped air, and enthusiasm would orbit the earth — at least as far as the artwork on the box would lead one to believe. The experience was a bit different in practice. The rocket shot off at an angle for all of three feet before crashing nose-first into the driveway and shattering leaving my brother and I doused in water for our efforts. Neither of us got upset. We didn’t complain to our parents or write an indignant letter to the rocket’s manufacturers. Instead, we just looked at each other and shrugged as if to say “Well what else can you expect?”
As far as toys in the 1980s were concerned limited expectations became the rule rather than the exception. Lego kits routinely lacked a few key blocks. Remote cars only lasted for fifteen minutes despite using six hefty D batteries (not included), action figures didn’t move, and transformed Transformers would rarely ever go back into their original robot form.
And those, mind you, were the toys that were irritatingly deficient and not outright dangerous. Slip N’ Slides were not necessarily slippery or all that “slidey”. I recall one hot summer day as a child when my neighbor Booger, a nice enough kid with a congenital booger eating problem, dove head first down the yellow runway of a Slip N’ Slide only to find out that a patch in the middle hadn’t been soaked with enough water. After leaving a couple of square yards of epidermis in his wake Booger came to an abrupt halt and then ran screaming into his house. We never saw him again.
The same was true for all of those children, God rest their souls, who thought it would be fun to throw Lawn Jarts at each other…
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About the Author
derekbremer Prior to his life as a stay at home father Derek spent more than a decade performing public relations and marketing functions for financial consulting firms and found the job to be precisely as exciting as it sounds. When not tending to his wife or daughter Derek enjoys subjecting the public to his unique take on fatherhood, travel and animal husbandry. He has been published in Scary Mommy, Sammiches and Psych Meds, The Good Men Project, HowToBeADad, Red Tricycle, RAZED, HPP and the Anthology "It's Really Ten Months Special Delivery: A Collection of Stories from Girth to Birth.
