Why boys love sports….or do they?

I begin this post with a question…why do boys love sports?

Is the love of sports in a boy’s genes or does our sports loving society ingrain it? I have a lot of questions about this subject because I have been so personally affected by it.

When my son was born, he was dressed in clothing with sports themes. His room was decorated in baseball and football décor. From the earliest age, his gifts were balls, bats and every type of sporting equipment imaginable. All of the typical “sports” trappings, we Americans seem to inundate our male children with where bestowed upon my son.

Yet from the age of about two, I could tell there was little interest in the balls, the bats, the bikes, the skateboards, etc. When the other boys at the park were riding bikes and kicking the balls to one another, my son would be off somewhere examining a plant or reading the little books that he took with him everywhere. He noticed the differences in the shapes and sizes of the plants and flowers and knew which types were likely to bring which insects. He could tell you the names of the types of clouds.  He loved to read, but had no interest in what most of the other boys were doing.

By age six, when all the other boys were riding their bikes and skateboards like crazy, my son’s brand new bike and skateboard sat unused. When I would ask why he wasn’t interested he’d just shrug and say “I don’t know.” About that time is when people start asking boys, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” My son’s response was “a scientist.” And that’s when the light went on for me. No amount of sporting equipment was going to change who he was on the inside.

I took him to the park today to throw around an old Nerf football that’s still in the bucket of balls we have. He’s got a heck of an arm and over time has learned to catch some. Seeing him running and smiling made me so happy. Seeing how well he throws the ball made all those memories come flooding back (the ones when I realized he’s not interested in sports) and I had to fight the urge to pressure him to play football next year in school.

In this family, Mom is the sports nut….and the boy? Well, let’s just let him be a scientist.