Gutter Balls in Parenting

When your kids are on summer break and it’s raining for the third day in a row and your husband has locked himself in the bathroom, pretty much anything sounds like a good idea.

Which is why we went bowling.

Our friends called to say the root canal and lobotomy drive-thru was at capacity, so they would be joining us for bowling, along with their three boys. My husband and I were ecstatic to have these particular friends join us because they brought our parent-to-child ratio up to meet fire codes and — more importantly — because they are the type of parents who let their kids pee on the grass. In other words, we think they are really good parents.

Anyway, fourteen midget clown shoes later — we were in bowling business.

I was happy to learn when you ask for fourteen midget clown shoes, the chain smoking sixty-year bowling-alley bouncer with emphysema will give you the bowling lanes on the far end away from everyone else, including the arcade games.

It’s great. Unless you have a handful of four-year-old little boys who think arcades are crack and will pretty much gnaw off their arm for a fix. So we promised the boys if they would just stay at our end and bowl, we would let them stick their fingers in the ball return. Interestingly, we found four-year-old girls feel about waxed bowling alley floors the way boys feel about arcade games, which meant the girls were delighted to writhe around on the flooring like amoebas with pigtails on acid.

Well, between the finger dismembering and floor humping, the kids managed to do a little bowling. They would heft, heave, shove and lob the bowling balls. Sometimes the balls made it down the bowling lane ricocheting off the bumpers. Sometimes the balls just stopped, begging to die a peaceful mid-lane death. But sometimes the balls actually hit a few pins and then we celebrated.

When the parents weren’t kissing maimed fingers, mopping my female offspring off the floor or retrieving bowling balls from the arcade, we bowled in a grown-up lane. Well, the other parents bowled in the grown-up lane. As a sucky bowler, I focused my energy on complaining like a baby over how we should get bumpers in our lane and how my clown shoes didn’t fit — or come in pink.

It was in the grown-up lane “The Incident” occurred. “Daddy, Daddy! Bowl between my legs!” my friend’s four-year-old boy called as he straddled the opening of the lane.

“Don’t move!” I heard my friend call to his son. The next few seconds played out like a movie reel in slow motion. We watched as my friend drew his ball up and then back. And then we watched — stunned — as he released the ball… directly into his son’s shin. The movie reel went back into real time with the sound of the boy’s wail. I tried to assemble the pieces of what had just happened, but essentially it boiled down to one thing — at the last second — the kid moved.

“I didn’t think he was going to actually roll the ball,” I whispered in shock to my husband next to me.

“I thought he was going to bowl around him,” my husband said scanning the room for video cameras and a DCF swat team.

“I didn’t think he was going to move,” my friend sighed later that night over adult beverages. His shoulders and eyes were low in parental defeat. I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to point out the obvious — that his first mistake was to expect a four-year-old little boy to not move. So instead I offered up, “Yesterday, I punished my daughter because I thought she was whining — only to find out she was crying because she slammed her fingers in the car door. See? We all screw up.”

I watched him consider this, but then he just looked at me and said, “Um, yeah. I just rolled a bowling ball into my son’s shin.”

In the grown-up parenting lane, there are no bumpers. As parents, we just have to heave, push and lob ourselves down the lane and sometimes we clip a pin or two, but let’s face it; we spend a lot of time in the gutters. And to top it all off, our shoes usually look ridiculous.

If the authorities reviewed the video feed of “The Incident,” they would see how my friend immediately ran to his son and swept him up into his arms. They would watch as my friend pulled his child into him and how he held him and the pain inflicted — tightly. They would see the way he stroked his son’s head and spoke quietly into his ear. They wouldn’t be able to hear the words he spoke, but they would be able to see them — I’m so sorry… let’s get some ice on that… you can have lots and lots of candy. In less than two minutes, they would watch a four-year-old little boy smile, kiss his dad, and bound back to the arcade.

My friend is a good parent. Like all good parents he got caught up in the moment and made a bad judgment call. As good parents, we do drop balls… right into the gutters (and sometimes, we even bowl them into a shin). But a good parent is aware they spend time in the gutters, and rather than dismiss or make excuses, good parents get humble and teach from there. I believe the gutters are the very places where kids are shown how to own mistakes, apologize, and ask for forgiveness. Good parents know they need grace and teach their children how to show it — and, subsequently, receive it. Good parents know life is less about raising kids to bowl perfect games, and more about making sure they know how to handle the gutters they will inevitably find themselves in. A good parent will show their kid how to apply ice to wounds, and, if it helps, offer up candy to make amends. And on those days when we actually manage to clip a pin or two — good parents get together and celebrate.