My Attempt to Gain My Parents' Attention

It wasn't that my parents ignored me. They were simply on autopilot a lot of the time and just did what was easy. And as my brother was a boy and good at sports, it was easy for our lives to revolve around first his Little League baseball practices and games and then his Pop Warner football practices and games. Both came with lots of other people who socialized (especially the football people — they loved to party). So when I realized that most of the family attention and time was going toward my little brother (Including mine — I was in charge of walking him to and from his practices and being at games even if my parents had to be late), I decided to go out for a sport too. Obviously it was the sports that made the family sit up and pay attention.

At the time I was singing in Honor Choir. I should have stayed. Sure, no one came to watch my rehearsals, but they would have come to the performance and stayed.

Instead, I quit the choir. My choir director was upset. My parents were upset and called me a quitter. (jeez, I was in 5th or 6th grade — most kids try things and quit them. It's kind of a childhood requirement.) I and my best girlfriend, also not an athlete, joined our school girls' softball team. Now here's the part I never understood. My girlfriend was at least as bad an athlete as me ... she didn't even have boys and brothers to play baseball or learn to throw a perfect spiral with a football with. But the team, made up mostly of good to excellent athletes, decided to hate me because I was so bad at softball. And they were very vocal about it. By that time, I'd become accustomed (although not immune) to verbal abuse from my peers as they were approaching (and achieving) puberty with grace and I was turning into a complete nerd. I didn't even question why our coach allowed the abuse. I just went to practice and endured.

I was kind of the worst nightmare of a teammate of the competitive athlete. I wore thick glasses, so I misjudged where everything was. I had begun a huge growth spurt (which started me wearing my glasses) when I was in the end of third grade and my arms and legs weren't where I expected them to be. As I'd been hit in the head by every playground ball that exists, I tended to jump or shy away from balls coming anywhere near my head. And as my distance perceptions were way off, I jumped and shied away at most balls. But I tried my ass off.

Then came our first game. My parents and little brother were coming to the game! I'd done it, I'd achieved equality with my little brother in parental/family attention.

And for reasons unknown to me, they never came to another game. Obviously I was an enormous disappointment to the family of athletics-watchers and participants (my dad was my brother's coach). They never even talked to me about my games or my team or anything. Except my brother, who spent time with me, practicing throwing and catching and pitching.

I didn't go out for either sports or choir the next year. I figured the girls who played on the team already hated me; no use making it worse, and I really hadn't enjoyed the experience. And I figured the choir teacher wouldn't welcome me back after my quitting the previous year (my parents making sure I knew that quitting was one of the Deadly Sins — we didn't do church so I didn't know any better). I was much better at walking my brother to and from his practices, watching him play his games, and playing catch with him sometimes in the afternoon, unless Dad was, then they didn't need me.

I asked my mom about this several years ago, because I was trying to achieve some closure on the childhood traumas and mysteries that still bugged me.

Turned out it was quite simple and completely in character for my parents. 

"We hated how the other girls were so mean to you. We just couldn't stand to see another game."

They didn't think to talk to the coach about why he allowed the abuse. Dad didn't try and help me get better the way he did with my brother. They just quit coming and quietly ignored what was occurring to their eldest child in her attempt to play sports and gain family appreciation and attention. They quit, but I didn't. I went through the whole season and even got somewhat better, my teammates' comments notwithstanding.

Instead, I went back to what I was good at: getting good grades. Unfortunately for me, the introduction of higher math in 7th grade was just the beginning of my inability to get straight A's any longer and my struggles with math and my fights with my parents who felt that if you tried hard enough, you could get perfect A's in everything. This from parents who had hated school and who gave up trying to help me with my math homework when I was in 5th grade because we'd gone completely beyond their comprehension. It was easy to get their attention over grades, good or bad. And they didn't even have to participate or buy bad hot dogs at a snack bar, either!