TORONTO -- I have two sons. The first one, Charley, is 10 years old and a nerd. He loves books. The second one, Sam, is 8 years old and a jock. I don't think he can read.
Charley has autism. I'm not sure if all kids with autism are the same (probably not, because no two kids with autism are the same), but Charley doesn't understand sports. I mean, he understands that in soccer, for instance, the object of the game is to put the ball in the other team's net. But Charley doesn't understand why anyone would play sports, and he really doesn't understand why anybody would bother watching other people play them.
I'm always a little flummoxed when he asks me to explain it. There isn't much of an answer except: It's fun. "Sports are fun, Charley," I say, and he looks at me with pity and hands me another book to read him as though he has to show me what I've been missing.
Sam knows that Charley is a little different, but he thinks Charley has something called "optimism," and I've never had the heart to correct him. Sam doesn't just understand sports. Sam was born believing in sports the way Charley believes in books and everything in them. Charley believes in dragons and ghosts and fairies. Sam believes in keeping score.
The only toy I can remember him playing with, at least with any regularity, was a ball. I have pictures of us playing soccer together when he wasn't yet 2. (He sucked. I crushed him.) Golf entered the picture, then baseball, then hockey, then basketball. I'm pretty relieved that he doesn't seem to like football, but I expect that's just a matter of time. I caught him watching darts the other day.
He is a natural athlete, and when he isn't playing sports, he wants to watch them or talk about them or, worst comes to worst, think about them. He has an enormous head, both literally and egotistically, and I swear it's because there are so many sports and he can't stop thinking about them all and how great he is at whichever one he decides to play in that moment.
That has led to a different strain of parental flummoxing.
Because I love sports, too, and it's so easy to play catch with your kid or coach his soccer team or take him to the driving range and pretend you're the father of the year. Sports parenting is the cheapest kind of parenting, because it's not really parenting at all. It's like being a kid again and your best friend is this other kid who you love more than anything. It's perfection.
But there is so much more to life than sports. I know that. Charley knows that. The trouble is, those other things aren't dragons and ghosts and fairies. They are hard and complicated and sad and real. More and more the world seems like a place that isn't much fun anymore, and it's especially not much fun for grownups.
So here is what I've decided to do, as the flummoxed father of simple sons. I'm going to read books to Charley, as many as I can. And I'm going to watch sports with Sam, as many as I can.
On Saturday, we woke up and turned on the TV to watch Liverpool, Sam's team, dismantle Hull in the English Premier League. Then we drove into Toronto with some friends, and I took him to his first professional soccer game: Toronto FC against the Philadelphia Union.
It was, to be kind, some garbage football, but Sam was open-mouthed most of the time. He couldn't get over the thrill of the grass, or the view from our seats of the lake, or how far the goalies could kick the ball in real life. Toronto scored a nice goal semi-late to tie it, and Sam jumped up so high that he missed the ground on his way back down and fell into the seat in front of him.
Then, because this life is just the purest sort of blessing and still works out beautifully sometimes if we let it, we caught a train one minute after that game ended that took us back downtown, where Canada was playing Russia in the World Cup of Hockey at the Air Canada Centre. It was Sam's first hockey game, too.
We were in our seats seconds after the opening faceoff, and the first hockey goal Sam ever saw in the flesh was Sidney Crosby's steal and finish to give Canada the lead, 1-0. It happened less than 100 feet in front of his wide eyes, and his arms shot up as though he'd been electrocuted. Then we ate popcorn and watched Canada go on to win.
"This is the funnest day ever," Sam said toward the end of it, and it was everything I could do to keep my chest from caving in.
Now I'm sitting in the dark, listening to him snore in the hotel bed beside me. His head barely fits on the pillow. Charley is at home with his mother, dreaming under the pile of books that he uses as a blanket.
I used to think it was my job as a parent to show my boys the world, to introduce them to every last one of its wonders, to make the planet and its possibilities seem as big as possible. I've come to think it's up to them to find that out on their own. My job, when they find something they love, is to tell them that their love is wise and justified, and I love those things, too, and I'd love to do those things with them for as long as they will let me.
Not every day can be the funnest day ever. But today might still be pretty great, if we spend time with the people we love doing the things they love. And the more we love them, and the more they love those things, whatever they are, the better all of our chances will be.
