Families, Positions, and What It Takes to Play Ball
Why change is an opportunity to get more flexible.
My daughter played in her first softball game yesterday. Rather than walking a pack of five year olds through complicated rules, their coaches threw them in and let them play. Predictably, some of them ran to the wrong base or chased butterflies in the outfield. But it was fascinating to watch how quickly they picked it up, falling into the rhythms of the game.
Like the rest of us, they were built to cooperate. Add some group cheers, high fives, and new uniforms, and you’ve got more than enough oxytocin to get them working as a unit.
Watching kids navigate the game, and each other, made me think about how no one teaches you to be in a family. We’re thrown in, and somehow we find our spot in the mix. That position might look like running the show, pleasing others, or keeping a comfortable distance. We’re quite brilliant at organizing ourselves to manage tension or navigate challenges.
Our comfortable positions are both a feature and a bug. Someone can be very cozy at first base, but not know what to do with themselves in the outfield. Working on one’s own versatility in the relationship system, the ease with which we can move into different ways of relating, is a gift to oneself and the family. In baseball, the people who can play multiple positions are called utility players.
If our families and organizations never changed, then we could probably get away with staying at first base. But our systems are in almost constant transition. New siblings are born, people die, kids go to college. People get married, divorced, or very sick. A leader leaves and a new one is chosen. The anxiety goes up and down. What a difference it makes when someone is curious in these times. When someone is less likely to blame, or diagnose, or try to teach everyone else how to be.
Change is an opportunity to get more flexible. To learn to move around the field, depending on the needs of the system and one’s own beliefs and interests.
Getting more flexible could look like:
Taking directions if you’re most comfortable being a leader.
Helping out with an aging parent when your sibling usually steps in.
Learning a skill your spouse usually handles.
Moving towards people you tend to avoid.
Listening when you’re quick to finish people’s sentences.
Speaking up when others are more than happy to talk for you.
Working with a group when you love to fly solo.
Generating internal motivation when you love praise.
Connecting with people who think about challenges in a different way.
Talking with someone rather than asking another to deliver your message.
Managing your distress while your child learns to navigate a challenge.
Learning to operate with more versatility requires a lot of practice, a lot of person-to-person contact. It also can generate a good deal of anxiety, because others may want you to stay at first base. In these moments, your only job is simply to keep playing ball. And possibly have some fun while you’re doing it.
It’s been helpful for me to think about the people in my life who are utility players. They seem comfortable stepping up as leaders but are also curious about the thinking and strengths of others. They are capable of helping, but they also can just be interested and along for the ride.
I’d like to live that way, mirroring the spirit and versatility of these girls playing softball. Little kids seem to accept that a good deal of chaos, hilarity, and missteps are to be expected in life. As adults, it’s easy to forget what we miss when we stay comfortable in our positions, the places we settle in our families and other groups.
What would it look like for you to move around the field a little, in your family or another system? How much contact would it take for you to get the hang of it?
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Great piece. As an aside, my personal motto is "It always comes back to baseball." Among other things, this means I notice almost every streaming story will, sooner or later. reference baseball as some kind of touchstone. A historical referent to the kind of integrity and teamwork dreaming we all do...even baseball as a conduit for social progress (think Jackie Robinson) (and of late our first female mlb coaches)... as you have so beautifully detailed here... chasing butterflies and expansive capacities indeed...wonderfully imagined in your writing!
I was just reading a fun essay at https://dynomight.substack.com/p/things "Things that Don't Work": #12 on the list of things that don't work, was explaining the rules of a new game before starting to play. The best thing to do (for all ages) is to just jump in, and learn the game as you play.