Okay. I know this happened a month ago, so I’m a little behind on posting. But there is no expiration date on bad parenting OR on my ability to make snarky comments about it. So here goes.

Apparently a mom who was upset about her kid’s volleyball team losing, pulled a gun on the opposing players.

Yep. That’s right. Talk about a bad sport, huh? This is from kbtx.com:

SAN ANTONIO (AP) – Police say a woman believed to be a suburban San Antonio middle school parent pulled a gun on members of an opposing volleyball team after her school lost a match.

Judson school district spokesman James Keith said school police were reviewing videotape of the Thursday night incident to try to identify the woman. Keith says witnesses reported that she threatened to shoot several girls. He says several witnesses knew the woman.

 Keith tells the San Antonio Express-News that Metzger Middle School had just lost to visiting Kirby when the woman approached the Kirby players while they celebrated in a parking lot.

And there you have it. Bad mommy! Baaad!

Not since the Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom tale or whatever the hell that real-life story was that they made into some TV movie with Holly Hunter for which she won an Emmy (either for her convincing portrayal or her spot-on accent) has such an example of bad mommy behavior at a sporting event come up.  

I won’t start by pointing out that both incidents happened in Texas. Okay I just did. BUT that doesn’t mean people in Texas are more apt to pull guns. It just means that more people in Texas HAVE guns so they are more apt to PULL them when provoked.

Although I personally wouldn’t call getting a good old-fashioned ass whoopin’ on the volleyball court “provocation”.  That doesn’t mean that the courts in Texas wouldn’t consider it such. After all, the Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom who solicited someone to murder the mother of her daughter’s main competition for the cheerleading team so that her own daughter would have a better chance of getting on said team, got off with a 6 month jail stint and 1000 hours of community service.

Are you kidding me? There are people who have gotten stiffer sentences for throwing an empty Sprite can out their car window while driving on the highway!

Clearly the lawmakers in Texas take a different view of what is considered criminal than do I. But what do you expect from a place where shotgun racks are considered optional upgrades in new vehicles along with GPS, tinted windows and leather seats? (Okay. Maybe that’s an exaggeration. A joke even. But I feel I can make that joke having lived there for many years and having relatives who still live there.)

I do not know what is going on in these crazy mommies’ minds. But frankly,  I feel fortunate to live in an area where the biggest danger associated with childhood sporting events is the concern that a child might actually know his her or score and thus whether or not they won. See, where I live competition has gone the way of  TB. It has been all but eradicated from childhood. You know, for fear that some poor child might GASP! feel bad about losing! Because where I come from, all kids are supposed to feel good about themselves whether they have abilities or not.   

I’ll never forget the day when I was at a friend’s house and his wife got home with their 5 year-old son from soccer and I dared to ask the boy “Who won?”. Well, the daddy (my friend) quickly SHUSHED ME and explained that they “don’t keep score”. They play for strictly for fun, not to win.

Okaaaaaaay. Not the way things went down when I was a kid. You won. YIPPEE! You lost. BOO-HOO! Suck it up. Practice more. Try harder next time.  ‘Nuf said.

Naturally the danger of all this is that kids grow up with an over-inflated sense of their ablities or lack thereof. And also no sense of competition which, if you ask me, might cause some problems later in life when they have to COMPETE  for things like, I don’t know,  jobs! Or world power status!

But the important thing is that they don’t feel bad about losing and therefore about themselves. And if kids don’t feel bad about losing, then parents don’t feel bad about their kids losing. Then parents won’t feel the need to pull guns or hire hit men to take out their kid’s competition because their kids won’t have any!

So I guess the answer in Texas isn’t to have stiffer gun laws, but less competition! Because if everyone wins, nobody dies.

Gosh, I’m glad I cleared up.

Seriously, though. A little healthy competition never hurt anyone. But you know what does hurt? Guns. And stupid moms brandishing guns… they hurt the most of all. Because what are you teaching your kids? Or maybe these moms don’t care. Yeah. That’s probably it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Not everyone should be a parent. Sigh.