GIVEN A CHOICE

Dear Spike:

Your Uncle Eric came up for a visit this weekend. We spent Thursday at the Jazz-Lakers game and Friday snowboarding at Brighton. The day was beautiful and the snow was amazing and we had a wonderful time.

I was amazed by many things on the mountain, but perhaps most striking was the number of kids up there.

And when I say "kids," I don't mean it in the same way that I have of referring to anyone who is more than a day younger than I am as "kids."

Oh no. I mean kids. Four. Five. Six years old. Kids.

These little rascals were tearing it up. Totally fearless. Doing things on a snowboard that I know I'll never, ever, ever be able to do — as though they were born with a board strapped to their feet.

And I suppose a lot of them nearly were.

Our little family is fortunate in a lot of ways, not the least of which is that we live less than a half-hour away from several world-class ski parks and "the greatest snow on earth." That being the case, I suppose, you may end up a lot like those kids I saw at Brighton. Indeed, I can almost picture you in a pair of baggy snowboarding pants and a bright snow jacket, turning tricks on the half-pipe, tearing it up.

Or not.

See, I'm tying to set some boundaries for my expectations.

A few things are non-negotiable: You will work hard in school. You will treat your peers, teachers, neighbors and elders with respect. You will eat well and exercise every day.

Then there are those things that you've got a choice in, things you mother and I hope that you will do but won't force you to do (not repeatedly, anyway.) I'd like you to try your hand at snowboarding. Your mother likes the idea of speed skating. We both want you to learn an instrument and a foreign language — preferably one that you actually might one day use (sorry, Esperanto teachers of the world.)

And then there is soccer. Your mother insists that, like any other recreational activity, you should be given a choice in whether you want to be fanatical about The Beautiful Game. I disagree. I believe it is possible to be forced to love something, and still end up truly loving that something (take siblings, for instance.)

I suppose I would still have to love you if you don't love soccer. But let's just keep that a hypothetical, OK? And if not, it would help matters if you were a totally rad snowboarder.

Love,
dad