Baby Crawling Competition

I listen to the podcast, Sklarbro Country, fairly regularly. The podcast is done by two twin brothers, Jason & Randy Sklar. They combine sports, comedy, and some pop culture thoughts (all interests of theirs) in an incredible way. Podcasts really are interesting. Pretty much anyone can do one. And those that are done well, like Sklarbro Country, are really popular and, from all accounts, seem to be pretty profitable, with lots of commerical $ pumping in.

I listened to one of the Sklarbro Country episodes during a drive this morning. One of their bits is to take news stories, particularly sports-related ones, and comment on them. Generally, these are pretty outlandish stories, ones that make your mouth fall wide open.

That was certainly the case today, when they discussed a baby crawling competition. I forget where it happened; but they came across a yearly competition in which parents enter their babies to see who can crawl ten feet the quickest. The Sklars were right on target when they noted that this is over the top. Not only are parents pushing their kids with sports competitions at incredibly young ages . . . they're now doing it before their children can even walk.

There's nothing wrong with competition. There's nothing wrong with sporting events. There is something wrong with over-the-top parents who try to live out their sporting fantasies through their children. And there is plenty wrong with entering babies in crawling competitions.

To me, this all comes down to balance. We cannot let ourselves get carried away with things like being eaten up with competition, with pushing others/children too much to do things, etc. We need balance in our lives . . . especially in a culture that calls for us to live on extremes, on other sides.