Sounds of Thunder: When Did Spending Quality Time with One’s Child Become Petty?

A few weeks ago my wife asked me if I remembered a funny event from my daughter’s life. It was something special and she wanted to relive the memory with me but I couldn’t. I wasn’t able to relive the event because I wasn’t there when it happened. I wasn’t there because I was probably 2,000 miles away, driving an over-the-road semi, desperately trying to save our home and feed our kids after AT&T laid me and 499 of my co-workers off so they could save some pennies in Mexico. It is little consolation knowing the move cost the mega-billion dollar corporation a truckload of cash when it became necessary to train that entire region of the country to do the job since jobs are shared among family members there like the evening meal because it cost me 3 years of watching my kids grow up. Three years of my children’s lives are empty holes in my memory, priceless time that no amount of wishing or money can bring back. EVER!!!

I missed it when it happened, and I missed it again when I had no way to recall the event when my wife brought it up. The kids are all grown and gone now, those memories are what I have and the gap in those memories burns in my guts in a way only those that have been forced from their kids can understand and there is no way to repair it. Turning back the clock is the only cure and that can never happen. There are no do-overs in this life.

This is why whenever I see a young father sharing a special moment with one of their kids I remind them to cherish this time and make it count; they will be grown and gone before you know it and that is why I saw red when I found a video calling Russell Westbrook’s choice to not watch Game 1 of the NBA an act of pettiness. Here is what Russell posted on snapchat Thursday night:

It was in response to crap like this:

And from Skip Clueless:

(I would truly love to hear Clueless’s thoughts on where that near triple-double may have been in games 5 of 6 of the 2016 WCF’s)

Sorry to disappoint you Skipper, but Russell Westbrook could care less about what your hero was doing in game 1. He had better things to do than wasting his time watching what was destined as a forgone conclusion, and unlike you, he was doing something productive. Something he will have little time to enjoy in just a few short months:

See the empty baby swing in the lower right corner of the video? Do you hear the silly little “BOO!!” sound Russell makes just before it ends? One of those outrageous noises adults make when they are trying to elicit a smile from the most important person in their world, their kid, did you hear it Skip? Did you hear it whoever posted that despicable video calling Westbrook petty for not watching a stupid basketball game? DID YOU???

Apparently not, just as you’ve never paid attention when Russ has said things like this:

That statement was made 14 months before the Golden State Wonderboy packed his toys for the easy road out west. Additionally, it was made when there was actually something on the line for Westbrook and the Thunder, a playoff berth. How many times does Russell Westbrook have say he doesn’t watch other teams play for that fact to sink in?

From Websters.com:

Petty -
adjective

1: having secondary rank or importance : minor, subordinate

2: having little or no importance or significance

3: marked by or reflective of narrow interests and sympathies : small-minded

When did a man’s child fall secondary to a basketball game? When did spending quality time with them become less important or significant than watching a blow-out on TV?

This world needs a wake up call and it needs it now because a man spending time with his new born son is not petty. But a man delighting in another’s possible suffering and tweeting that smug satisfaction to the world or wasting time with a malicious video belittling that precious time a man spends with his son is, by definition, the very essence of pettiness.

Kudos to a father that put his son first and shame on those too shallow to understand why.