Triple The Dad

I hate the Olympics for all the reasons I stated here . I'm just not sure you can be a good person and root for such an awful occasion. Still, I find myself recording events, skipping past the awful commentary to get to the races, explaining to kids that they have  watch Michael Phelps because he is the greatest swimmer they will ever see, and rooting along with my kids for the "pretty girl" - gymnast Laurie Hernandez. Before you jump all over me, we don't emphasis looks. I'll mention that a particular act seems hard, or that the athlete must have practiced a lot and worked really hard to accomplish something. That is my parenting style: I compliment the work, effort and time it took to do something. I didn't come up with the nickname. We were watching gymnastics and one of the kids said "she is pretty." It was probably my daughter, because she is always noticing people's eyes and marking them as "pretty." And as kids will do, that ...

I hate the Olympics. I'm not sure exactly when it started. I remember loving them at one point. My parents absolutely adore them, so the love affair probably sprouted in my childhood. Back then the Berlin Wall stood tall and Soviet Russia was a very real threat. We were not long removed from school children hiding under desks to avoid nuclear holocaust. Rooting for the U.S. bordered on a moral duty. I can recall checking the morning's papers to see the medal count. But at some point it all became too much. Too much gross nationalism; too much overhyped hoopla; too much doping; too much controversy; too much rewarding hosting duties to cities clearly incapable of the job; too much displacing poor people so that relatively rich people can participate in a sport ; just too much. I see people on FB who post constantly about the plight of the poor in this country and who have been on humanitarian missions expressing glee and delight in the Olympics. I'm not sure you can be a...