Before we moved we knew that our kids would be affected by moving to a new area, but we really weren’t expecting McKinley to be influenced by the locals here quite as quickly. I remember the day that McKinley came home from school outraged because she had to wear “Phillies” colors to school the next day for their class fieldtrip (so everyone would be in matching colors). She said that she told her teacher, “but I don’t like the Phillies. I like BYU!” So we explained to her that it would be okay and that the Phillies will never play against BYU, so you can actually like more than one team if you want (which was a much more complex issue than I thought it would be to explain to a 6 year old!) She was hesitant at first but she kind of went with the flow and has been wearing Phillies colors on game days for the last few weeks with the other kids at school. And every night before a game their teacher would have them write “Go Phillies” in their homework booklet, along with making Phillies banners in class. And she would excitedly tell me, “Mom! The Phillies won their baseball game yesterday!” In fact she got to wear a baseball cap to school one day, and when she wore her “Y” hat, a bunch of the kids thought it was a “Yankees” hat. When I asked her whether or not that was a good thing, she said, “No, WE don’t like the Yankees.”
So we thought she had been completely brainwashed and had totally conformed to being a Philly Fan. Until today. This morning I went into her room and told her that the Phillies had won the World Series and asked, “Aren’t you so excited?” She looked up and said, “Well Mom, I don’t REALLY like the Phillies, but when I’m at school, it’s just better if I say that I do.”
And in case anyone is wondering, it has been really really cool to live here for the World Series and to see how excited everyone has been about winning. It’s nice to see happy Philly Fans (because everyone knows that it’s not a pretty thing to see when they are NOT happy!)
Our little Philly Fan
(and yes, she totally made this face without any prompting from me whatsoever...I just wanted her to hold her banner for the picture!)
4 comments:
That is such a great story! I'm sure my kids would question if they were asked to root for another team besides the cougars as well. My husband is "teaching" them at a young age, as it sounds like you guys have done! Go cougars!
Smart girl! I see red, white, and blue all over but it's not with stripes and stars it's with squares and triangles or something. So pretending is ok with me too!
Go McKinley! How fun to be in the middle of all the action in your first year there!
Actually, we decided we were the good luck charm for Philadelphia. First they announce a temple, and then they win the world series! Maybe we should get a rebate on our property taxes or something as a thank you!
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