Posts Tagged ‘soccer world cup and kids’

by Kerry Haggard a working mom to the two most beautiful boys that ever there were. Until June 2010, she had never heard of the off-sides rule. Now she kind-of gets it. Follow her on Twitter at @KerryHaggard.

Our family has never been as sports-mad as my dad was when I was growing up. But my husband rekindled his interest in Premiership League soccer earlier this year, and Daniel, our older son, has been particularly keen too. Since the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named-for-fear-of-FIFA’s-ire started, it’s been interesting to see how his awareness has grown, and how things penetrate the consciousness of an impressionable young boy.

For example, he can pretty much sing, word for word, K’Naan’s Waving the Flag – as can many of his friends. There’s a version on YouTube that spools the flags of participating countries while the song is playing and me sitting reading the country names as they come up means that my son, age 5, can identify most of the flags on sight, on the clip and when we’re driving around. It was one of the five songs he chose for his birthday ring at school – Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika was another. He can sing the WHOLE of that too, by the way!

He can recognize various teams by their kit, and the two teams that he was ‘for’ were South Africa and Brazil. He also only talks about the FIFA World Cup – how’s that for successful branding?

Matthew, age 2, saw just a part of my official Bafana Bafana shirt, and shouted ‘soccer kit!” His favourite toy at the moment is a soccer ball, and blow me down if he doesn’t do a damn fine job of kicking it. He gets very excited when he sees a Zacumi, and recognizes the weird creature all over the place – from the Oriental Plaza to Montecasino. Matthew’s favourite World Cup song is Waka Waka, which we have to watch several times each morning. And yes, he sings along, kinda, and he even does the actions.

We have soccer games up and down the passage, and each boy represents a team – at their own suggestion. Let’s not go into the state of my passage now, though…

So what does this mean, this veritable display of indoctrination in my children? To me, it means that they’ve been caught up in the excitement around one of this country’s biggest achievements. The mood of elation and optimism has been infectious everywhere, right into nursery schools. The sense of pride in what we have achieved is surfacing in the places we’d least expect.

All that I wish now is that we all hold onto this spirit of pride, of optimism, of action, of determination, so that the exciting world that my boys are living in now, will be with us for generations to come.