Basketball and Beans

Kids and sports dreams. In the U.S. they want to play for Major League Baseball or NBA teams. In Canada they want to be part of the National Hockey League (NHL). In countries colonized by the British, they want to play cricket or soccer.

There are many stories about parents supporting them, but we haven’t heard about how they teach them about basketball and beans. Parents who think ahead placed laundry baskets in their rooms, took them shopping for detergent and showed them how to use the washer and dryer at home or coin laundry.

We say parents who think ahead because they know the rough road. Kids grow up and leave home, especially if they are determined to be professional athletes. There is nobody to pick up after them while they pursue their dreams.

The connection between basketball and beans is about learning how to cook. Put an egg inside some water, boil it, cool it, peel, slice and drop it on chopped tomatoes. Eat. This might be an outlandish example because everybody over 16 can boil an egg. I think.

Basketball and beans means parents teach kids about choices, when they have only $10. Do they buy a hot dog and soda or a small packet of pasta, they will boil in salted water?

That leaves some money for onions, a can of tomato paste and baked beans, which they cook in margarine. Unlike the soda can they threw out, they’ll use the pasta, onions and paste for another meal.

Basketball and beans means when kids live alone, they will wrap chicken pieces or meat in foil, push them in the oven and press the ON button. They’ll break some lettuce, chop cucumbers and tomatoes for a salad.

It means kids will not remain in toxic relationships because ‘she cooks for me.’

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.