The world of youth sports provides an interesting glimpse into American mentality. If there was ever a place to witness the egomania that has become such a widely recognized characteristic of our nation, it is in the stands of a little league baseball game. I know. I've spent countless hours there.

My husband and I signed our son up for his first season of baseball when he was five years old. We thought it would be a great learning experience for him. We hoped he would begin to gain some fundamental sports skills, of course, but mostly we just wanted him to be part of a team and have some fun. Baseball is a game, after all. Turns out we were late in introducing team sports to our first born. At age five, he was already behind. I guess it's more acceptable for kids to begin team sports at age three in suburban Atlanta. You know, while they still trip over their own feet walking on flat, unobstructed surfaces and have attention spans lasting approximately two and a half minutes.

Admittedly, it's adorable to watch three-year-olds on a soccer field. Their shin guards are big enough to protect their thighs and they run in circles chasing one another while the ball rolls in the opposite direction. They're just as cute playing baseball. They dig in the dirt while playing center field and sit down on the bases to rest in the middle of an inning. Let's face it, toddlers doing anything in uniforms are cause for extreme amounts of sideline photography - I get the excitement in that.

I don't think we're doing our children a desservice by encouraging them to play sports at young ages. It's good for kids to try new things, work on their gross motor skills, improve their hand-eye coordination. Sports were a huge part of my life as I grew up and I believe they instilled in me all kinds of important values including confidence, patience, determination, and a positive attitude, just to name a few. I do, however, find it disturbing to see that youth sports no longer seem to be viewed as activities designed to promote physical activity and build values. Youth sports in America today are serious business.

Today, children in elementary school take costly private lessons in the sport of their choice. Today, it's not sufficient for a child to play in a youth league at their local park. Instead, they try out for travel teams and their parents drive them all over town to play in games that prove they are better than the kids playing at their local parks. Today, parents pull their kids out of school and travel across the country for higher levels of competition. Today, men coaching eight year olds get into yelling matches over a score. Today, it seems many parents aren't interested in encouraging their children to gain beneficial values through youth sports. They are more concerned with encouraging their children's success.

I like to tell people that our son Charlie is "dabbling" when they ask me what sport he likes best. He's taken tennis lessons. He hits golf balls on the range with his daddy. He went to soccer camp one summer, lacrosse and flag football camp the next. He plays baseball in the spring and basketball in the winter.

Sadly, it seems our "dabbling" approach is unacceptable to many parents. Some believe my child should already have picked his specific sport - you know, the one he's going to do for the rest of his life and turn into a highly lucrative career that will allow my husband and me to retire early to an oasis on the beach somewhere.

Charlie started to do some pitching last fall. It was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of his life. No . . . not for him. For his parents. While our son was on the mound enjoying the opportunity to be involved in every play of an inning, Adam and I were on the bleachers pulling our hair out with anxiety.

Obviously, we wanted our son to be successful. We wanted him to perform well and contribute to his team. We were also slightly fearful. What if someone hits a line drive right back to Charlie's face? I witnessed that during a softball game in my own days of youth sports and I assure you it wasn't pretty. Yet, as my husband and I watched our child pitch, our overwhelming emotion wasn't fear or a desire for Charlie to pitch so well his team emerged victorious. Our concern centered on our child's overall well-being. The outcome of the game didn't matter. It never will. It's a game. The future didn't matter either. We have no aspirations for Charlie's future in sports. At eight years of age, our son is barely four feet tall and weighs only fifty pounds. We understand how difficult it is to become a world class athlete, especially with stats like those. Still, I will never forget the magnitude of emotions that shook my soul the first time I sat in the stands and watched my son go to work on a little league pitcher's mound. My need for him to do his best, not THE best but HIS best, was a desperate one. I longed for him to feel good about his effort and ability in a way I find difficult to explain.

Charlie was a fine little pitcher during the fall baseball season. He was even better in the spring. In fact, he was so much better that he was asked to try out for a summer all-star team. I was against it on account of the daily practices, the faraway tournaments, and the Atlanta humidity. My husband felt we had to give Charlie the choice. I relented, Charlie tried out, made the team, and our foray into the seriousness of youth sports in America officially began.

I could tell you about the undeniable increase in intensity I felt around me during my son's all-star games. I could tell you about the parents who cheered blatantly against opposing teams instead of simply cheering for their own teams. I could even tell you about the fist fight between fathers that likely would have occured had not a large umpire stepped in to stop it. I think the most important thing I can tell you, however, is that after a month of all-star baseball, I saw a shift in Charlie's mindset. When the spring season ended, our son had only positive feelings about baseball. He loved the game and believed he was good at it. After his all-star team lost EVERY game they played, Charlie no longer had such confidence in his baseball abilities. That's a true shame.

People offered all kinds of reasons for the winless record of Charlie's all-star team - reasons that involved parents lying about birth dates and ignoring rules about practice limits. Some of the kids on the other teams were twice the size of Charlie and one looked like he might have driven himself to the game, so hey, who knows . . . maybe there are parents out there who place such significance on little league baseball that they would rather win than demonstrate basic human decency. Honestly, I just think there are plenty of kids in the metro Atlanta area who have more athletic talent than my kid. And that's okay.

Charlie wanted to play baseball again this fall, so I suppose the all-star season didn't damage his attitude about youth sports in a permanent way. For me, the worst part of the experience wasn't that it opened my eyes to the importance many well-meaning parents have placed on youth sports today. The worst part was that it allowed the American mentality residing within me to rear its ugly head in recognizable fashion. It showed me that no matter how much emphasis I place on my child having fun and being a good teammate and demonstrating sportsmanship and doing his best, I can't help but want his best . . . to be good enough. How else do you explain the fact that while my child was on the pitcher's mound, I was silently praying for him to strike out the kid at the batter's box, even when, deep down, I knew the batter's mother was likely on the other side of the bleachers praying for her child to hit the ball out of the park. Clearly, the other mom must have been praying a whole lot louder.

Or maybe her son takes private hitting lessons three times a week.