Can't Buy Me Love
(Lennon-McCartney) Performed by The Beatles
Can't buy me love, love
Can't buy me love
I'll buy you a diamond ring my friend
If it makes you feel all right
I'll get you anything my friend
If it makes you feel all right
'Cause I don't care too much for money
For money can't buy me love
I'll give you all I've got to give
If you say you love me too
I may not have a lot to give
But what I've got I'll give to you
I don't care too much for money
For money can't buy me love
Can't buy me love
Everybody tells me so
Can't buy me love
No no no, no
Say you don't need no diamond rings
And I'll be satisfied
Tell me that you want the kind of things
That money just can't buy
I don't care too much for money
Money can't buy me love
Can't buy me love
Everybody tells me so
Can't buy me love
No no no, no
Say you don't need no diamond rings
And I'll be satisfied
Tell me that you want the kind of things
That money just can't buy
I don't care too much for money
Money can't buy me love
Can't buy me love, love
Can't buy me love, oh
As these Tunesdays approach my teenage years, I realise that my childhood relationship with sport has never naturally come up, so I'm inserting it here in a one-shot bitchfest. This might be a strange song to choose as an accompaniment, but money determined everything that happened for me as a kid, and besides, I couldn't think of a better song to use. Let's Get Physical? It's the right timeframe, and although the girls and I had a good laugh over the way that song was used in Glee, I hated it when it played on the radio. Centerfield? Hated it. Paradise by the Dashboard Light? Hated it. So, while Can't Buy Me Love wouldn't be my favourite Beatles song, it's loosely thematically related, and besides, the video has them adorably running around on a sporting field (is that a cricket pitch?).
As the only girl in my family, I was pretty much a tomboy: both because I had only my brothers to play with growing up and because I could feel that being a girl wasn't highly valued by either of my parents. And I loved sports. When we lived in St. John, Kyler and I were put into figure skating together while Ken was in a pre-hockey skills program, and although I always cursed the fact that I wasn't allowed to play ice hockey, I was absurdly proud of the skills badges I was collecting. I believe I skated for two years before we moved to Ontario and then I was put into figure skating one more time. Every year after that, my brothers would both be signed up for hockey -- and have their bagsful of equipment begrudgingly bought for them -- but I was never registered for figure skating again; and while I never knew why that was, I did know that when something cost money, you never asked for what you wanted and could only be thankful for whatever you got. A couple of years later I do remember my mother asking me if I'd like to try gymnastics, and while I had no burning interest, I was never one to examine a gift horse. The problem with gymnastics, however, was that I was 11 or so by now and that was considered too late for development -- me and some other clutzes would spend the hour playing on the trampoline or walking a tapeline on the floor while the younger, more elastic, girls were being taught how to tumble. So I wouldn't have been interested in doing gymnastics again, and since my mother could also see what was what, she never offered again.
Related, but not sporty, is the fact that I was in Brownies for about a month: I was signed up when we lived in St. John and I went to a few meetings, but when we moved to Ontario, no one ever mentioned finding me a new troop. I have no idea why I was signed up right before we moved, and that is the biggest mystery in this scenario; perhaps it was free trial?
So, three years of figure skating and one of gymnastics is the sum total of my winter sports background. As for summer sports, I loved softball. We played it at school most lunch hours, we played it at the local park with neighbourhood kids, and I had a crazy time with organised ball. When I was 10, my mother signed me up for softball and I was good and I had a lot of fun. The next summer, she didn't get to the registration date in time and the only option was, apparently, to put me on an all-star team with girls who were older. It was pretty cool that we had full uniforms and travelled to lots of nearby towns to play. It was definitely uncool that I just wasn't good enough for this team: I was scared of the way opposing pitchers would windmill the ball at me when I was batting (I don't remember if I ever got a hit; do remember praying for walks) and I was not as big or as fast or as strong as the other girls in the field (and I was definitely intimidated after one of my teammates took a ball in the eye and had a blood-red eyeball for the rest of the season). I was that kid on the team that the others knew were bringing them down and that broke my heart: I wasn't a terrible player per se but I was literally out of my league. The next year, my mother registered me in time, and although I was back in the regular league, I was on a team with younger girls and I was a home-running, fielding queen. I didn't question that -- because I was used to nothing in my life looking normal -- but when my same all-star coaches from the year before came to a game on a scouting trip, they said, "We didn't realise you were this young, no wonder you had trouble on last year's team. We'd like to put you on an all-star team with your peers, what year were you born again?" When I told them, they put it together that I was a year older than the girls I was playing with, I was not picked up for their all-star team, I was kicked off the team I was on, and as it was "too late to register" once again, I was done ball for that summer and forever; I was never signed up for ball again, and again, I knew not to ask why, even as both my brothers continued to be registered for ball, always at the right level, every summer. I told you this would be a bitchfest.
So, organised sports were hit and miss for me. At school, there were intramural sports offered most lunch hours, and as the teachers knew that I was keen, I was often appointed as a captain who got to choose teams for softball or floor hockey or touch football. I signed up for everything sport-related, so although I needed to be at school most lunchtimes, my mother had a rule that the three of us were obligated to come home for lunch every day. I'd run home, eat my third of a can of Chef Boyardee, baked beans, or fruit cocktail (always everything with bread and butter to fill us up), and then run back to school in the time it took for the other kids to down their PB&Js. Totally worth it for me. I have also mentioned before that there were some teachers who would stay after school to play floor hockey with anyone who wanted to stay and I loved that; played as often as it was offered. These same teachers also rented the local arena and played ice hockey with any kids who could show up at 6 in the morning, and after begging my father to let me join my big brother in this, I only went once, wearing my little brother's equipment. Turns out that old figure skating lessons + floor hockey knowhow =/= the ability to play ice hockey and I was terrible, stumbling around on hockey skates for the first time (I had no idea how much my figure skating picks had stabilised me) and being terrible was so little fun for me that I never tried again.
There were other sports-related opportunities at school, and always, lack of money shut me out. When I was in grade 5, I made the cheerleading squad. We were provided with t-shirts and pompoms but were expected to get our own black skorts. I was given a pair to bring home to show my mother and she looked at me like I was speaking Chinese when I explained that she was expected to either buy me a skort or use the one I was holding as a pattern to make one for me. As I had no answer for, "And just who will be providing this black material I'm supposed to use to make the uniform that should be provided for you?", I returned the skort to the cheerleading coach and quietly left the squad. In grade 6, I joined the cross-country club, and right before the first meet, we were asked to bring a doctor's note to ensure our fitness. My mother took me to the doctor, who looked me over briefly before writing up the note, and then he informed her that there was a fee for this note, and as we Canadians are not used to being billed for doctors' services, she kind of lost her mind. I felt incredibly guilty for this, had a lousy time at the meet, and quietly quit the cross-country club. In grade 7, I made the intercollegiate volleyball team (the first opportunity we had for any intercollegiate team; I certainly intended to try out for every sport that came up), and when I stepped onto the court at our first game, the referee stopped the play and called my coach over -- my shoes were apparently too dirty and ratty to wear on their court and I had to borrow another girl's shoes every time I rotated in. That was humiliating, I knew I couldn't ask my parents for new shoes, and I quietly quit the volleyball team and had by then learned my lesson: there are always hidden costs in sports, so I was done.
What makes me the most frustrated is how my mother loves to tease about how unsporty and uncoordinated I was as a kid -- especially as compared to her own apparent mastery of high school basketball -- and I have no idea where she gets this from; I didn't quit sports because I wasn't any good, I couldn't afford to play. And, by the by, I'm only blaming my mother for failing to register me for anything because my father had zero interest in us as kids -- he would have never registered us, he never even came to any of our games -- but even when I was a kid I realised that my mother was never given enough money to give us the things we wanted; a can of cheap food split three ways was the best she could give us for lunch.
So, yes, money can't buy me love, but as Mallory quotes Chris Janson as singing:
I
know everybody says money can't buy happiness
But
it could buy me a boat
It
could buy me a truck to pull it
Which is to say: when I had kids myself, the sky was the limit with activities; anything they wanted to try, they got, even if the money was tight. Which led to one of those crazy calendars that "helicopter parents" are ridiculed for burdening their kids with, but I swear, it was what they wanted. Swimming lessons every Saturday morning at the Y for over 10 years (not least of all because I wish I knew how to swim better and everyone I knew as a kid was driven into town to take lessons at the pool I could have walked to); judo for both of them, twice a week; dance lessons (not least of all because Ken and I were taken to one tap dancing lesson as kids -- because our mother tapped for years and years -- but when Ken didn't like it, we were both yanked out), for both of them for probably 10 years; figure skating for Kennedy (who hated it and begged me not to make her go back, which also made Mallory fear lessons, even though she liked skating with me and her friend Sarah at the Friday loonie lunch skate for their two years of kindergarten); t-ball for both of them (yet they were both too scared to even try coach pitch softball when they aged out of t-ball); singing lessons one year; countless acting experiences; whatever; whenever. I was so proud when Kennedy randomly decided to try out for wrestling in grade 11 and amazed when she went to Provincials (and terrified when another girl bruised Kennedy's ribheads with a dirty move). Mallory recently tried out for her grade 12 tennis team and went to a tournament. All of this costs money, and even if neither of the girls wanted to pursue athletics too seriously, they always knew that they could rely on our support.
Yes, money doesn't buy happiness -- can't buy me love for sure -- but a lack of money can sure buy a whole bunch of unhappiness for a kid.
