Anna KimballRemember when you were little, and you played games for just fun? A 7-year-old girl kicked off her baseball team because competitive leagues don't allow girls has me longing for those halcyon days.

Anna Kimball's mom says she was told she couldn't play anymore because she's a girl, and as the team becomes "more competitive," they plan to move into a league that doesn't accept female players. But get this! Tami Kimball was also told her son Carson is nowhere as competitive a player as his sister. But because he's a boy, 6-year-old Carson is welcome to keep playing on the team:

I can't decide if I'm more outraged because I'm the mother of a girl or because I'm a mother, period. The case is complicated by sexism, sure. A league that tells girls they can't play because it's "too competitive" isn't even attempting to hide their misogyny.

But eventually, it happens. Because our bodies are different -- genetically -- separating genders into different teams happens in the high school years.

I'm afraid I'm still stuck on the word "competitive."

So let's back up here and bring this down to bare bones. There's a team consisting of 6- and 7-year-olds, and the coach is picking off players (Anna isn't the only one who has gotten the boot, boys were kicked out too) because they're not "good enough" to play or won't fit in the new league. Let me repeat this: they are SIX AND SEVEN! We aren't talking future major leaguers here, at least not yet. We're talking little squirts who are still mastering the task of tying one's own shoes and eating an ice cream cone without covering their shirt in chocolate and vanilla swirl.

Keep your shirts on sports fans, I know that kids this age can develop their skills. My husband coaches our daughter's soccer team, and he had 6- and 7-year-olds passing and shooting last fall like "real" soccer players. But as much as he enjoyed teaching the kids how to play, the real reason he was out there with his boots on was to teach them why to play.

He loves soccer. He has fun with soccer. He isn't a professional. He doesn't have to have top notch skills. He just has to have fun out there. And as a grown man in his 30s, he represents the typical future these kids will have in sports.

We don't need kids to be focused on competition at 6 and 7. We need them to learn to love to play ... and just be kids, regardless of their gender.

Have your kids been kicked off of a team because they weren't "good enough" to play?

 

Image via FoxSports/YouTube