The first rule of fight club is supposed to be that nobody talks about fight club. Johnny broke that rule as soon as he came home from school.

“Dad, I have to go over to the park after I finish my homework. I’ve got a fight.”

“A what?”

“A fight. You know, a fist fight. One of the other sixth graders challenged me to a fight.”

“For what reason?” I asked.

“One of his buddies was saying he was such a weakling that he couldn’t even beat me up,” Johnny explained. (Johnny is the smallest kid in his class.) “So, he came up and challenged me to a fight.”

“And you said yes?”

“I had to, Dad,” he said. “If I didn’t do it, I’d be called a wuss for the rest of my life.”

Ah, the age-old testosterone-fueled dilemma. Choice #1: Get pounded by a kid a foot taller than you for no reason at all. Choice #2: Avoid the needless physical pounding, and instead get pounded emotionally by the entire school. There really isn’t a choice #3–A totally unfair situation that made me want to go pound this kid myself.

I must admit, I never figured a way out of this dilemma when I was Johnny’s age, and in the thirty five years that have passed since then, the wisdom required to come up with a solution had still eluded me.

I went through all the various scenarios as Johnny finished his homework. If I called the boy’s mom and dad (who by the way, are perfectly reasonable people–his dad is a cop), Johnny would have been mocked by the kids at school for needing his dad to rescue him. If I let him go, he would have been pounded for no reason at all (although I suspected that Johnny would be a much tougher fight than this kid realized.) And if I convinced him not to go, he would have been subjected to totally unfair taunting and abuse, and that couldn’t happen either. I had no idea what to do.

Johnny finished his homework and put on his coat. “Gotta go, Dad.”

“At least let me drive you over there,” I said. “I promise I won’t let anyone see me.”

Johnny agreed.

I had decided that there was no way I was going to let this fight take place. I just didn’t have a clue how I was going to accomplish that without destroying Johnny’s reputation.

When we drove by the park, we saw the crowd forming. A dozen or so 6th grade spectators were there, hoping to see a “real” fight. There were only two kids missing in the crowd; Johnny, and the kid that challenged Johnny to the fight.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“I can’t believe it,” Johnny said. “He didn’t show up.”

Johnny was so happy he could barely contain himself. He knew he was going to get credit for fighting without actually having to fight. I brought up a point that he hadn’t considered.

“You know these guys are going to keep putting pressure on this kid until he actually does show up, don’t you?” I pointed out. “The only reason he challenged you in the first place was because he was taunted into it. Do you think there will be less taunting now that he didn’t show up?”

“Oh no,” he said.

So, Johnny thought about it, and came up with a pretty good solution, and he handled it completely by himself. He let everyone know that even though he had shown up for the fight, he had no intention of actually fighting the kid, so it didn’t even matter that the other kid didn’t show up. Here were his three reasons, which I watched him count off on his fingers from afar.

#1: I’m not willing to get suspended or expelled.
#2: I’m not willing to get put in jail.
#3: I’m never going to fight anyone for no reason at all. That’s just stupid.

To my shock and surprise, the other kids considered that to be a totally reasonable response. He had gained their respect for having the courage to show up and say that–especially knowing that the other kid hadn’t shown up at all. The next day at school, the no-show kid even thanked Johnny. He was being razzed a bit for not showing up, but because Johnny made it clear there would never be a fight, the pressure was off.

I don’t know if that solution will work for anyone else confronted with a similar age-old testosterone-fueled dilemma, but I’m mighty proud of Johnny for making it work for him.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 10:38 am and is filed under parent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.