I don't see the analogy. I can help my kids to improve their grades by a firm and/or loving hand. I actually can have a positive impact even if I am angry. I can't accomplish **** only by yelling. I don't boo or yell at actors or musicians or pilots either. They know when they **** up. Yelling or booing only helps me, not them, and it mostly helps to maike me look like a jerk.
Anyway, boo on. I'm just explaining why I think it's stupid and why I don't do it.
This has actually turned into an interesting discussion.
In the case of my kids, I take a firm hand, but, like you, even when I'm angry, I don't do the equivalent of "booing" at them. I might raise my voice to get their attention, but I do so in a positive way. Otherwise, I'm not going to accomplish much and I become a stereotype of all the things I swore I would never be as a Dad.
There's a difference, though, between the levers I can push to deal with my kids, with whom I have frequent daily interactions, and the ways in which I can communicate to a team or performer in a stadium or arena when I have paid good money to attend an event and may also have invested a lot of time in order to be in attendance.
"Booing" is as good a way as any of expressing how one feels if things aren't going according to expectations. It is more economical a form of communication than, in yesterday's case, standing there shouting something like "Damn it, Brady and the rest of the Offense, please don't tell us you're going to serve up a repeat of the Ravens and Seahawks games by squandering a double digit lead and not being able to get a couple of first downs with five or fewer minutes remaining in the contest." Such a diatribe would make one hoarse and, as brilliantly phrased as it may be, would not likely be heard or understood in a clear fashion by the intended recipients.
So booing is a "shorthand" way of communicating emotions to that effect. (Let me be clear that I would NOT have booed yesterday since I don't think we're at that point, but I can understand the frustration of those in attendance as I recall that I did throw the Sunday Paper across my Living Room at the time.)
As a Philadelphia native, who grew up with abysmal
Philllies and
Eagles teams over the years, I must confess that I have indeed "booed" at sporting events, but I have never booed a live performer, though I have joined in some robust "hissing" at times. :singing:
