Staying inside the zone

Let’s start by saying I’m not a big fan of basketball and don’t know much about it. I do, however, know the difference between man-to-man and zone defense. Man-to-man is more aggressive and lets the best defender guard the best offensive player, whereas in zone coverage, a player is assigned an area (zone) of the court to guard, and must guard any opponent in that zone. If you can’t play good man-to-man, you can’t play good zone.

More than once, I’ve heard this same analogy applied to parenting. Now, I’ve always been keen on the man-to-man, two-parent, two-child household. Seems obvious enough – two progeny eternally bonded by those “mom and dad really fucked us up” early years, and two parents to play man-to-man coverage, with the occasional “I’m going out, it’s all you” zone coverage option.

I've watched friends play zone with their 3 (or more) kids – it’s not pretty. It’s like trying to play ping-pong by yourself, and with 5 balls going at once. It might look impressive, but it’s ultimately exhausting and (honestly) seems a bit pointless. Nope, zone was not the life for me; I knew my strengths and I was sticking with man-to-man all the way. That decision may have made me a one-dimensional parent, and I never got bonus options on my contract renewal, but dammit I was playing top man-to-man coverage!
That is, until I wasn’t. Six months ago I was cut from team ‘married with children’ and drafted by the well-known powerhouse squad of ‘single moms.’ In that moment, my kids and I became a zone coverage household – all day, every day. My ‘team parenthood’ jersey, once part of a set, hangs alone on the bedpost, a scarlet letter “S” sewn onto the front and 1:2 emblazoned on the back (note: the ‘jersey modification’ iron-on decals are part of the new-team welcome package). In the beginning, I was not a team player. I wore the garments dutifully enough, badges of anger, recrimination, and regret, but I refused to play by the new rules. I got beat at the net every time by those I was meant to be guarding. I was their bitch, playing man-to-man in the zone, and they knew it.

Necessity may be the mother of invention - I on the other hand am the mother of destruction and chaos. Thus, I found it necessary to (grudgingly and defiantly) learn the ways of zone coverage – mostly through trial and error, and getting beat to the net over and again. Yet each day passes and, to my surprise, nothing’s been set ablaze, blown up, or broken, and the psychological damage appears to be reversible – well theirs is anyway. There have been tears (mostly mine) and shrieks of protest (mostly theirs), but we’ve survived the switch to zone coverage. Most days it is just survival – existence through minor skirmishes, major battles, cuts and bumps, baths, and bedtime stories. I resemble the spastic solo ping-pong player, knocking kids back from the edge, keeping the zone contained hundreds (thousands) of times a day.

Here’s the thing that no one tells you: even inside the paralyzing, petrifying, singularity of this zone defense, there’s time to laugh, to dream, to play, and finally to rest. Even in the zone, there’s time for one-on-one.