Chick’s personal life before he gets married
51 And when it came to me, the only thing I had to worship was baseball.
He was pitching to me before I could walk. He gave me a wooden bat before my mother let me use scissors. He said I could make the major leagues one
day if I had “a plan”, and if I “stuck to the plan”….
And so, from the time I was seven years old, I scanned the newspaper for the box scores of my future employers. I kept a glove at my father’s liquor
store in case he could steal a few minutes and throw me in the parking lot. I even wore cleats to Sunday mass sometimes, because we left for American
Legion games right after the final hymn Albom 31.
Chick always tries to give his best to his father, although his father often ignores him and his achievement. His father never shows any appreciation to Chick’s
achievement. He keeps on a planning higher target for Chick to achieve instead. However, Chick has another reason of why he should behave like a slave to his
father. Chick thinks that he never truly has his father’s love in his life. He finds it difficult to get his father’s love. Chick has his own theory about his father’s love.
You see, here’s my theory: Kids chase the love that eludes them, and for me, that was my father’s love. He kept it tucked away, like papers in a
briefcase. And I kept trying to get in there Albom 33.
For that reason, Chick is always willing to obey his father’s command since his father never shows him the love that he needs as a son.
Different from what his father has done to him, Chick’s mother always showers him with love. Chick also loves his mother very much and he never doubts
of his mother’s love to him. His mother has a very different perception of some things about life with his father, like kids, food, and religion Albom 30. It often
makes them argue in front of their children, but Chick always believes what his PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
52 mother says to him because he knows that his mother loves him and always wants
the best for him. It can be seen from the quotation below. Still, I can say I adored my mother, in the way that boys adore their
mothers while taking them for granted. She made that easy. For one thing, she was funny. She didn’t mind smearing ice cream on her face for a laugh.
She did odd vo ices, like Popeye the Sailor Man, or Louis Armstrong croaking, “If ya ain’t got it in ya, ya can’t blow it out.” She tickled me and
she let me tickle her back, squeezing her elbows in as she laughed. She tucked me in every night, rubbing my hair and saying, “Give your mother a
kiss.” She told me I was smart and that being smart was a privilege, and she insisted that I read one book every week, and she took me to the library to
make sure this happened. She dressed too flashy sometimes, and she sang along with our music, which bothered me. But there was never, not for a
moment, a question of trust between us.
If my mother said it, I believe it. She wasn’t easy on me, don’t get me wrong. She smacked me. She
scolded me. She punished me. But she loved me. She really did. She loved me falling off a swing set. She loved me stepping on her floors with muddy
shoes. She loved me though vomit and snot and bloody knees. She loved me coming and going, at my worst and at my best. She had a bottomless well of
love for me.
Her only flaw was that she didn’t make me work for it Albom 32- 33.
Chick’s mother always wants to improve Chick to be better. He wants Chick to be smart because she believes that being smart is a privilege. For her, college and books
can give Chick a brighter future than play baseball Albom 32. Chick never doubts of his mother, he always believes in what she says. Only, since Chick has chosen to
be a daddy’s boy, his priority in his life is his father. He concerns more to his father’s plans and commands to him than his mother’s. Chick puts his mother in the second
53 place in his life. His father’s action also makes Chick always think that his mother is
not part of “the plan” of his future. Sometimes I would peek at her from inside the dugout, and she’d be
looking off over the horizon. But when I came to bat, she clapped and yelled, “Yaaay, Charley” and I guess that’s all I cared about. My father, who
coached every team I played on up to the day he split, once caught me looking her way and hollered, “Eyes on the ball, Chick There’s nothing up
there that’s gonna help you”
Mom, I guess, wasn’t part of “the plan.” Albom 32
However, although Chick sometimes ignores his mother and pays more attention to his father, his mother’s love always stays the same. She loves Chick in
his best and worst time. She always has sincere love for her son, Chick. With that kind of situation in his family, as a kid, Chick always feels that he stays in between.
He often experiences dilemma of whom to follow. He always fulfills his father’s wishes but his father never shows him any affection. On the contrary, Chick often
ignores his mother because of his father but his mother always gives excessive love for him even without his request.
When Chick’s mother knows that his husband has another wife, they get quarreled and his father leaves the family. Chick only knows that his parents get
divorced but he never knows the reasons behind. Although Chick often finds them arguing about children or work but he never thought that they will get divorced
Albom 58. Like what stated in Communication in Family Relationship, Fitzpatrick and Noller mention that there are two kinds of conflicts in family Fitzpatrick and
Noller 102. They are content issues and relationship issues. In Chick’s parents’ case, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
54 the conflict belongs to relationship issues because the problem which leads to
conflict is about love. His father has another wife and it leads him into conflict with his wife. At last, to resolve the problem, Chick’s father decides to go because
Chick’s mother also wants him to go. Here, Chick’s parents apply solving to end the conflict.
Since the leaving of his father, there are only three of them as the family members and no more four. His family structure also changes into the divorced, a
custodial parent. Miller defines the divorced, custodial parent family as a type of family in which the divorced-parent has the main care of the children Miller 2.
Here, Chick and his sister stay with his mother. His mother tries hard to carry out the family tasks alone. She becomes a single fighter. She works hard to finance the
family life. She really wants to make Chick and his sister happy without letting them know what his father has done to the family. She tries to cover everything and
maintain the fa mily condition, so that Chick and his sister will not feel different. Though, being a divorcee who lives in a small town is not easy, people do not
know what has happened to the family but they judge those who are still around. Neighbors start to close the relationship because they think that Chick’s mother is a
threat for their family Albom 74. As a divorcee’s kid, Chick also feels the effect. At his age of eleven, he is the only man in the family and he feels obligated to guard
his mother from any men who have certain intention to his mother Albom 67. Chick never feels happy with the new condition in his family. Moreover, when his
55 mother gets fired from her job as a nurse and works in beauty parlor, Chick quarrels
with his mother. “You smoke You’re a hypocrite”
“Don’t use that word” “Why not, Mom? You always want me to use big words in a sentence.
There’s a sentence. You smoke. I can’t. My mother is a hypocrite” I am moving as I yell this, and the moving seems to give me strength,
confidence, as if she can’t hit me. This is after she has taken a job at the beauty parlor, and instead of her nursing whites, she wears fashionable
clothes to work – like the pedal pushers and turquoise blouse she is wearing now. These clothes show off her figure. I hate them.
“I am taking these away,” she yells, grabbing the cigarettes. “And you are not going out, mister
“I don’t care” I glare at her. “And why do you have to dress like that? You make me sick”
“I what?” Now she is on me, slapping my face. “I WHAT? I make you” – slap – “sick? I make” – slap – “you SICK?” – slap – “Is that what
you” – slap – “said?” – slap, slap – “Is it? Is that what you THINK OF ME?”
“No No” I yell. “Stop it” I cover my head and duck away. I run down the stairs and out the
garage. I stay away until well past dark. When I finally come home, her bedroom door is closed and I think I hear her crying. I go to my room. The
cigarettes are still there. I light one up and start crying myself Albom 85, 86.
Chick does not realize the great things that his mother has done for the family
after his father leaves them. Chick forgets about his mother’s sacrifice for the children. He still longs for his father. It damages him psychologically. As stated in
Hurlock’s Personality Development, father’s absence due to divorce or desertion creates embarrassment and it can psychologically damage the boys more than the
girls, because of the lack of a source of masculine identification for the boys PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
56 Hurlock 377. Chick really loses his father’s figure. After his father’s leaving, he is
often bothered with his own status of being the son of his mother or no longer being the son of the old ones Albom 67.
Thus, from that moment, Chick becomes a mama’s boy. He goes to college to obtain good education. He gets good grades which make his mother feel very proud
of him. However, deep inside his heart, Chick still misses his father. He keeps playing baseball in his college because when he plays baseball, he can picture his
father in his mind. Until one day, his father comes back into his life, Chick decides to leave the college to pursue his father’s love by playing baseball professionally in a
team. His decision hurts his mother very badly.