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Tom Brady – Not on the Winning Team?
By iParenting Staff
Me: "I don't think so. The baby is home with his mom. That's not his mom."
Son No. 1 and Son No. 2 in unison: "Oooooh."
Of course, what ensues is a long lecture about how child-bearing and -rearing is a team effort, but I can't help but get the picture they are getting: Cool Brady, out with hot girlfriend, sitting courtside at "sick" sporting event, while the built-in babysitter is home taking care of the kid. Sweet! NOT!
I also care because I am a football fan. This year, Brady has connected with Randy Moss in more beautiful pass plays than I can count. For the sports fan, it is poetry in motion. On the field, Brady really is second to none. Every year, I silently cry when my fantasy team misses out on his expertise at quarterback. I enjoy football, and I enjoy watching Brady play football.
This is where my husband can't figure me out. He says that should be enough, that I should be able to watch Brady and think he's a great quarterback and then move on – block out any thoughts about the personal drama that swirls around him. But I can't, because (and that brings me to point No. 3)...
I am a woman, and as a woman, I want to see moms and children win. I wanted Brady to ride back on his white horse and rekindle his relationship with Moynahan, attend the birth of his son and sit for several photo ops as the First Family of the NFL. When that romantic notion didn't come to pass, I wished for Brady to walk away from a three-year relationship and mourn it for a period of time. I wished for him to make statements after the pregnancy was announced talking about how he loved Bridget, and while they could no longer share the same relationship that they once had (for whatever personal reasons they had for breaking up in the first place) he was committed to building a stable family for his unborn child. (Read: No girlfriend who has ever posed nude is in this fantasy of mine.) But I didn't get that, either. I got every woman's nightmare: a man she gave three years of her life to, no doubt trying to convince him that marriage was somewhere in their future, leaving for a supermodel 10 years younger than you are, while you sit at home, hiding the fact that you are pregnant, mourning the fact that you will have to do this on your own and without the family you have always dreamed of building. Melodramatic, maybe, but it's the sad truth.
