Walking through a big-box sporting goods store one day last week, I suddenly felt a stab of nostalgia.
There, hanging on a display rack, were high-end youth baseball bats. One model, I discovered, had a price tag of $399.
Three hundred and ninety-nine dollars!
I'm sure the glossy-red bat has all the latest bat technology and might even add a little pop to a 10-year-old's swing. But it also occurred to me that the bat could lead to stress for both the player and the parent.
First, there is the stress of the purchase. A worker making $20 an hour would have to work 20 hours — or two and a half workdays — just to pay for the bat. (Longer, if you count sales tax and federal taxes withheld from the worker's paycheck.) Never mind that the Little Leaguer will outgrow the bat in a year or two.
On top of that, there is the stress placed on the player to provide a return on the investment — for example, hitting more doubles and home runs. What a $399 bat is actually worth in improved batting average over a $100 bat is probably negligible, which reduces the bat to a status symbol.
I walked away from the bat rack, shaking my head. Been there, done that.
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I remembered our older son, now 22, winning home-run derby competitions when he was 7, 8 and 9 years old. What I thought were great childhood accomplishments were actually quite stressful on him, I imagine. Still, I remember trying to make sure he had the very best bat for the annual derbies.
When I entered the sporting goods store, I had just walked out of "Inside Out 2," Pixar's new animated film about human emotions, specifically the emotions of a 13-year-old girl named Riley who is in the throes of puberty.
If you saw the original "Inside Out" movie, released in 2015, you may remember that it's about how emotions — in the movie embodied as cartoon characters in Riley's brain — compete for her attention and how they are triggered by memories, both good and bad.
The new movie is the box-office hit of the summer so far, amassing $155 million in domestic ticket sales in its first weekend. The movie introduces a whole new cast of emotions that arrive when Riley hits puberty and gets stuck between her middle-school friends and some older girls she wants to befriend. Suddenly, here come Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui (boredom). Holdovers from the first film include Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness.
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The day I saw the movie, the theater was full of parents and daughters. (I couldn't help but think that young boys would have benefited from the movie themes, too.)
Without spoiling the plot, suffice it to say that Anxiety and Joy are the alpha emotions in the movie and that most of the action revolves around them trying to bend Riley to their opposite interpretations of what's best for her.
Maybe the reason the film is doing so well with American audiences is that most of us feel as if we are in the middle of a tug of war between joy and anxiety. And maybe, as a society, we feel like anxiety has the upper hand.
I recommend "Inside Out 2" for the message it delivers — you'll have to see the movie to understand.
Even if the ending doesn't resonate with you, at least you will be in a multigenerational audience whose mere presence suggests that they are reaching out for help with their own emotional ups and downs.
For hundreds of years, people have used stories to pass along moral lessons to their children.
The fact that a movie vetted by mental health therapists is the most popular movie in America is actually a very good sign for our future.
The Family Life column is published on Sundays in the Chattanooga TImes Free Press newspaper. Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.