My oldest, 10, recently got booted out of a YMCA basketball game. Christian is tall and beefy, and while he’s a slow white kid, he’s physical. The ref caught him and another player exchanging elbows and hips.

The ref stopped the game, yanked Christian and the other kid to the side, and proceeded to turn the situation into a teaching moment.

I watched from the sidelines, on the other side of the court, anxious, wondering what the ref was saying. I could tell that Christian was defending himself. I vacillated between wanting to tell Christian to keep his mouth shut and listen to the ref, and wanting to tell the ref to shut up and keep his thoughts to himself.

Of course, later, I bragged to my friends that my son had gotten booted from the game (or at least one quarter of the game). It became a badge of honor.

Ernest Becker, in Escape from Evil, coins the phrase “immortality symbols.” Immortality symbols can be your bank balance, your Hummer, your fresh cleavage and low body fat, your athletic child. Immortality symbols confer glory on you. I think that’s one reason why raising kids in the ‘burbs is so difficult, and why I feel perfectly righteous going off on my son’s ref. There’s so much more at stake than simply basketball.