November 30,2025    "The Haven" Villanova PA 

Performance Love

By Haven Duddy

I grew up playing games in the neighborhood — not organized sports, not Saturday schedules, not sidelines full of parents cheering for six-year-olds like their lives depended on it. I grew up playing real games. Cul-de-sac games. The kind of games children invent with their whole hearts and forget about an hour later.

We didn’t need adults.

We didn’t need supervision.

We didn’t need validation.

We already understood everything that mattered:

• Come home when the streetlights turn on.

• Don’t hit.

• Don’t let things get too out of hand.

• If a parent came outside, something was wrong.

• That was the worst possible outcome of any game.

We knew the neighborhood hierarchy.

We knew who was in charge of what.

We knew who could bend the rules and who couldn’t.

We knew when an argument was real and when it was just boys being boys.

And I wasn’t a charity invitation.

I was athletic. I could play.

Fast. Strong. Coordinated.

Better than some of the boys — and everybody knew it.

Four square?

My kingdom.

The world was simple:

If you wanted to play, you played.

If you didn’t, you didn’t.

If the game wasn’t fun, you found a different one.

If it was fun, you stayed.

Nothing needed meaning.

Nothing needed applause.

Nothing needed performance.

I didn’t grow up learning performance love.

I grew up learning presence — not presentation.

And then I became an adult.

And suddenly I was in a world where parents attend every game, every practice, every rehearsal — and if they don’t, the meaning becomes:

“Do you even love your child?”

We’ve created a culture where visibility = love,

and children absorb that message long before they can name it.

Kids learn:

• “My game matters only if someone watches.”

• “My effort is valuable only with an audience.”

• “My worth is measured by attendance.”

• “My parents will be disappointed if I don’t perform well.”

But here’s the part nobody says out loud:

 In the real world, there is no audience.

No one claps when you try something new at 25.

No one watches your courage at 30.

No one applauds your reinvention at 40.

No one stands on the sidelines of your heartbreak, your career changes, or your quiet attempts to build something real.

Adults must learn to be their own witnesses.

Childhood is supposed to prepare you for that —

not convince you that love is measured by attendance.

And here’s the simple truth:

Childhood games are for children.

Not for parents.

We already played in the cul-de-sac.

We already lived that part of life.

We do not need to re-live our childhoods by watching our kids play theirs.

My child playing is enough.

My presence in their life is enough.

My love is enough.

I do not need to sit cross-legged on grass pretending that baseball for eight-year-olds is a sacred ritual.

Maybe I’d rather write.

Maybe I’d rather take a walk.

Maybe I’d rather sit with a cup of coffee and watch absolutely nothing at all.

Because I’m a grown-up.

And grown-ups are allowed to have lives that aren’t centered around spectating childhood activities.

And listen — just to be clear — if I decide to stop by your game one day, it’s not because it “means something.” It’s not because I’m proving anything to you or to anyone else. It’s not a demonstration of love or devotion or parental excellence. It’s simply because, in that moment, I wanted to see you play. That’s it. That’s all it ever means. No more, no less.

The only reason a child should play a game

is because they want to play the game.

Not because adults need a performance to clap for.

And if a child is playing a sport they don’t even enjoy

while a parent watches with a camera out,

that’s not connection — that’s confusion.

If a kid has to pretend to love a sport to earn approval,

that’s not childhood —

that’s conditioning.

And if adults believe that showing up to watch a game determines whether they are loving parents,

that’s not devotion —

that’s cultural pressure masquerading as love.

Because when children learn performance love —

“Mom loves me because she watches my game,”

instead of

“Mom loves me because she loves me,”

they grow up believing that love must be earned

and affection must be proven.

As adults, they confuse:

• performance with love

• action with connection

• attention with worth

• visibility with meaning

• approval with safety

And that makes relationships confusing and exhausting.

Because love isn’t supposed to be proven.

Love is supposed to be felt:

• safe

• secure

• understood

• cared for

• valued

• protected

• connected

Love is a feeling, not a performance.

And when love becomes a scorekeeping system of actions and optics and attendance,

everyone ends up confused.

This is why the strongest kids — and the strongest adults —

are the ones who learn early:

 “It was never about the audience.

It was always about the game.”

Play because you want to.

Live because it matters to you.

Love because it’s real.

Show up in the ways that count —

not the ways that look good.

Most of life’s real lessons

aren’t learned in the bleachers —

they’re learned on the quiet solo walk home afterward,

while the sun is dropping,

your legs are tired,

your mind is drifting,

and nothing happened

and everything happened

all at once.

 A safe childhood is one where you feel okay on the quiet walk home.

 A safe adulthood is one where you feel strong enough to head out the door the next day.