Magnet Mania

Surely you’ve seen all the magnets. Most minivans, SUV’s and now, thanks to gas prices, Toyota Prius’s in suburbia have one or more magnets advertising the sports the kids in the family play. I did a brief survey of my Super Target parking lot this weekend and got the following results (I included magnets and stickers):

11 soccer balls or soccer clubs
8 hockey
4 basketballs
7 swimteam
2 lacrosse
2 wrestling
3 footballs or football clubs
3 jump rope (Got Rope..cute)
5 ballet shoes magnets
1 gymnastics
1 wrestling
i saw 4 marathon (26.2 and 13.1) stickers, but i'm assuming/hoping!! those are for the adults not the kid

Why do we decorate our cars like this? Proudly displaying what our kids love? We know we are sneered at on the highway or in our workplace parking lot occasionally.

There are numerous reasons…first and foremost (in my house) it’s because my youngest loves them. First she was content with a generic magnet or sticker for the sport she was currently in (a soccer ball or a horseback rider decal). Now she’s a more competitive athlete, playing on a traveling soccer club team with a rival team across town; and thus a more competitive magnet displayer…..She wants to be sure everyone knows she plays for Northside FC and obviously not the clearly inferior Southside FC; I’m happy for her to have this Team Pride at this point, so I indulge.

Another reason…fundraising. Purchasing a 75 cent magnet for 10 bucks certainly does have a high profit margin for the HS team or the club, most of which desperately need it.

Finally, there’s parent pride…..most parents are happy to have a magnet with their sons HS football team and his name/number, we are showing we are proud of our kid. More than just showing everyone we are proud of our kid, we are showing our kid we are proud of him. In my mind it’s like wearing that hideous Fathers Day tie he made all day and not just out the door on that Monday morning.

I must admit, though, even I have a limit. My youngest is playing soccer on two teams, a lacrosse team and swimteam this summer and not surprisingly we’ve gotten new magnets for each. Four at a time is even too much for me, so I’ve had her give Dad two and me two for our respective cars. Anymore and they will be headed for the refrigerator. I’ve told that much magnetic force on one car could cause damage to the spark plugs and axels; so far she’s accepted that-------clearly I don’t have an Honor Roll bumper sticker on any of our cars :-(

Anyway….sports pride in the form of magnets is our version of the “Honor Roll kid” bumper stickers that we’ve seen around town for the last 15 years or so. So decorate you car with pride, don’t worry what your co-workers or neighbors think. Prevent unsightly magnet build-up and damage to the paint job by rotating every season or every time you change your clocks. To get a totally fresh start, run your car through one of those gas station car washes….the magnets go flying off and you have a naked car for a few weeks. I’ve done that more times than I can count, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not.