Don’t crush Mo’ne Davis with your own expectations

Think for a moment what it was like to be 13 years old. If you can remember at all, if you can separate the 11s from the 12s from the 13s from the 14s. Everyone’s experience is a bit different. We all come from different backgrounds, and where you grew up, how you grew up and who you grew up with all played factors in who you were as a 13-year-old. Poverty, wealth, strict parents, forgiving parents, no parents, older siblings to learn from, younger siblings to care for. There’s no prototypical 13.

Still, there are universals. You probably felt more grown up than you were, wiser to the world than you were, more independent than you were. You probably felt a bit awkward at times, a bit confused. You probably didn’t understand your body or your thoughts. You probably acted out at times, even if you didn’t want to, made decisions that left you looking back wondering why you said or did those things. Changes occur, not just aesthetic ones, but ones inside the body, too, making emotions that feel all the stranger. You’re not a child, not an adult. Thirteen is a difficult age in the best of circumstances. Little League Baseball World Series star Mo’ne Davis is 13 years old. We need to remember that.

Maybe we need to remind ourselves of that because of the way she pitches. Davis this week became the first Little Leaguer to make the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine. You would not be incorrect to note that it’s because she’s a girl. If she was just another boy, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. On the other hand, she’s not just another Little Leaguer, either. She throws a 70 mile per hour fastball. She pitched her Philadelphia-area Taney Dragons team to Williamsport by throwing a shutout in the final game of regional competition. She tossed another shutout in her team’s opening LLWS game, becoming the first girl to throw a shutout at the LLWS. Mo’ne Davis has earned her fame not just by being there, but by being dominant when she arrived. She should be congratulated. She should be celebrated. She should not be a fount for your expectations.

We’re always looking for a symbol. We’re always looking for someone to carry a torch. Davis, without doubt, already has been handed that role by the adults. “She’s a lot of things to a lot of different people, all of them good things,” Sports Illustrated’s Albert Chen writes in the cover story. “A totem for inner-city baseball, a role model for your 10-year-old niece, a role model for your 10-year-old nephew.” And maybe that’s fine. Within context, a 13-year-old brother can be a role model for his younger sister, or a sister to a brother. Elementary school students can look up to the players on a middle school basketball team. But that’s not what’s going on here. Davis is the next big thing, with people already wondering whether she could some day become the first woman to pitch in the MLB.

The problem with all of this is two-fold: she might not even want to play baseball when she gets older, and you’re really starting to creep her out with all this attention. Davis told SI that baseball is great, but that she actually prefers to play basketball for the UConn Huskies when she gets older. And if that’s what she wants, great. Bigger than that, she’s not completely comfortable with all this attention. She told SI: “People were like, ‘Oh, there are going to be people running up to you taking pictures’ and I thought it was going to be a bunch of little kids. But it’s grown-ups! And that’s, like, creepy.” And if you remember being 13, truly it is.

Enjoy watching Mo’ne Davis play baseball this week. Celebrate her accomplishments. Wish her the best as she pursues her goals. By all accounts, she’s a wonderful girl who you absolutely want to see succeed. But you’re not going to help her do that if you keep looking over her shoulder when the Little League World Series is complete. Give her some space. The wise Albus Dumbledore told Harry Potter, “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” It would be an even worse thing for her to dwell on other people’s dreams. It’s hard enough being 13. Let’s just let a kid be a kid.