Blue vs. Red

This morning over breakfast, I mentioned to Lizzy that BYU was playing Utah in football this weekend. "We like both teams this week," she observed.

Gasp! I was stunned. How did my daughter turn five without knowing that we don't like Utah?

I've surely failed in my parental duties. There has to be a scriptural injunction somewhere that places upon the heads of fathers in Zion the responsibility to teach their children—by the time they are old enough to know colors and letters—that BYU and blue equal good and Utah and red are bad.

I set about immediately to rectify the void in my teaching: "Um, actually, we like BYU," I attempted, haltingly. When you're trying to instill in your child things like charity and patience and acceptance, how do you tell them that we hate the Utes? "BYU and Utah play each other a lot," I ventured, "and usually you like one or the other, not both."

Hmm... but we also play New Mexico and Air Force and Wyoming and Colorado State a lot. There's a difference in intensity that has no solid logical—or at least Christian—foundation. I turned to my wife: "This is a difficult concept to explain to a 5 year old."

"You work at BYU, but you live in Utah," Lizzy countered. "So you should like both."

Ah—there's something I can work with. Divorce Utah the state from Utah the school.

I did so, carefully discussing the two different schools and how they are athletic opponents and in our household, it's BYU all the way. You could see the little gears turning as she gradually grasped the concept. After a moment of pondering, she offered, "And you went to BYU, so you like BYU." The confusion vanished from her face and she went about merrily eating her cereal.

Whew. She got it. I have—albeit a bit late—begun to indoctrinate my child. She still doesn't have the appropriate disdain for all things red, but we'll work on that. It might be a bit of a tough job. She is rather clear about her three favorite colors being on the red side of the spectrum: purple, pink, and red. She reiterates that fact almost daily and takes delight in it.

She also, however, knows that Christine and I have each selected blue as our favorite color. Over time, we hope to be able to gradually strengthen the blue is good association. By the time she's in high school, I'm optimistic we'll have banished the red spectrum to its appropriate position of inferiority.

Boy, who knew that brainwashing was such a hard job?