Could it be considered child abuse to raise your kids as Bills fans?

[BillsOverDolphins]

Discuss.

[OpIv37]

I don't have any kids of my own, but I do have a nephew and I've given him some Bills stuff over the years. And part of me did feel bad about it in the sense of "why am I trying to put this kid through the same misery that I'm suffering through?"

Then again, my brother lives in Redskins country, so if my nephew doesn't take to the Bills, he'll likely become a Redskins fan. That isn't really any better.

Somehow, they got tickets to the Green Bay game last weekend and went up there. It was his first live football game. Maybe he'll take to GB because of that and he can root for a good team.

[TacklingDummy]

Everything is a cycle. The way I calculate it the Bills were good from 1962-1964 then consistently good 1988-1999. With a couple flukes (80,81) in the middle.
21 seasons in between.
It's been 13 seasons since 1999.
The Bills will be good again around 2020.

[BillsOverDolphins]

I don't have any kids of my own, but I do have a nephew and I've given him some Bills stuff over the years. And part of me did feel bad about it in the sense of "why am I trying to put this kid through the same misery that I'm suffering through?"

Then again, my brother lives in Redskins country, so if my nephew doesn't take to the Bills, he'll likely become a Redskins fan. That isn't really any better.

Somehow, they got tickets to the Green Bay game last weekend and went up there. It was his first live football game. Maybe he'll take to GB because of that and he can root for a good team.

Hopefully he takes up the Packers. Great team, with great history and fanbase...still gets the small-town community feel too--and the sense of importance of the team to the community. I don't have kids of my own either (as of now), but when I do they'll probably be Ravens fans. Fandom should be a family heirloom, but I don't have it in me to do this to another human being.

[The King]

I feel guilty about it, especially since my mother is always pushing Patriots propaganda.

[TacklingDummy]

I feel guilty about it, especially since my mother is always pushing Patriots propaganda.
By the time your kid knows what football is Brady/belicheck will be gone. The tides will turn and the Pats will be in the basement.

[PTI]

Character builder. Like naming your kid something that rhymes with a dirty word or after a fruit or something like that.

[DrGraves]

Being raised as a Sabres and Bills fan, now at the age of 25 my life has been full of nothing but crushing disappointment every single season.

[malvado78]

My friends have been telling me it is child abuse for 5 years now. I just believe I am teaching my kids humility and that it is a game, do not put all your hopes and dreams into a game someone else plays.

Now if I only believed that myself...

[OpIv37]

Being raised as a Sabres and Bills fan, now at the age of 25 my life has been full of nothing but crushing disappointment every single season.

You know, no team wins every year. There have been 47 Super Bowls, and no team has more than 6, which means even the best team in the Super Bowl era still had a season ending in disappointment 41 times. And honestly, if our teams won every year, it would be great at first, but eventually it would become routine and it would take the fun and excitement out of it.

But we've never won in hockey or football. 0 for 47 for the Bills and 0 for 41 for the Sabres, 0 for 89 combined. And worse than that, most years we are so bad that we know from the beginning that we don't even have a shot. Most of my extended family are Eagles fans, and they're pissed that they can't win the SB. They get to the playoffs every year and lose. But I'd MUCH rather have that. At least they're in the running. At least they have the talent where they COULD win it if they get a few breaks or get hot at the right time.

This season was the first year that I've thought playoffs were even a remote possibility since about 2004 (and it looks like I was dead wrong about that). Of course I want the Bills to win the SB every year, but more realistically, I just want them to be competitive enough for every game to matter. I hate having 4+ meaningless games at the end of every season. I just want them to be competitive enough to have a shot at the playoffs. Maybe we will get in, and then you never know what will happen. Maybe we won't, but at least we got to see 16 games that were worth getting excited over. I know, I'm doing what I usually complain about: lowering standards and accepting mediocrity. But lately, the Bills haven't even been able to live up to that mediocre standard.

This epic amount of sucking really just destroys my enthusiasm for the team.

[imbondz]

Character builder. Like naming your kid something that rhymes with a dirty word or after a fruit or something like that.

lol

[imbondz]

I'm raising my kid to be a Lakers / Yankees / Detroit Red Wings / Packers fan.

[BillsOverDolphins]

I became a Laker fan the same time I became a Bills fan (around 5 or 6)...thank God for the karmic balance they provide

[MTBillsFan]

My girls are toast. Bills and Vikings 0-8. Dallas stole the Stanley Cup from both Buffalo and Minneapolis and well, the Timberwolves suck something fierce as well. At least they have the Lynx. Sure the Twins were good 20+ years ago but as long as the Yankees are a team, the Twins will ALWAYS find a way to lose.

[BillsOverDolphins]

My girls are toast. Bills and Vikings 0-8. Dallas stole the Stanley Cup from both Buffalo and Minneapolis and well, the Timberwolves suck something fierce as well. At least they have the Lynx. Sure the Twins were good 20+ years ago but as long as the Yankees are a team, the Twins will ALWAYS find a way to lose.

What's det?

[Johnny Bugmenot]

Everything is a cycle. The way I calculate it the Bills were good from 1962-1964 then consistently good 1988-1999. With a couple flukes (80,81) in the middle.
21 seasons in between.
It's been 13 seasons since 1999.
The Bills will be good again around 2020.
Interestingly enough, the Bills' trajectory follows, within a couple of years, that of the Houston Oilers.

Good, 1960-61.
Good, 1978-80.
Good, 1987-93.

The rest of the time, they stunk... until they moved to Nashville and, by and large, have been a very good team ever since despite having to be in the same division as Peyton Manning until this year. I'll leave the extrapolation to everyone else.

[Johnny Bugmenot]

As for the original question.

Abuse? It depends on how far you take it.
Mistreatment? Definitely. You do not teach your kids to support failure, or else they will become complacent as failures themselves. The modern-day team known as the Buffalo Bills is a consistent failure in everything.

[Patti120]

Definitely a cruel and unusual way to raise your children. That's for sure!

[djjimkelly]

i think its better then some parent teaching their kid to like the frontrunners

[MikeInRoch]

Well, if so, then someone should call child services on me.

[DynaPaul]

I'm not going to raise my son to be a Bills fan. If he ever gets interested in sports I'll let him pick his own team, unless it's the Patriots, and warn him what he's in store for if he chooses the Bills. If he does decide to follow his dad I'll have an easy conscious knowing that he was warned!

[BillsOverDolphins]

I'm not going to raise my son to be a Bills fan. If he ever gets interested in sports I'll let him pick his own team, unless it's the Patriots, and warn him what he's in store for if he chooses the Bills. If he does decide to follow his dad I'll have an easy conscious knowing that he was warned!

You're a good man, DP.

[BillsFever21]

You know, no team wins every year. There have been 47 Super Bowls, and no team has more than 6, which means even the best team in the Super Bowl era still had a season ending in disappointment 41 times. And honestly, if our teams won every year, it would be great at first, but eventually it would become routine and it would take the fun and excitement out of it.

But we've never won in hockey or football. 0 for 47 for the Bills and 0 for 41 for the Sabres, 0 for 89 combined. And worse than that, most years we are so bad that we know from the beginning that we don't even have a shot. Most of my extended family are Eagles fans, and they're pissed that they can't win the SB. They get to the playoffs every year and lose. But I'd MUCH rather have that. At least they're in the running. At least they have the talent where they COULD win it if they get a few breaks or get hot at the right time.

This season was the first year that I've thought playoffs were even a remote possibility since about 2004 (and it looks like I was dead wrong about that). Of course I want the Bills to win the SB every year, but more realistically, I just want them to be competitive enough for every game to matter. I hate having 4+ meaningless games at the end of every season. I just want them to be competitive enough to have a shot at the playoffs. Maybe we will get in, and then you never know what will happen. Maybe we won't, but at least we got to see 16 games that were worth getting excited over. I know, I'm doing what I usually complain about: lowering standards and accepting mediocrity. But lately, the Bills haven't even been able to live up to that mediocre standard.

This epic amount of sucking really just destroys my enthusiasm for the team.

It sucks when you wait 8 months for football to start and 8-10 games+/- your team is basically mathematically out of it or you know they don't have any shot of going to the playoffs outside of a miracle run and a bunch of other teams losing along with it.

Football is too short to begin with. When you can only get excited for a handful of games during that span it never quite scratches the itch. Maybe someday soon this team will be good. It won't be until after new ownership takes over though and brings in the right people to run the team. When that happens there's a good chance they won't even be the Bills much longer after that. That would be our luck. They will get good and be a playoff/SB contender after they move out of Buffalo.

[ServoBillieves]

My grandfather, a marine, raised his 6 children to be good, Christian followers and generally good people. He also raised them to be Buffalo Bills fans.

My father was the oldest child, and he went to plenty of games at the Aud and Rich. Myself being 24 and married to a Steelers/Penguins/Yankees fan, also while growing up in Pittsburgh with all the condescending/ignorant morons, and told by all 5 of my aunts and uncles and numerous cousins that the Bills were the way to go... I've faced the bottom of the barrel.

But I love my family, yet they should all be ashamed for making me such a diehard Bills fan... but for the sole fact it's a question disrespects those who've spent so much money on the team, so much memory and emotion on the team, and hell, donated to the team. My aunt is a NY senator, and we've given so much money to the organizations this team represents, at some point they'll live up to it.

But what do I know? I'm a 24 year old 'kid' with a Bills tattoo and hope, wearing my gear almost every day and believing that someday this team will make the playoffs again.

[Vampire Baby]

Anyone who answered yes is perfectly correct. LOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq2qGNBiF5w

[Homegrown]

As Johnny Cash said...

"Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean,
My fist got hard and my wits got keen,
Life ain't easy for a Bills fan"

[Beebe]

WWWWHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.