Ok, in the spirit of Mother’s Day, I am going to confess to a bit of parenting crazy.
Before I go on, let me say that M is a relatively athletic kid. She is fit, strong and pretty fast. Unfortunately, girlfriend is also pretty uncoordinated. And sometimes one might even say she is spacey and more interested in socializing during her little league soccer games than playing hard. Mr. A and I agree she is probably not going to be a soccer star, but we like that she is learning to play a team sport and getting to learn to use her body. We like to think we are generally cool with her soccer mediocrity.
In this same vein, I like to think Mr. A and I are not particularly competitive parents. ESPECIALLY with respect to sports. Last week at M’s soccer game, we sat on the sidelines feeling smug while a set of assholes super-critical parents yelled nasty things at their daughter who was not playing up to their very high standards for FIRST GRADE soccer. Actually, we ended up cheering for their daughter because we were so annoyed.
Fast forward a few days. I went to M’s soccer practice because Mr. A had to work late. What did I find during the scrimmage against the kindergarten boys? M chasing cottonwood fluff around the soccer field instead of paying attention to her goalie job. When she wasn’t playing goalie, she was not watching the ball. She was just running around aimlessly in the vicinity of the pack of kids, but not really putting in any effort. Then there was the last straw: When the mass of kids ran toward the other end of the field, she SAT DOWN in a heap to wait for the ball to come back her way. SHE SAT DOWN. DURING A (sort of practice) GAME!
To my surprise, I was pissed. Really pissed. How dare she sit down! We were here so she could PRACTICE and improve her skills!! I called her over and gave her a lecture about working hard and paying attention. And as I was saying the lecture well-known to parents of mini-athletes everywhere, I really meant it.
You need to HUSTLE! You need to PAY ATTENTION! You need to work hard FOR YOUR TEAMMATES! If you want to be a better player, you need to PUT IN SOME EFFORT! If you want to lay around, we should just GO HOME! Blah Blah Blah.
It was the same lecture I heard from my College Athlete father my entire childhood. It was practically like I could hear his voice coming out of my own mouth. (And he certainly heard the same if not much worse from HIS College Athlete father who has recently been banned from my niece’s kindergarten soccer games after he kept making a huge scene yelling ‘advice’ to her from the sidelines.)
Because M is only seven years old, not surprisingly, the lecture made her cry.
And AFTER I got over being pissed off about her screwing around*, I felt like a major league asshole.
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I am inserting a pause here so you can all take a moment or two to feel smug about one of the following:
- Your own personal laissez faire – parenting style which is clearly superior to mine
- Your child’s athletic prowess and lack of laziness
- The wise choice of not signing YOUR kid up for stupid things like first grade soccer in the first place
Feeling good about yourself? Good, carry on…
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There is more I could say about my underlying fear that M hasn’t found her “thing” yet. She hasn’t found a hobby or sport that she really excels at and loves. There is a low-level undercurrent of pressure that I can feel for M to find a “thing” so we can focus on that instead of dabbling in lots of other stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, I know this is ridiculous! I know she is only SEVEN. I know we don’t need to start filling in her college applications yet and we don’t have aspirations to raise a sports (or music or whatever!) prodigy. But I can’t stop myself from worrying that she won’t be able to play a varsity sport at her pretty-big high school if she doesn’t start working on some skills NOW.
And yet, on some level I worry about it.
Hello, First World problem! Hello, too much free time spent thinking about my kid’s future hobbies! Hello, Stupid suburban over-achiever lifestyles infiltrating my brain!
So there it is. A parenting confession for Mother’s Day…
I will even confess I would worry even more if I didn’t have a secret plan to make M a rock-star Taiwanese Diabolo-er before it is time for her to apply for college.
Heh heh heh. Only joking…sort of.
* My only shabby defense is the fact that I had been running the kids around all day, hadn’t eaten lunch and STILL hadn’t eaten dinner at 7:00 pm. Low blood sugar is not my friend.
