Getting Behind
We entered the great state of Texas in the summer of 2016. I knew almost immediately that Texas was serious about sports when I went to register the boys for flag football. There wasn’t a rolling sign up like we were accustomed to. They register four months in advance and then close it down and there is no chance to get in until the following year! What a bummer for my boys.
We enrolled in basketball the following winter. I will never forget showing up to the first game for my (then) second grader and feeling like something was seriously wrong. Was he playing in the wrong grade? Why were these kids dribbling like this? Why were they moving faster and more accurately than my fourth grader who was on the All-Star team in Louisiana? What in the fresh hell was this?
During that first basketball season, I was talking to another second-grade mom, and she relayed to me her despair over not knowing if she was going to get her son signed up in time with a batting coach that cost over $500 a month. I literally thought she was joking. She was not. I asked her why she would spend that much money on a 7-year-old and her response was, “everyone on the team and other teams do it and I don’t want him to get behind.”
Everywhere we went for sports felt like walking into a world where professional athletes had come to breed more professional athletes. It was so overwhelming and confusing compared to where we had been before. I kept feeling like my kids were so far behind all the other kids they were playing with, and they were only 9, 7 & 4! Maybe a $500 a month coach was going to be necessary, I started to think!
On New Year’s Eve (last) I dropped my middle school son off at a friend’s house. His parents invited me in and began to ask me how I felt the middle school football season had gone for my son. I gave them my honest answer, “It was very, very hard!” They agreed and said that in any other area, our kids would be starting athletes but in the city we live in, they are 2nd and 3rd string to the starters.
The dad preceded to tell me that he was travelling with his son to Vegas so he could get on a quarter back list of recognized players which might give him a chance at starting QB in high school. I asked him why he would need to travel so far and go to such expense. His response was, “because if I don’t, he will get behind all the other kids and never have a chance.”
In March, I had all three boys at their paid basketball skills practice. A mom of a teammate of my high school son came up to my car to chat. We were talking about how tired we are and how much basketball had taken over our life because they were on a travel team. I found myself saying out loud, “Why do we do it all? I’m tired all the time. My entire schedule and the schedule of our family revolves each day around sports.” She said, “because if we don’t do it, our boys will get behind.”
This past week they were at their weekly basketball practice. I was talking to another fourth-grade mom who was saying she wasn’t sure how to get her son to all the practices because he had football four nights a week and baseball two nights a week. I said, “Hold up! He plays basketball, football, AND baseball in the SAME SEASON? WHY?” I said excitedly.
“Because if I pull him out of any of those sports, he’s going to get behind in one of them!” She exclaimed.
Last week alone I navigated seven different practices, attended six games, and spent an entire weekend on the road to Oklahoma City which cost over $1,000 so my son could participate in a basketball tournament. We will do these four or five more times this summer alone for ONE kiddo.
I’ve moved my coaching hours to accommodate all the practices, I’ve turned myself inside out trying to get the three boys to different parts of the city at same times, and I’ve spent most of my weekends watching kid’s sports.
I look around and as far as I can tell, most of us are doing this. We pay gobs of money for extra practices, skills training, competitive travel teams, etc. A client told me recently that he spent $3,000 for one weekend to go to his daughter’s volleyball tournament in Orlando. Another friend said they had to save each year so their boys could do sports rather than go on vacations or save for college.
In nearly every conversation I have with clients, friends, and family members, we are all terrified about how much college costs, but no one mentions or seems to assess the exorbitant amount we are spending to keep our athletes from “getting behind.”
The fear and anxiety are palpable at ANY sporting event in Texas. Just listen on the sidelines as we all get frustrated, upset, and start screaming at our kids to do better. Listen as we say, “what is wrong with him/her today and why isn’t she performing?” Feel the energy that is so intense as we all wrestle with our kids not matching up to other athletes or not helping the team WIN.
I have listened to family members, friends, and clients as they describe the pain of watching a kid “not match up” or “not play their best” or “be lazy.” We feel overwhelmed with anxiety, fear and sometimes just a ‘high alert’ sensation in our bodies as we watch them not rebound a ball, miss an easy tackle, not pitch their fastest, and we scream, and yell and we lose it either internally or externally.
God forbid they have an off day or don’t “make us proud.” We get frustrated, critical, and downright angry. You can see dads and moms sternly talking to kids on the sidelines after any game. Just Sunday I watched a dad scream at full volume three inches from a ten-year boys face to “STOP SLACKING AND BE BETTER!” I felt physically sick as I watched his anger and the boy shrink under the assault.
Just so you know, I’m obsessed with sports. Athletics saved me in high school, helped me attend college and kept me sane during my divorce. I think sports are an incredible avenue for humans to experience team, success, disappointment, and real growth. I’m in no way diminishing the value of sports. I’m simply asking questions about the importance and stress we place on them and taking an honest self-appraisal, so I understand my own motivation better.
I started this process by asking, “Why do I spend so much time, energy, and money on sports for my boys?” My answer was, “I want them to do what they love, and I want them to be successful doing it.”
So, that led to, “What does ‘successful mean?” Do I think they are going to get scholarships for college? Do I want them to have fame and fortune? Do I want them to be stars in high school so they can have popularity and success with friends and girls? What does success for them mean?
Then came the honesty. I’m afraid they won’t be chosen for the right teams or be as good as their friends. I’m afraid that if we don’t keep up with what everyone else is doing that somehow, they will fall behind and not be as successful as their teammates and get cut from teams. I’m afraid of what happens if all their friends are succeeding and mine aren’t. I’m afraid my kid will be “left out.” I’m afraid if we skip a season of sports that my kid will lose his spot on a team and get put on a lesser team after our break.
I’m afraid of how they will feel when they don’t get picked for “A” team or must sit on the bench and not be chosen. I’m afraid they will try out for the team and not make it. I’m afraid other parents will be disappointed in MY kid and their performance (b/c we have all said to another parent “what in the hell is going on with so-and-so today?)
This all led to my final question, “Why am I so afraid of their failing?”
The answer is simple. I didn’t have parents around when I was their age to supervise, support, guide or ensure success. They did what parents in the 80s and 90s did, and that was work, and allow kids to raise themselves. It was lonely and confusing a lot of the time and somehow as a mother, I interpreted that to mean that it was my job to do something completely different.
I thought that meant that I show up to absolutely everything they did without question. Make sure we eat every dinner together. Sign them up for anything they even remotely showed interest in (because we didn’t have money or time to do activities as kids). Volunteer, plan playdates, and make sure to do everything I could to get my kids on better sports teams so they could experience more success.
I had been parenting in reaction to my own upbringing and I honestly didn’t even know it! I felt kind of smug about how supportive and down for my kids I was!
So, imagine my surprise when I was in the middle of coaching with my new coach in March and explaining how tired, stressed, and anxious I was about my oldest and his struggles with basketball when she says, “your job as a parent is to prepare NOT protect.”
I had to sit with that for some time. Because it went against everything I had known in my body since giving birth fifteen years ago.
As I examined my level of stress, restless nights, and feelings of turmoil I had been experiencing a lot in last five years, I saw it all very clearly. I saw the shield I had been trying to put in front of them.
The shield was about preventing suffering. Trying to make sure they never felt alone, without guidance or support. It was a deep down knowing that if I loved them hard enough, made them know they are enough, and ensured with everything I have that they have the best possibility of success, that somehow, they would not have to suffer.
I put the shield up in front of them because I didn’t want them to sit with failure, disappointment, and angst. I thought I was supposed to support them so well that they wouldn’t experience any of the darker emotions. Whenever I saw anything that remotely resembled them not being successful, I would step in and try to overcompensate and encourage them, or worse, yell at them to do better.
With a lot of reflection, I have started to see how weak the shield makes them. I am telling them not to experience hard feelings in the safety of our home and trying to prevent their struggling, but expecting that one day they will go off into the world alone and figure it out there? Unprotected? Without preparation?
I wish I had known this fifteen years ago. I’m pretty sure it would have changed a lot of my stress levels and expectations of myself as a mother. But, even still, this shift has been life giving. To know and deeply accept that suffering and failing are inevitable. I’m getting more and more comfortable with allowing space for this and knowing that they are getting prepared for the real world by learning how to walk through it with the safety of having me here.
I’ve also seen that my fear about my kids “getting behind” is really all about ME.
When I took a deeper look, I could see all the places in life where I’ve felt “behind” or didn’t match up to what I was seeing outside of me. Maybe your version of getting behind is happening in your job, your marriage, your personal appearance, or your success. Maybe it was a feeling we had as a kid that we’re trying to avoid.
In any case, maybe it’s time to assess our own BIG feelings about sports and how intense we get with our kids and the pressure we place on them (whether spoken or unspoken). If we assess this, we will see that the energy is OURS and not about them. Let’s work on being responsible for this energy and not unknowingly put it on our kids.
I’ve read so many articles lately about young athletes committing suicide and most of the people around them expressing they just couldn’t live up to the expectations. I wonder, were they expectations of the athletes or the parents and coaches? I wonder if anyone stopped to wonder about the pressure, spoken or unspoken?
This past year has shown me that even if they do get behind (not chosen for the team they wanted and losing a starting spot on the HS team), they can handle it. Not only can they handle it, but they also come through it bigger and more confident than before. They find a drive within themselves and a sense of self that wasn’t there before the struggle. They become more of who they authentically are.
I’m still running wild with sports. This is what they love. I will support that. What I won’t do, is watch a game and wish they played better. Or try to make sure they don’t feel sad when they lose. Or give up personal desires with my own time to turn myself inside out to be at a game (I will sit it out and know it doesn’t make me a bad parent!). I will let them set their own goals, and when they ask me (not the other way around) for support, I will assess if I can manage it. I will be awake and aware as we navigate the turbulent waters of Texas sports.
Let’s allow them to get behind. Let’s allow them to fail. Let’s allow them to struggle. Let’s put down the shield and help them prepare. They can handle it. So can you.
Until next time,
