Mistakes Made by a Sports Mom

When you first have a baby ,you don’t think about all of the mistakes you can make as a Mom. You simply beat yourself up about breast feeding or not, co-sleeping or not. What are the best diapers? I should probably be making my own baby food I think? I wish it ended with that. Sports are a whole new battle.

I have tried to learn through the mistakes I made with my first one, but I am a very slow learner, so I wanted to blog about all the new mistakes I made. All my faux pas, so that you don’t make them too. While I admit all of my short comings, I am also quick to recognize that I am human and loving and passionate and everything comes from a place of love, at least initially. I am also human in my jealousy and bitterness and shame and I hold both places true for myself.

I have blogged before about my anger and resentment when my son hasn’t made a basketball team. I think this is a commonality I can share with so many parents. We want our kids to be happy. We want joy for them, we want acceptance and not making a team can be that first real sting or rejection that they feel and we can’t fully prepare them. At the same time, I was also trying to organize counselors and appointments and medication for his anxiety.

Fast forward to this winter and my son tried out for a team as a seventh grader. I remembered people giving me the advice for him to keep working the last time he didn’t make it. I can be a very literal person and also so goal oriented and so even though he was knocked down, we enrolled him in all the things. He has practiced and practiced and practiced. We have done shooting camps, work out classes. He dribbles in the driveway, in the kitchen, off his bedroom door.

In that way, when he bounced into his try out, I thought off you go you hard worker. I can’t wait until we see the list with your name on it. Then the list came back. B Team. Not the A Team. B. B is for better luck next time.

I was at work and I really saw red. I pictured him as a fourth and fifth grader again. I could see him on bed, breaking down into tears. I could see the Friday nights by himself, depression seeping in. How could he not be picked? I was broken for him.

The next part is my cautionary tale. When you hurt for your kid and I mean even if you anticipate their hurt, don’t post about it. Like not at all. Maybe even put your cell phone in a lock box for six or seven hours, and possibly your lap top too. One of the hardest parts about seeing your kid not be chosen, is that you will want to feel validated in that. Doesn’t everyone see the injustice? Aren’t sports a real kick in the junk? You will want to toss that comment into the social media ocean and see what comes back. Your ugliest part of you will want names, people to blame, others to ridicule them. Reel in your ugliest part for a second, because the post won’t solve it. In fact, and here’s the shitty part. You can’t. solve. it.

When I got home from work and talked to my son, I determined he was bummed, but not broken. He had grown and matured and worked. Not just on his basketball, but on his personhood. He did not think he was a terrible player. He was not discouraged from basketball. His biggest disappointment came from not being able to play with the friends he has grown up alongside with, but he really outshone me in his maturity. He still wanted to play. He still wanted to hoop. He didn’t think of himself as a second hand citizen.

This is when I really saw the disservice I was doing to him and to myself. It really made me step back and pause and think I need to do this better. I need to stop fighting his battles. I need to stop always expecting others to see his work. I need to go to the game, any of his games and see him. The kid who is working and grinding. The kid who hasn’t given up.

It took one lopsided smile and a shrug of his shoulders to see that this situation was not going to break him. It took one door slam and three lay ups after this conversation to see that it might have been a shitty try out for him, but he’s still headed to the next one. What I want to caution you about is not to fight the system, when your kid doesn’t make it. You don’t need to know all the answers all the time. You don’t need to know why Bobby made it over Timmy. You just need to tell your kid that this day sucks and you are there for them and ask them if they want to keep working towards the next one. If you have a kid who hasn’t made it once, twice, even more than that, your kid is going to better equipped to deal with any failed grade, bad try out, break up, or job interview. Being a parent, is being in it for the long game. The whole road. I realized the day of that try out, that I was parenting just for that day and not for the next month or even year.

I am so proud of how he has approached this team. It hasn’t always been perfect. He gets frustrated sometimes with their lack of wins, but he never, not once, gives up. He cheers on his teammates, he scores some points. He worked through the hurt with little help from me. He’s a stand up kid and I don’t really think I deserve him. So, I’m asking you reader to take his lead the next time your kid doesn’t make it. Don’t take mine. It won’t be winning. Have a spot to vent. Sure. Have a few trusted friends to let it all out too, but the whole universe doesn’t need to know. The more you let him or her work through the disappointment, the grittier and more level headed they will become. The more you show up to the game and clap even if they lose by 60 points, the more they will know you are there for them, but not out to sword fight everyone else. He knows if he wants to play in high school, he is going to have to show all the way up at try outs. I know if he doesn’t make it, I will need to show all the way up for him, but not at the expense of his buddies who I also adore. Being the bigger person isn’t always easy. I am still working on it week-to-week. If I need to be a smaller person, I try to share it just with my husband or best friend and not the whole social media universe. Who would have thought I would learn some impulse control from my ADHD 12-year-old?