I never thought I’d ever utter the following statement, but it’s true: I am officially a soccer mom. Katie Jo and I have had Mr. Carter in sports since he was a toddler so he’d have the opportunity to learn a physical activity and be around other kids. He played baseball for several seasons before realizing he didn’t want to commit to that sport as he aged, wanting instead to switch to soccer. Thus, here I am at a soccer game, and the environment is quite different from what I experienced at the baseball field.
Anyone who has ever listened to me on morning radio would know I am a sports fan. As a University of Tennessee alum (which often makes me a minority in my circles here in Atlanta), I can be quite obnoxious about my school. I mean, can we take a moment here to sing “Rocky Top” for our national championship baseball team? I enjoy watching competition, but believe it or not, being competitive in everyday life doesn’t’t come naturally to me, and listening to the competitive nature of the other parents at a children’s soccer game is something I don’t care for.
As I write this, I am sitting at a soccer practice, wearing my Dolly Parton and Nina West T-shirt that says, “Kindness is Queen.” Maybe it’s my subtle way of rebelling against my current situation. So far, I have listened to a group of boys argue over whether one of them scored a goal or not, and another set of dads one-up each other about what sports their kids excel at. I have not seen one act of kindness yet.
What struck me most was a kid who got hurt during a play and was walking it off. His Dad called from a distance, “You good?” while his sobbing son worked hard to contain any emotion. I mean, this kid had to leave practice and sit alone in a nearby pavilion while he tried to shake off the pain. I understand having to suck it up or handle yourself in public, but something about the father’s lack of affection struck me.
When I scream at a UT game, these are grown men and women on the field or court, and even a trainer would come check and make sure a player was okay if they had to walk something off. This was a child who was expected to “be a man” in that instant, and I couldn’t help but think, “Too soon.”
In baseball, I heard more encouraging words from parents in the stands, but I realize that was when no one expected these little ones to be great athletes. Now, I hear parents’ jaw-dropping comments about someone else’s kid during matches, loud enough for them to hear.
You wonder when a kid goes from being loving and joyful to hardened and noncommunicative, it’s not in middle school. It’s on the third-grade field.
Katie Jo often smirks at my hippie-dippie, “Kumbaya” Pisces leanings, and I rely often on her more Scorpio-hardened attitude to handle being a sports mom. Yet, I wish I saw more emotional encouragement and positive attitudes on the pitch, so the childhood of these boys could last just a little bit longer.
