Is Your Kid's Sport Wearing You Out?

This morning, I spoke with a mom who rose before daylight to have her son at a 5:30 a.m. swim practice. Her son is on the swim team, which meets every day, but she says he’s falling asleep after school.

I didn’t ask her how she’s feeling, but I didn’t need to. I could hear the exhaustion in her voice. It’s no surprise to me that she didn’t consider herself first. As mothers, we’ve gotten used to putting ourselves behind our kids when it comes to taking care of ourselves.

That’s why I’ve assumed a new persona: Just call me “Bad Soccer Mom.”

This new inner me only surfaced after years of sitting on the sidelines watching ridiculous happenings unfold while my sons played basketball, soccer and baseball. Bad Soccer Mom first reared her fearsome head when my younger son was 5 and lightning could be seen in the sky as he and his teammates were playing in an open field. Anyone could have seen the storm coming for half an hour before lightning streaked across the sky. I waited a few minutes to see if the coach would take the kids off the field, while parents looked on worriedly. Then, I marched onto the field and told the coach I was taking my son.

Bad Soccer Mom has been known to pull a son out of a practice if she’s been standing in a drizzling rain for more than 20 minutes. She also regularly leaves practice with kids in tow if the coach runs over the scheduled time by more than 15 minutes. She has opted for her son not to move to a more challenging soccer level if it would mean disrupting family life and, on occasion, she has even skipped practice because she was too tired or wanted to do something fun instead.

Life is about balance, and it seems to me that kids’ sports have become so competitive and intense that they’re threatening family life. If your child wants to be on his school’s golf, cheerleading, football or soccer team, you’d better be prepared for him or her to sacrifice sleep. That’s what it takes to still finish homework, eat meals and make the four practices a week. Not everyone is headed for the Olympics, and I think parents and kids could benefit from a more moderate practice schedule for school sports.

As that old saying goes, “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Moms are the rock on which our families’ sanity, laundry and food depend. If we don’t get enough sleep and play, everyone else suffers. Then, nobody’s headed to the Olympics.

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