Last soccer tournament

We’re into the yearlong cycle of “lasts” before Daughter goes to college – it takes nine months to gestate a baby, so why not a year to prepare for her departure? – and this weekend was our last soccer tournament as parents.

I have to admit: This is one aspect of parenting that I won’t miss.

First there is the sitting and waiting.

We got there an hour early on Saturday so the team could warm up, and then there was about 75 minutes of playing, and then another four hours of waiting until the next game and then another 75 minutes of playing. We were at this field in the middle of suburban nowhere from 11 am until 7:15 pm.  The sun went down and the field lights came on. A day of great, healthy activity for the kids; a day of complete inactivity for the parents.

Then there is the freezing.

Saturday started out lovely – warm sun, slight breeze so it was not the 90-degree beating heat that had seemed likely all week. But then the slight breeze grew. And grew.  By mid-afternoon, the fog had rolled in and the breeze was a howling wind and the parents were wrapped in blankets and borrowed sweatshirts, huddling smaller and smaller in our folding chairs that would blow over if we stood up, while the girls ran around practicing their moves and we… sat and waited.

Ilana and Kaveh in the wind (notice the trees in back) / Photo by Eric Schwartz

Then there is the anxiety. 

Finally, after all the sitting and waiting and shivering and huddling, you get to watch a soccer game.  But this isn’t exactly like kicking back with a beer in a sports bar. Your child’s team is getting creamed. Or maybe not creamed, but beaten. Or maybe they’re winning, but it’s pretty close and they could lose their lead any minute now. And your child is such an enthusiastic player but no one is passing the ball to her. Or they’re passing to her but she’s not managing to take any goal shots. Or that big player on the opposing team keeps pushing her. (That’s a foul! That’s really a foul! And why isn’t the &#$#!# ref calling it!) The team asks for parent volunteers to bring water and fruit and the equipment bags each week; why not Valium?

* * * * *

There’s no question that soccer has been great for Daughter. Neither Sam nor I were remotely athletic as kids. My mercifully short history with team sports was the classic stand-in-the-outfield-and-pray-the-ball-doesn’t-come-anywhere-near-you. So this is an area where Daughter has far surpassed both of us. There are so many benefits to team sports, especially for girls – it fosters resilience, perseverance, teamwork, and a positive relationship to one’s body, as well as fitness. Daughter is a good player but not a star, and I’m really happy she managed to continue playing through all of high school, past the point around middle school where a lot of the non-star players tend to drop out.

The Butterflies, 1st grade soccer team / Copyright by Ilana DeBare

The Cheetahs, 12th grade soccer team at their last tournament / Photo by Kaveh Rad

And one of her first soccer games will always remain frozen in my mind, an emblem of childhood. Daughter and her teammates were little, maybe seven years old, and it was one of their first games, and these pint-sized figures in baggy shorts were running around confusedly on the field, and I found myself rooting out loud for my child with shouts that were not just about soccer. I was cheering for her not just to make physical contact with the ball or manage to kick it toward the correct goal, but as I looked out onto the field and shouted “Go Daughter!” with all my lung capacity, I was shouting for her to be smart and be strong and be happy and do well in school and do well in life and find love and find meaning and thrive.

She was out there on that playing field, and I was watching from afar. I’d set her loose in the world and now all I could do was cheer.

So all that is good. Soccer has been good. Her coach (thank you Tom!) and team (go Cheetahs!) have been great.

But still, this is one part of parenting that I am not going to miss.

Swimming, soccer and unintended legacies

NPR had a discussion the other day about kids who can’t swim, and why. One of the speakers noted that the biggest predictor for non-swimming kids was… parents who don’t know how to swim. 

Not a huge surprise, when you think about it. But it started me reflecting about my own family, and what capabilities or limitations we pass on to our kids.

My dad was a pretty strong athlete. He swam, went to a gym, and played a weekly tennis game all the time we were growing up – played tennis, in fact, until recently sidelined by bad knees in his 80s. As a kid, he played baseball and stickball and a bunch of other sports. 

My mom, meanwhile, didn’t play any competitive sports as an adult. Living in Manhattan, she walked a lot so she was in good physical shape. But she thought of herself as a klutz. Didn’t dance, didn’t play tennis, didn’t ride a bike except very occasionally when we would do a short family ride in Central Park. 

 The one sport that I do remember her enjoying and doing on a regular basis was … swimming. 

And I swam. From a very young age. My brother and my sister did too. 

My mom and siblings

My dad, sister and me

Me, Jones Beach, circa 1966

I was terrible at baseball, volleyball, tennis. Any sport where you could be picked last for a team, I was picked last. But I swam and dived and water-skied and even passed a Red Cross Junior Life Saving course. 

My mother talked about herself as a klutz, and I grew up thinking of myself as a klutz. 

My mother talked about herself as tone-deaf, and I grew up assuming I couldn’t sing. 

On the other hand, my mother swam – and I swam like a fish. 

So I draw a couple of thoughts from this. One is how much more I was influenced by my mother’s example than my father’s, at least in physical endeavors and self-image. 

The other is how easy it is for all of us, mothers and fathers alike, to unwittingly transmit our own limitations and self-doubts to our children. 

The mom who talks constantly about feeling fat and needing to diet. The mom who laughs self-deprecatingly about how she never understood math. The dad who jokes about how he’s such a bad cook that he’d even burn water.

They think they’re talking about themselves — but their kids are listening and learning.  

With sports and body image, at least, I’ve tried to ensure that Becca didn’t inherit  my weaknesses. Of course I got her swim lessons at a very young age. We enrolled her in a gymnastics class in preschool. We started her in soccer in 1^st grade – and she continues to play soccer even now, going into her junior year in high school. 

Becca's 1st grade soccer team // Photo credit: Ilana DeBare

Now, Becca is far from the best on her team. She’s opted for teams that require two days of practice each week rather than five. She’s not a kid who would ever be in the running for a soccer scholarship to college. 

But she’s playing. At age 16, long past the age when statistically most girls drop out of their soccer teams. That makes Sam and me proud. 

Playing soccer means she thinks about her body in an active, utilitarian way, not just the ornamental or objectified way that our society pushes on girls. She exerts herself. She sweats. She feels capable. 

There have been studies showing that teen girls who participate in team sports are safer, healthier and have higher self-esteem than those who don’t. I recall one anecdote from when I was researching my book on girls’ schools – a middle-aged male partner in a law firm who said he could always tell which young associates had played team sports as girls. The clue? They were more resilient: They might lose a motion or case, but they would pick things up the next day and soldier on, rather than give up or berate themselves. 

By making it to 16 and continuing to love soccer, Becca is far beyond me as a teen. Probably beyond me as an adult too – despite my gym workouts and my Czech bike trip venture, I’ll always hold that image of the klutzy last-kid-picked inside me. 

Are there other areas where I have passed on my Achilles’ heels to her? I’m sure of it. But let’s save those for another day. At least in the area of sports and fitness, I think I’ve spared her an unwanted legacy.