On Sunday afternoons my parents would always host back yard sporting events that varied with the season \u2013 baseball in the spring and summer, football and soccer in the fall.\u00a0 This was about 35 years ago – well before any organized soccer in this country, and the only rule that we knew was that you couldn\u2019t use your hands.\u00a0 One summer my mother organized a volleyball league in our back yard, consisting of families who would organize their own multigenerational teams and show up en masse for their matches even though everyone was pretty much clueless about volleyball.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Occasionally in the winter we would play dodge ball at a local gym.\u00a0 It seems like almost everyone likes dodge ball, but now my kids tell me that it is not allowed because it is considered too dangerous.\u00a0\u00a0 Even if you didn\u2019t like dodge ball, you could let yourself get smacked with the ball and then peacefully sit out the rest of the game.\u00a0 However, in baseball you could potentially be humiliated for a full 9 innings of strikeouts, bone headed plays and throwing like a girl.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My kids were part of the generation where everything was organized, creating a vicious circle.\u00a0 If you weren\u2019t part of a structured activity, there would be nobody around to hang out with, so all of a sudden I found myself signing\u00a0my kids up for things so that they could be with their friends.\u00a0 Soccer was a natural starting spot, and I remember getting Ned or Frances ready with their uniform, cleats, juice box and snack and then arriving at the field and seeing about 200 other identical children and parents.\u00a0 The sense of anonymity was overwhelming; I felt like I was in the middle of a big puppy mill.\u00a0 I have always had a pair of binoculars at the ready for sighting birds, but I learned that they were just as useful at the soccer complex to scan across the endless fields to find a cluster of familiar faces and uniforms.\u00a0 From above, all of us soccer parents probably looked like fevered ants convening on a melted popsicle.\u00a0 Once at the field, overweening parents would mutter about coaches, traveling teams and ODP opportunities.\u00a0 Clearly thoughts of college scholarships were emerging by 6th<\/sup> grade. \u00a0\u00a0While it rarely occurred to my parents to attend one of my games, it never occurred to us NOT to attend a game.<\/p>\n Initially the soccer teams were coached by parents.\u00a0 Nick was a volunteer coach for a team consisting of players from Lake Forest and the neighboring suburb of Lake Bluff.\u00a0 Immediately, he had to start managing both parents and players.\u00a0 The oddest complaint came from Lake Bluff parents who as a group complained that their kids got less playing time than Lake Foresters.\u00a0 Nick didn\u2019t even know where the kids lived.\u00a0 Having professional coaches at the third grade level seemed unnecessary, but all of a sudden Sol\u00e9 was part of our lives \u2013 a bitter soccer player from Bosnia who clearly resented the fact that he was really acting as more of a babysitter cliquez i\u00e7i<\/a>.\u00a0 He would mutter that the kids had no commitment to soccer, but come on \u2013 they were only 9 years old.\u00a0 The team mother called announcing that Sol\u00e9 was available to give private lessons, and the implication was that this sort of face time might be worthwhile.\u00a0 Besides Frances wanted to be with her friends.\u00a0 When I went to pick her up from her \u201clesson,\u201d\u00a0 it looked like they were basically having a pick up game, but then I had to peel off a twenty and give it to Sol\u00e9 for the opportunity to do what we used to do for free and on our own.<\/p>\n Our kids were athletic but not destined to be elite athletes, and my goals for them were to have fun playing on a team, gain confidence and satisfaction in improving, and to meet new kids.\u00a0 However, sometimes the environment would rub off and I would find myself becoming the parent I did not want to be.\u00a0 Surly Sol\u00e9 really began to irritate me and I started to clock playing time.\u00a0 I called one mother to strategize.\u00a0 She said that she had successfully managed the situation by picking up her son in her husband\u2019s Corvette with the top down wearing a tight T shirt.\u00a0 Sol\u00e9 loved cars (and probably tight T shirts) and would always come over and chat after the practice.\u00a0 You have to \u201cbutter the coach,\u201d she said.\u00a0 I certainly did not have access to this strategy.<\/p>\n As a goalie, our daughter Frances might have had the most difficult position on the field.\u00a0 As the mother of the goalie I might have had the second most difficult position on the field.\u00a0 The successes and failures of a goalie are highly visible even if you don\u2019t know anything about soccer.\u00a0 It was difficult not to comment as we drove to and from the game.\u00a0 One day Frances announced that she did not really need us to be at the game.\u00a0 Basically, she didn\u2019t want us to see her muff one, and she didn\u2019t need us to see her be a success \u2013 she got enough feedback from her team mates and other parents.\u00a0 We weren\u2019t really thrilled to be driving all over the suburbs either.\u00a0 One game was in a remote suburb called Schwaben, which made me think that I should wear my lederhosen to the game.\u00a0 While nonattendance challenged our perception of ourselves as parents, Nick and I took a look at each other and said \u2013 and here is my pearl of wisdom \u2013<\/p>\n DON\u2019T GO TO ALL OF THE GAMES!!!<\/p>\n This \u201clight over Marblehead\u201d realization changed all of our lives in positive ways.\u00a0 We told Frances that we agreed that we did not need to go to all of her games, but that she would have to arrange her own transportation.\u00a0 She then contacted the team mother and generally rode with her.\u00a0 The real advantage here was that she developed a very nice relationship with another adult who essentially gave her the same advice and counsel that she rejected coming from us.\u00a0 Along the way, she developed more confidence by knowing that there was no sturdy parental safety net ready to scoop her up.\u00a0 She had to handle challenges on her own and derived more satisfaction in doing so.\u00a0\u00a0 On our part we got our Sundays back.\u00a0 We had generally horse \u2018n goggled for soccer duty, and now we could do things together, which had previously been rare on a weekend.\u00a0 Sure, we went to plenty of soccer games, but not all of them, and Frances did fine without us.\u00a0 \u00a0Now if only I could get a pick up game of dodge ball.\u00a0<\/p>\n Overscheduled children is a topic that I would like to see debated.<\/p>\n But I ***** not buck the system that had been so carefully created.\u00a0<\/p>\n Too much competition, no more pick up games, the thought filled my heart with *****<\/p>\n \u00a0At nine years old, what are the lessons we are teaching them, have we been all misled?<\/p>\n \u00a0Will our eager attentiveness stunt confidence and create a lack of respect?<\/p>\n \u00a0Like an ***** rising from the sand to bite the foot that has been standing on its neck.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n ]Answers:\u00a0 dared, dread, adder<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: The house is quiet after a busy summer of kids coming and going, and Nick and I can now settle back into our lives of empty-nesters with a reduced slate of parental responsibilities.\u00a0 I hear younger friends tell frenzied stories … Continue reading The missing words in the following poem are a set of anagrams (i.e. like spot, stop, post) and the number of asterisks indicate the number of letters.\u00a0 One of the missing words will rhyme with either the preceding or following line.\u00a0 Your job is to solve the puzzle based on the above words and context of the poem.\u00a0 Scroll down for answers.<\/h6>\n
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