Play: Pushing, not plodding

Although our plans for the long weekend included a sport a day (college football on Saturday, over-30 soccer Sunday and the Tufts 10K Monday), it was Friday night's dinner with my friend Carole that got me thinking about the value of sports.

Carole is many things --mother, blogger, career woman-- but not a sports enthusiast. Still, over burgers and beers the conversation turned to what she considers her hyper-competitive nature.  As she bemoaned her need to be the best, my own hypo-competitive personality was thrown into stark relief.

I know that competition spawns excellence. But as it also invites failure and disappointment, I have long retreated to the safe haven of apathy. When a competitive situation arises, I smile politely and slowly back out of the room.  I loved basketball as a kid but gave it up to avoid try-outs.  I withdrew from sorority rush days before it began, unnerved by a roomful of girls scrutinizing me.  I don't fly Southwest anymore; the jostling for position necessitated by their lack of seat assignments gave me a stomachache.

This is not what I want for my girls.  Much as I adhere to the youth soccer league's no score policy, I truly wish that Big E cared enough to keep a running tally.  When I lament her politely abandoning the ball to any defender who challenges her, my husband dismisses my concern by telling me that she's smarter than all of them.  I like to think this is true.  And still, I know from experience that the world is skewed more to those who are first to the ball than those in the top reading group.

I thought maybe this weekend's events would provide me with some teachable moments for the girls:  this is how one cheers on one's alma mater, this is a penalty kick...please don't grow up to be a pushover like your mother. 

The football game, it quickly became clear, would not be the place to inspire an appreciation of competition.  Within the first few minutes, our University of Richmond quarterback threw an interception that resulted in a game-ending injury for him and a touchdown for the other team.  It didn't get better from there.  The only teachable moment came when a sloppy coed in faux-denim leggings and facepaint whiskers plopped herself onto the visitors stands and slurred "Richmond sucks..."  The take away: leggings are not pants.

The soccer game was equally fruitless.  Over the last couple of years, the girls have seen enough pushing, shoving, swearing, sweaty men to inure them to the competitive spirit out on the pitch.  They did marvel, though, at the artificial turf's ability to at once look like dirt, and yet not be dirt.  Perhaps there's a lesson there, but not the one I was looking for.

And so it landed on me to create the teachable moment with my race.  I thought I had an idea of what the takeaway would be.  On my training runs, I had reminded myself that all I really had to do was keep my breath steady and put foot in front of foot.  At the time it seemed an apt metaphor for life.  Yet when I found myself in that pack of 8,000 women all heading to the same place, I felt less slow and steady wins the race than go big or go home.

So, instead of plodding safely and breathing evenly as I'd envisioned, I jostled, struggled, surged, and gasped. I finished six minutes ahead of my target time, beat 5,645 of the 6,696 finishers, and felt elated for having actually competed.

The girls were less interested in my triumph than in the Happy Meals that my father had bought them while I was running.  But that's okay.  I learned the lesson and now I can teach it.

Dream: Seeking Shangri-La

A few weeks ago Little E and I stopped at a playground in the pedestrian mall of a nearby downtown.  I had just picked her up from daycare and was already out of step with the other moms by virtue of my shoes --high and pointy, not low and sensible.  Feeling out of place --and shunned by Little E who asked me to please sit quietly while she played by herself-- I sat watched as the woman on the bench next to me ranted to her friend.

"Two years and nine months," she shouted, gesturing emphatically.  "Two years and nine months.  If they tell me that the class will be two years and nine months in January, there better not be anyone in that class who's turning two years and nine months in February.  I see what the neighbors kids are doing in their preschool.  They're drawing faces and hair.  FACES.  HAIR.  We're just coloring.  JUST COLORING."

Were I not afforded a dual perspective on the "mommy wars" by my current part-time arrangement, I might wrongly chalk her hysteria up to too much time on her hands. But I know that this ultra-competitiveness, this hyper-awareness extends to the parents at Little E's daycare, as well. 

Just the week before, I attended the open house in her Pre-K class at daycare, where the parents peppered the teachers with questions carefully worded to reference both the extensive academic work they did at home and their child's prowess. (He's really mastered his capital letters, but how can we help him to neaten up his lower-case --when we do our writing practice...which we do every night?  When should we start doing math problems?  I mean she can write all of her numbers, but she can't quite add them yet.)  These are three-and-a-half year olds who spend up to 50 hours a week in daycare...and who apparently have a pressing need to keep up with their correspondence and balance their checkbooks.

Then there was Big E's first grade open house, where all of the parents sat, bent onto chairs a foot high, nodding approvingly as the teacher delivered a spiel that highlighted the word "work" above all others: "working snack", "nightly homework," "work them hard," "work, work, work."  Nary a "learn," "think," or heaven forbid, "enjoy" to be heard.  When one man asked whether his daughter had started receiving her special services yet, hands shot up around the room.  (Special?  What kind of special services are available?  How can I find out whether we qualify for special services?  How often can you get these special services?  What of I have a particular special service in mind for my child?) 

I won't get into Big E's soccer games, where my husband, the volunteer coach, gently explains the rules and encourages good sportsmanship to children whose parents shout instruction like they're on the sideline at the World Cup.  I won't go on about how every week those parents fold up their lawn chairs at the end of the game and walk off without a word, as my husband picks up balls and cones like the hired help.  I certainly won't mention the lady who called my house last Saturday during dinner to air her grievances about his volunteer coaching. 

The competitiveness, the entitlement, the un-funness of it all, I'd like to think it's regional, that I could pull out a map and find the town where three year-olds color without the pressure of adding hair, where first-graders' homework consists of the occasional diorama, where parents pull up to soccer practice and drop their kids off --or at least say "thank you" after scrutinizing the coach's technique for an hour.  I reminisce fondly about the rural town where I grew up (think Ross Perot signs and poor dental hygiene, not pastoral settings and organic produce), but my mother assures me that it's just as bad there.  I consider other parts of the country, but the chorus remains:  that's the way it is everywhere.

I dream of moving far away.  Maybe we could find our happy, laid-back existence amongst the lingonberries and flat pack furniture in Sweden.  Maybe we could move to Paris and dress the children in little coats and hats and send them out to experience the city with a benevolent nun.  Most likely, though, what I'm seeking is Shangri-La.

(Full disclosure:  I recently signed Little E up for weekly phonics lessons to the tune of $110 a month.  It is ridiculous, I know, and flies completely in the face of everything I believe.  I'm hedging my bets.  When I hear her singing "Monkeys making muffins, mmm, mmm, mmm..." it makes me feel a little bit better about her flat-out refusal to draw a face --don't even get me started on hair.) 

Play: Endless Soccer

I just finished discussing George Orwell's 1984 with my students.  I really should have been pondering parallels to the Patriot Act or U.S. involvement in the Middle East; my students did and they're only 17.  Instead, I thought about soccer.

The lives of the citizens of Orwell's Oceania are controlled in part by their nation's Endless War and its revolving enemies; my freetime is controlled by Endless Soccer. Just as Oceania wages an eternal battle with, alternately, Eastasia and Eurasia, soccer seasons, leagues, and obligations loop ceaselessly and undistinguishably through my life. 

It began when Little E was a baby and my husband took on a soccer coaching job, from that sprung our occasional fall afternoons watching him coach, his winter Thursday nights playing indoors, our fall Saturday mornings watching him play outdoors, our spring Sunday mornings watching him play outdoors, our summer Wednesday nights watching him play outdoors, our spring Saturday afternoons watching him coach Big E's soccer team, and our fall Saturday afternoons watching him coach Big E's soccer team.  This is not to mention the week of soccer camp enjoyed by both girls, the seven pairs of soccer shoes that have moved in, the bags of variously sized soccer balls in the trunk of the car, or the chirp of British "football" announcers that has become the official background noise of our living room.

I did not grow up in a soccer family; my parents didn't let me play until third grade --ancient in youth soccer, according to my husband-- and when they did they were unenthusiastic.  My two most defining soccer memories: my coach forcing me to play with my arms clasped behind my back after I was called for a handball while cowering in terror, and my mother not buying shin guards until my younger brother began playing, when we shared a pair between us --his size, not mine.  So, I get it when I tell Little E that it's time to go to another game, and she wails, "Not Soccer!"

I am out of place on the soccer sideline.  The intensity of the parents at Big E's games gives me stomachaches and their smug satisfaction at their children's prowess makes me wish that reading group were a spectator sport.  And I learned the hard way that when the other soccer wives compliment your husband's foot speed, it is not appropriate to point out that while it may appear that way in a short sprint he is so not able to keep up with you over any kind of distance.

Lest I be disappeared by the Suburban Thought Police, I must say it's not all bad.  Endless Soccer has gotten my husband in great shape, given Big E some much-needed toughening up, and allowed me to pretend that I'm seventeen again, cheering on my man.  It has also forced on me some needed perspective: my children are not me and I cannot always mold them in my image...sometimes I have to give my husband a turn.