Helicopter Moms: My son the jock

 

SKOKIE, Ill., Oct. 13 (UPI) -- I never thought I'd say this, but I miss attending my son's sporting events.

I am not a sports fan. I freely admit that -- and the only reason I understand baseball, football, basketball and hockey is because I've had to write about them -- often from the statistics.

Cold, rainy April afternoons on the baseball diamond, loud basketball courts divided for four simultaneous games, hot, humid swimming pools -- I thought I hated it all. Don't get me wrong. I never missed a game and I cheered as loudly as I could for my son and his team.

During downtime, I complained with all the other parents about the weather, the noise, the uncomfortable seats.

When he was 7, my son challenged me to a race in the park district pool near our house. He beat me.

I started teaching him how to play tennis when he was 8. I dislocated my shoulder trying to show him how to serve.

So much for mom and sports.

Dad took the kid skiing when he was 12 or 13, and he was riding the chair lifts on his first lesson.

Imagine my surprise as November and boys' swim season approaches that I find myself feeling melancholy because I won't be sweating, eyes watering from the chlorine, in the dark, dingy pool area at his alma mater.

The final meets last year were the best. My son had his own cheering section. All of the seniors did. There were only five of them though Michael Phelps' showing at the Beijing Olympics swelled the ranks of the freshmen, sophomores and juniors joining the team.

My son's name is on the record board this year. He broke the record for the 50-yard freestyle last season and was part of a four-man team that broke the record for the 200-yard freestyle relay. I'll probably never see it.

Sports was never a big deal in my family. My brother never played on any organized teams because we had no way of getting to the venues in the evening with my dad always working late, and girls just didn't do that sort of stuff when I was growing up.

My husband, though, was a jock. He was overjoyed his son turned into a BMOC.

The kid was really cute as a T-baller and lost his first baby tooth when he caught a ball with his mouth. He learned to keep his glove up after that.

He had wonderful baseball coaches the first four years he played and was a pretty good hitter until he had a growth spurt and lost some of his eye-hand coordination.

Basketball was the worst. There were so many games going on at the same time, I never could figure out which whistle was being blown on which court.

I have to say there was a pretty good group of parents involved in all this. There was none of the bad behavior you hear about -- no yelling at the umps or refs. No demanding more playing time (community league rules forced coaches to rotate their players fairly, without regard to ability) by disgruntled parents. He did play on a traveling baseball team one summer, and encountering the parents from some of the ritzier suburbs and their attitudes was an eye-opener. There's a lot to be said for the community leagues' more laid-back approach.

The junior high basketball team was easier on me than the earlier four-teams-all-at-once youth sports league games. Initially, my son told me not to attend the junior high games. So I stayed away from that first one. Of course he was injured and was angry I wasn't right there to soothe the hurt.

But all that's over now. I'll have to find something else to do with all that free time.

(Editor's note: Sometimes it's hard to tell whether you're tackling motherhood in the 21st century -- or being tackled by it. This is the latest in a series of reflections by UPI writers.)