The Mom Stories: The Labor of Love That is School Sports

Welcome to The Mom Stories, a series of relatable topics on everything motherhood. Listen as nationally-syndicated columnist and parenting author, Lisa Sugarman, tells her refreshingly honest perspective and experiences on the challenges that motherhood throws at you.

Hey Mamas! I’m Lisa Sugarman, one of the founding MentorMamas here at SocialMama. I’m also the mom of two daughters, a nationally syndicated humor columnist, a parenting author, and a radio show host based in Boston. And I’m here to bring story time for the busy MOM who just wants someone to read to HER for a change.

Because who says story time is just for kids?? What if someone was willing to read to YOU while you drank your morning coffee…from the bathroom…with the door locked? Something short and digestible and funny that was just enough to entertain you and give you something to think about. What if what they were reading had everything to do with the stuff you’re going through as a mom every day so you could totally relate? Well, here I am and I’m ready to offer you some exclusive read alouds of my nationally syndicated column It Is What It Is.

This week, we are talking about the sacrifice that is school sports. So grab your coffee, lock yourself in the bathroom, and let’s read.

Video Dictation:

As parents, we make more sacrifices for our kids over the course of their lifetime than most of us could possibly count. Some big, some small, but all designed with the same purpose of improving the quality of our child’s life. It’s just one small part of being a parent and it’s something we all know we’re going to have to do well before the sperm and the egg make their little love connection.

And these sacrifices we make, they range from giving up our last fortune cookie at the Chinese food place, to squishing our kids into the middle of the bed at 2am after a nightmare, to taking out college loans that bury us in debt well into retirement. But we do it all with a smile on our face and a full heart because they’re our kids and we love them and, in most cases, our parents did the same for us.

But let’s talk for a sec about one sacrifice in particular. It’s probably not one of the top-tier sacrifices that you’d expect me to be talking about, like moving cross country for a better-paying job or spending night after sleepless night caring for a colicky baby or listening to nothing but cheesy Top 40 pop radio in the car from the time your kids are in fifth grade until they’re old enough to drive.

The one I’m talking about is most definitely a lower-level give-up on the sacrifice chart, but it’s still relevant. It’s the one so many of us make in the spirit of giving our kids the experience of being part of something bigger than just little-old them. It’s the one that transforms our otherwise quiet and lazy weekend into a white-hot chaotic mess, filled with endless car rides, hours of sitting on cold bleachers or in saggy lawn chairs with numb fingers and frozen toes.

I’m talking about the languid, relaxing weekends we give up that enable our kids to be part of a sports team. And for those of us who’ve spent season after season out in the damp cold, blowing into our hands, losing feeling in our toes, and begging our coffee to stay hot just a little longer, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Now it’s probably because the sports season is in full swing in my cozy little town, and the sidelines and bleachers are all filled to capacity, that I’ve made an observation. And what I’ve realized is that as much as I may have bitched and moaned in the privacy of my own head about the endless car rides and sudden-death overtimes and playoff games, I’m actually jealous of all the young families who are newbies in the world of youth sports.

See, you do a lot of self-reflecting when one of your kids graduates from high school. And since my oldest daughter just graduated on Sunday, I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing about when my kids were young. Which, in turn, has led me to pause and relive a lot of my favorite moments over the years. And surprisingly enough, I’ve realized how many of those beautiful moments involved watching them practice or play on their sports teams.

Those three-hour-long track meets out in the early spring cold waiting for Libby to throw the javelin or Riley to run her 400 meters—events that are so quick you can miss them if you so much as sneeze at the wrong time—are priceless. And I think every one of us who puts everything on hold just to be able to cheer for our kids knows that these are some of our most cherished moments as parents. I mean really, what’s more endearing or hilarious than watching your five-year-old son score the winning basket for the other team on the basketball court? Or having ten soaking wet ten year-old girls pile in your car for a rain delay during a soccer game. Or cuddling under a blanket with a couple of other moms on the sidelines trying to share body heat. These are all little gifts—gifts we wouldn’t have if we didn’t sacrifice our time and freedom to make them happen.

Because when you add up all the hours spent taking our kids to and from practices, all the time traveling back and forth to games, and then all the hours spent watching them play, you’re talking about a pretty good-size investment of time and energy and, if you’re like me, vocal cords. But what we realize, usually after those days are long gone, is how much we loved those freakishly cold spring mornings or those playoff games or that hunt for the missing cleat when you’re already running late.

We love it because it gives our kids something we can’t give them alone. It gives them the experience of working as a team and of what it means to depend on the people around them and to feel the thrill of the win and the heartbreak of defeat—life lessons you learn best when you live them yourself.

So yes, die-hard fan of my children as I am, I admit that I’ve secretly prayed for Noah’s Ark-type rain on weekend mornings to wash out any possibility of a game, or a loss in the playoffs so the season ended quicker. But at the end of the day, I’d go back in a blink and do it all over again. And so would you. I’d just be doing it in one of those portable sideline shelters and wearable sleeping bags. I’m not stupid after all.

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About the Contributor:

Lisa Sugarman is a columnist and author living just north of Boston, Massachusetts. She writes the nationally syndicated opinion column It Is What It Is and is the author of How to Raise Perfectly Imperfect Kids and Be Ok with It, Untying Parent Anxiety: 18 Myths That Have You in Knots—And How to Get Free, and LIFE: It Is What It Is, available on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, and everywhere books are sold. She’s also the co-host of LIFE Unfiltered, the weekly talk show on Northshore 104.9FM. Visit her at lisasugarman.com, or find her on GrownAndFlown, Today.com, Thrive Global, Care.com, LittleThings, More Content Now, and Wickedlocal.com. You also can find Lisa on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.