I may embark on several journeys throughout my life, but I know I’ll succeed at them because I am a mom, and if I can succeed in raising tiny humans, then I can succeed at anything. However, I’m still learning how to pick my battles and stretch myself into unfamiliar ground. Having children introduces you to different things that take you out of your comfort zone. For me, that’s sports. I really don’t like sports. Do I watch the Olympics? Yes! Do I love yoga? Absolutely. Meditation, any time! But as far as traditional sports, like baseball, football, hockey, basketball, even soccer (my Croatian roots are protesting) is not fun to me. You may catch me every once in a great while shooting the ball at my gym—but it’s always alone, always half running. Watching sports does not entertain me. Sports, to me, equals big egos and senseless violence.
However, my son loves sports. He loves football, basketball, soccer, baseball… if it ends with a “ball” or requires a ball, he is all over it. This past summer, he played baseball for the rec department. He was so excited to play, but I was sad that half of my summer was going to be spent watching him attempt to catch a ball. However, I’m a mom, and this is what parents are born to do – watch and encourage your children. I found solace in a friend of mine who also had her son and daughter in baseball. We would walk around the park and talk about our week. We would try to sit down during games and try to pay attention but ended up being those annoying fans at Brewers games. Sports fans know the ones…the ones you whisper about to your friends, “Why are they even here?”
It’s hard to be a parent of a kid who loves something, anything, that you don’t. We live in a world where a panel of strangers judges every action. If you’re on social media a lot, you’re expected to have a picture of your kids doing these things and you right there, as their cheerleader and number one fan. And it’s not that I’m not, I just cannot for the life of me get into sports, no matter how attractive JJ Watts may be to my friends (sorry JJ).
I go to his games. I may put my sunglasses on so no one can see what I’m really looking at (the clouds), but I plaster a smile on my face and yell go when I hear my husband cheering him on. I’m always the mom who is happy that the underdog scored a win, and it never matters what team they’re on. I’m the one who doesn’t care who wins, so long as everyone had fun.
I will always take pictures, and I will always be there for my son. However, I will not feel bad about not caring as much about the game as other people. I am there for my kids in every other aspect of life. I cheer when I hear others cheering, and I console him when I hear him crying. Most importantly, I tell him how proud I am of him, proud of him for playing; and if he wins, that’s just a bonus.
