Maybe I’m Too Selfish to be a Soccer Mom.
Tags: Family

Maybe I’m Too Selfish to be a Soccer Mom.

When Extracurricular Activities Interfere With Me Time

Photo credit: Hussain Ibrahim via Unsplash

Just typing the title makes me feel like a piece-of-crap-mom. But admittedly, it’s the truth.

There’s nothing I want more for my kids than for them to be members of academic clubs and social organizations, play sports (if that’s their gig), and basically be involved in all things extracurricular. If they’re happy, it keeps them busy so that they’re not out having sex and experimenting with drugs, and ultimately it will look good on a college application: I support it wholeheartedly.

Well, maybe just half-heartedly.

Before I delve in, let’s back up for a moment and examine this need I sometimes have to just be left alone.

My entire adult life, I have never experienced a period of being solitary, completely independent from anybody else. Since high school, I’ve gone from one long-term relationship to the next, with brief bouts of sporadic singlehood in between. From age 19, I went from living with college roommates for four years to having a husband and kids. Now that I think about it, I’ve never even known what it’s like being married without kids, because my ex and I (or fate, perhaps) decided we’d go about it in reverse order.

I honestly can’t remember the last time — for longer than a few hours, maybe a day or two—where my world consisted of just me. A time when I was able to focus primarily on myself.

I’m thinking, maybe, I was around 14.

Not to appear selfish — although I know I probably do— but when you perpetually carry the responsibility of tending to the wants and needs of everyone else, you need a recovery period. Some down time. Me time.

This rarely happens.

It appears that the desire I have for my children to be involved — and my own desire to do absolutely nothing after I’ve ended my workday — simply cannot coexist.

I’m going to be completely transparent here. So judge if you will.

Let me preface all this by saying that I love watching my daughter play soccer. Just last night, my daughter’s team played her dad’s high school Alma Mater, so he made the drive down to watch.

Her dad is fairly judgmental, so she has always been nervous to play when he’s in attendance. She was even more scared of not being put in the game at all. So I was completely overjoyed that, not only did she get a lot of playing time, but she also did an awesome job. I was even more thrilled when we beat them, 5-1.

So now that we’re clear that I’m not a total monster — that I do take great pride and enjoyment in my children’s experiences and accomplishments and activities — I will proceed with my small rant.

I would love the whole soccer mom life much more if games didn’t start at 7:30 at night, with us not returning home until around 9:30. I would love it a step further if my daughter’s extracurriculars didn’t have me picking her up from practice at 8:00 p.m. It would be superbly awesome if I wasn’t required (or strongly urged) to volunteer working the front gate at games or clean up after chili suppers. Yes, I understand that in order for these events to be successful, they require parental involvement and support. While I know that I cannot be forced to donate my time and money to these efforts — nor will my child get kicked off the team if I don’t send in 200 plastic spoons and 5 packages of oyster crackers — I also don’t want to be frowned upon by the veteran soccer moms as being that girl. I’m fairly new to soccer momhood, so I don’t want to leave a bad impression.

Something I’ve noticed, though, is that some parents genuinely appear to love that involvement.

Fundraisers …woo hoo! YES — let me take the reins on this one. I’ve got some great ideas. By the way, do you need help in the concession stand —like, above and beyond the one time per season that we’re strongly urged to work it? Because I will totally do that…sign me up to work every single home game. And if the opposing team needs help, I’ll work the away games, too.

Maybe the overeager, overachieving, I-wanna-do-it-all-and-then-some parents can pick up the slack for those of us who do well just to make it to the games on time. I’m not being facetious. There really are some parents who love going above and beyond…and kudos to them. Sometimes I wish I was one of them.

Alas, I am not .

Every now and then, do you know what I’d really love to be doing during that 2-hour gametime window? That moment between when the clock starts ticking, and when my daughter finally emerges postgame from the field house, trudging as slowly as possible towards us tired and impatient family members waiting on the sidelines? Or during the hours I’ve accumulated driving to and from practices, and the wait time in- between (which isn’t long enough to actually start doing anything because then I’ll just have to stop to go pick her up)?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing…at home… and in my pajamas.

Or maybe unwinding by writing. Perhaps painting my toenails, or taking a bubble bath. Having a few beers or a bottle of wine. Who knows, maybe two bottles of wine, in an attempt to decompress from a whole year of not having the time to decompress. Regardless, it wouldn’t involve driving anywhere, participating in any activity that occurs in a public place, or putting on real clothes.

This puts me at a crossroads: A.) Appeal to my own self-centered desires, forbidding my children to do anything more than hop off the school bus and stay chained to their respective bedrooms, just so Mommy can zone out and tuck herself into bed at 7:00 or B.) Put aside my own self-centered desires so that my kids can go and do and be. Even if it means that I’m so tired and irritated that I write articles about being tired and irritated.

Quite the conundrum.

I know there must be a balance between the two. But after 16 years and three kids, I still have a hard time finding a way to be completely present for my children, while also giving my own needs and wants the attention they deserve now and then.

Obviously, I choose B the majority of the time. But until I discover the secret to achieving a happy medium, I can always lock myself in the bathroom or resort to one of my many other methods of finding a few minutes to myself.