I’ve Been Dubbed “The Worst Sports Mom”

"How was Avery's serve tonight?" my husband asked after I returned home from volleyball practice. I was lying on the couch, scrolling through Pinterest, busy saving all the pins I'll never look at again. "Decent," I replied. "Decent?" he asked, "What does that even mean?" His tone was serious, so I lifted my eyes from the phone, struggling to find words. "You know, she hit the ball over the net." He raised an eyebrow. "But did she use the form I've been practicing with her?" My eyes were wandering back toward my phone screen. I figured honesty was the best policy. "To be honest, I didn't watch any of the practice. I was busy talking to Sarah." He shook his head, "You're the worst sports mom."

My journey into being a sports mom was much like the journey of a lobster, going from swimming in cool water to boiling alive. It happened slowly, and then very quickly. In the beginning, when we just had golf practice once a week, the water was warm – comfortable. When we added on dance practice, the water was hot – like when you step into a hot tub and feel like your foot is going to burn, and there’s no way you can imagine submerging your lady bits in that lava. But when we added the twice-weekly volleyball practice, the water was boiling and the lobster was screaming.

I did not anticipate being a sports mom because I assumed my daughters would acquire my athletic abilities, which have been lacking since birth. (I also assumed they’d get my brown hair, but alas, I had blondies.) At age 5, I participated in gymnastics, but had to drop out because I couldn’t do a cartwheel on the balance beam. I couldn’t do a cartwheel to begin with, and I remember thinking that maybe if I hoped hard enough, I’d be able to do it on a balance beam. In the height of my eighth-grade awkwardness, my parents signed me up for a tennis camp and– no joke– gave me the antique tennis racket that belonged to my grandpa. It was made of wood and was half the size of everyone else’s shiny new rackets. I couldn’t hit the ball, ever. Talk about trauma.

I ran cross-country and track in high school and college because they required zero hand-eye coordination. Meanwhile, my husband is about as sporty as they come. And his hand-eye coordination? Hot damn. If you threw a marble at him with no warning, he’d catch it.

When we talked about kids prior to getting married, we discussed endless possibilities. Religion, formula vs. breast milk, private vs. public school. But we never broached the topic of sports. I assumed we’d do one sport per year. Meanwhile, my husband assumed our kids would try every sport that existed by age seven. And I shouldn’t have been shocked. When we go back to visit his childhood home, we sleep in his bedroom which is still full of framed newspaper clippings about his football success and wrestling trophies. His golf handicap is two, and his pickleball rating is 4.5. Whatever that means.

Given my traumatic history with sports, I assured my husband it would be fruitless to enroll our daughters in anything involving a ball. But my husband promised me that hand-eye coordination can be developed. Which is why I sit on a cold, hard bleacher for 90 minutes once or — depending on hubby’s pickleball schedule — twice a week. It’s how I found myself as a prime gnat target during soccer practices, burnt to a crisp during swim lessons, and awkwardly trying to navigate the dance-mom world while squeezing my daughter into a costume that looked like it might strangle her.

And regarding the accusation that I’m the worst sports mom? I don't deny it. I don't know much about sports, and given that we aren't (I am not) aiming to create Olympians, I have no intention of changing this. Do I really care if my daughters are great at sports? No. Do I have any idea what my husband thinks I should be looking for when I watch their serves? I think not.

Sometimes I wonder what my husband does when he’s at their practice. I know he brings his laptop “for work.” But the conspiracy theorist inside me believes he has a spreadsheet he uses to track their stats and take notes on their form. I imagine him giving them pointers during water breaks, pulling up a chair like the college basketball coaches during timeouts.

As for me? I use my time wisely. I’ve befriended a fellow bleacher sitter– the grandma of one of the girls on the volleyball team. She gives me book recs, and one time told me all the things she would have done differently in her life. “How do you even get onto topics like that?” my husband asked when I shared the wisdom I’d gained from volleyball practice. It’s rather simple: I don’t pay attention to what is happening in practice.

Sometimes, I do homework (for grad school– not my children’s homework, though it is tempting AF to avoid the nightly battle). Other times, I update my Target shopping cart for my next pick-up order. I keep an eagle eye out for the dad who is a pilot, and ask him for all of his thoughts on the latest helicopter or plane crash. I think about who I would be if I didn’t have kids. I consider whether now is the time to start dying my hair. I write articles. I wonder if I should pierce my ear cartilage, or if it will develop an oozing infection and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life, like my parents said it would. I envision my pelvic bones pushing through my muscle tissue and coming into direct contact with the cold, hard bleacher.

Occasionally, I raise my eyeballs to make sure my children haven’t been abducted. I do not check their form, nor do I give them any pointers. If they make eye contact, I do give a thumbs up. Or a grimace smile– the same kind I used for picture day in kindergarten, trying to fake that I enjoy sitting on this bleacher that is slowly destroying my posture, my ass, and my sanity.

I feel mom guilt about pretty much everything. But I give zero f*cks about my lack of being a good sports mom. And I’d consider this a win. In ten years, if you happen to see two blondies in the Olympics with a brunette mom on the sidelines who appears to be befriending other crowd members with little regard for what is happening sports-wise… then I guess we made it. And I had nothing to do with it.

Laura Onstot started writing to maintain her sanity when she left her career as a research nurse to be a stay-at-home mom. Unfortunately, she realized writing only revealed her insanity. She is not humble at all, and finds her own writing very funny. She forces her friends to read every article she writes, because praise is her drug of choice. You can find more of her writing at lauraonstot.com