» Soccer mom tallies hours and miles driving and waiting for her kids :: Raising Athletes

Apr222009

Soccer mom tallies hours and miles driving and waiting for her kids

Filed under AAU Sports, Family, General, Marcia Griffith, Parents, Soccer by bob hammerstrom at 10:03 am

A couple weeks ago my son says very matter of factly ‘mom, you’ve been at the fields a lot this week.’ Like a drone I replied, ‘uh-huh.’ He leans over to look at the odometer and asks how many miles were on the van. ‘Wow, I wonder how many we’ll put on before the end of season,’ he says. I hate to think about it…I always cringe when vehicles inch closer to the 100k mark! You know what that means… repair and replace. I thought about how to track the mileage but that doesn’t make sense since it’s not the only soccer bus in the garage. And although it seems the vehicles are on auto pilot to the fields they do head for other tasks. Instead, I’m thinking I should gauge the effort not by mileage but by time driven and time waiting. So… last week I was on ‘duty’ and figured it was a good opportunity to get an accurate calculation. On Tuesday and Wednesday alone I spent 9.5 hours driving and waiting and began to rethink if I really wanted to know. With some reluctance to continue the tracking effort, I went ahead and added another 4 hours on Thursday. That was it. Disgusted at the three day total and the thought of what the final total could be, I decided not to count anymore. It was too painful. If all the hours, in all the years, spent catering to the sport were tallied, I wonder if I’d lose a couple years of life expectancy! What a scary thought. Maybe I should go back to tracking mileage… repairing the van seems like the better option than repairing and replacing me. Wait…on second thought, its best to just let it go. Does it really matter? I’m captive anyway. At the end of the day, what it comes down to, is simply that I get a lot of mileage out of the occasional ‘thanks mom’ and that’s enough to keep this engine running.

-Marcia Griffith

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Balanced Dad 7 months ago 1 point
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We've entered an age where we overschedule our kids and expect them to keep up...gone are the days of "one sport per quarter". Parents are looking to outdo other parents by giving their kid an edge by involving them in multiple sports during any one quarter.

Balance yourselves folks...you will burn your kids out and they won't have much gas left in the tank by the time their teens.

I would rather see families say no to mutliple sports per quarter, and teach their children the value of life balance.

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Marcia 6 months ago 1 point
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Balanced Dad - You make such a great point about finding a life balance in today's world of too much to do and not enough time! Oddly enough my family is sometimes criticized for being a single sport family. Folks don't think its well-rounded to have a singular focus but truth be told my kids have been offered to try other things and have declined... I'm actually happy with this plan because at least we don't need to play Superman in the back seat and change from one uniform to another. I'm sure there are parents who are looking to outdo each other or push their kids too hard... I see it on the sidelines...I also move away from folks like that. There are things, that we do in our family, that help to keep life in perspective and maybe I'll blog on that too.. but we make sure we have dinner together, at the same table, as many times as possible during the week, good grades are key - bad grades, no practice, having open communication about the coaches about the issues you raise regarding burnout, overuse, and school, and aliigning with other parents with similiar views. No doubt... life is faster these days and balance is key.

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