irritated
I may be new enough to this sports mom thing to be naive about this, but it really surprises me (and irritates me, if I'm being honest) that baseball and softball schedules for my ten, nine, and five year old get to dominate my life for three consecutive months. I am okay with game schedules. They are given in advance and rarely change. But practices constantly getting changed to new days and times of the week with no explanation and little notice just bug the planner in me. One of our coaches in particular is awful about this.
Before yesterday, for example, Friday nights were baseball free nights in the month of April. Much of the rest of the week is dominated by sports, but Friday nights were ours. Yesterday, at the bottom of a team email about something else, though, it was kind of casually noted that this week's practice is changed from Tuesday night to Friday night. This mattered because as much as I hated to do it, I had to then cancel plans we have to get together for dinner and playtime this Friday night with some friends. (Missing practices is strongly frowned upon.) I emailed the team mom to ask for clarification if this was a one-time schedule change and was told that Luke has practice on Friday nights from now on. Yuck.
We just got done having Friday night practices for basketball and I kind of hated them. I realize I am complaining about an extracurricular activity I willingly signed my child up to do, but Friday night practices just seem a little much on top of already giving up the majority of our free time on Saturdays and Sundays for practices and games. When is it grown up free time? And when your child goes from basketball season directly into baseball season almost directly into soccer season and missing any games and practices is so strongly frowned upon, when are you supposed to have opportunities for weekend trips?
I was talking to my hairdresser about this and she, being a parent of a middle school and high school athlete, told me it is just going to get worse and worse. She sounded very matter-of-fact about telling me that for the next few years, the sports schedules of her children are the focus of her life. The family "vacations" they take revolve around tournaments. They can't go out of town for holidays because there is usually a game or tournament connected to major holidays.
Am I the only one who finds this a little strange? What if sports are not that big of a deal to me? Do I have to plan on revolving our social life around the kid's schedules for the next sixteen years? Is this a part of parenting I will just have to grumble through?
sigh.
Before yesterday, for example, Friday nights were baseball free nights in the month of April. Much of the rest of the week is dominated by sports, but Friday nights were ours. Yesterday, at the bottom of a team email about something else, though, it was kind of casually noted that this week's practice is changed from Tuesday night to Friday night. This mattered because as much as I hated to do it, I had to then cancel plans we have to get together for dinner and playtime this Friday night with some friends. (Missing practices is strongly frowned upon.) I emailed the team mom to ask for clarification if this was a one-time schedule change and was told that Luke has practice on Friday nights from now on. Yuck.
We just got done having Friday night practices for basketball and I kind of hated them. I realize I am complaining about an extracurricular activity I willingly signed my child up to do, but Friday night practices just seem a little much on top of already giving up the majority of our free time on Saturdays and Sundays for practices and games. When is it grown up free time? And when your child goes from basketball season directly into baseball season almost directly into soccer season and missing any games and practices is so strongly frowned upon, when are you supposed to have opportunities for weekend trips?
I was talking to my hairdresser about this and she, being a parent of a middle school and high school athlete, told me it is just going to get worse and worse. She sounded very matter-of-fact about telling me that for the next few years, the sports schedules of her children are the focus of her life. The family "vacations" they take revolve around tournaments. They can't go out of town for holidays because there is usually a game or tournament connected to major holidays.
Am I the only one who finds this a little strange? What if sports are not that big of a deal to me? Do I have to plan on revolving our social life around the kid's schedules for the next sixteen years? Is this a part of parenting I will just have to grumble through?
sigh.
Comments