Bad Sports Mom

This year, with Caleb being a manager for Varsity Basketball, I’ve come to realize that I’m not your typical sports mom. In fact, I think I’m a bad sports mom—or maybe not a bad one, but definitely different. I’m pretty sure the other moms didn’t want me to feel left out, so they added me to the team mom group chat. And let me tell you, it’s HORRIBLE. My first question is: do any of these people work? I get 20+ notifications a day from that group. We aren’t allowed to have our phones at work, so these messages come through on my watch, and it’s relentless.

I also don’t need my entire identity to be "Basketball Mom." Let’s be real here: my identity is that of an introverted mom who doesn’t particularly enjoy spending time with moms I don’t know. These moms are obsessed with food. Ever since they won districts, we’ve been bombarded with requests to plan, provide, pay for, or set up meals for the team. I get it—team dinners are nice—but do we really need smoothies in the morning, protein bars, sandwiches, snacks, drinks, and supper? How about we just feed our own kids like we normally do?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve participated—I brought snacks for the goody bags, I made dessert for the team dinner, and of course, I pay for Caleb’s meals when needed. But in my head, I’m thinking, “I made supper tonight, and there was enough for Caleb, too. And let’s be honest, it was probably something he liked because, well, Caleb will eat pretty much anything.”

I’ve half-jokingly and half-not-jokingly complained to Robb about this text group for weeks. We’ve had to order team mom shirts, and we even got Fatheads made for the boys. (Caleb doesn’t want one, since he’s not playing.) Caleb also doesn’t want me hanging around serving food, supervising, taking pictures, or doing most of the other mom “nonsense” that comes with the territory. Over the past week, I’ve had to say several times, “It doesn’t matter what Caleb wants; it’s what the mom group says needs to happen.” Hmmm...I feel like we’ve strayed from the purpose of all this, but what do I know? I don’t meet up at the bar to plan the week’s events. I took a nap instead of joining the Zoom call, and I still haven’t created a Google spreadsheet sign-up for anything.

Honestly, I’m just hoping that my half-hearted attempts at being a sports mom have kept me under the radar with the other moms—and, more importantly, haven’t annoyed Caleb too much.

I think as parents, we often make things harder than they need to be. And this, my friends, is one of those times.