Guest contributor Lowri Turner talks about getting the run-around when you’re a ‘soccer mom’ – not to mention martial arts and every other after school activity going.
We’re used to being told we need to get our kids running about, burning energy and engaged in sport or they’ll have to be craned out of their beds to have their stomach stapled by the age of 12 and a half.
Personally, I am fully in favour of kids doing sport. I regularly fantasise about my own children, happily streaking (well, not streaking, but you know what I mean) up a rugby/hockey pitch to win glory for their school team. There is only one thing wrong with this fantasy. It’s called a Nintendo DS.
Maybe in your house it’s an X box 360 or a PS3, or Facebook or Bebo. But, electronic wizardry has sucked every ounce of exercise motivation out of your average kid. When I try to prise my offspring away from their beloved computer games, they howl like a pack of unhappy werewolves on a full moon.
Still, you have to try, don’t you? I spent every Thursday of last year bundling my lot into the car and driving them to Tai Kwon Do. This year one’s doing karate, the other football. It doesn’t make much difference what the sport is to the poor parent, though. You still hang about for ages outside and have to re-mortgage your house to pay for the kit.
At least, my kids chose inside sports. How much worse it must be to be a touchline mum at this time of year, spending weekends losing the feeling in your toes on some muddy field. Come the 2012 Olympics, the audience at the opening ceremony should do a Mexican wave in recognition of the efforts of all the mums of the contestants, who managed to drag their sons and daughters to practise. The rest of us salute you!
And it’s not even as if your little blighters are grateful for your efforts to prevent their arteries furring up. Every week, one of my son feigns some mystery illness to try and bunk off. If I had wanted the role of the merciless PE teacher, I’d have gone to college to get a degree in clipboard and whistle management, thank you very much. Instead, I’m reduced to hissing: ‘I’ve spent £35 on your uniform, you’re going until you’re 29!’
The high/low point of my life as a cheerleader mum came this summer when I dropped my children off for their martial arts class and then my central locking went berserk, imprisoning my keys, handbag and phone inside the car. I tried breaking a window with a brick, without success. (I must have the only hoodie-proof VW Golf ever invented.) A locksmith and £120 later and we finally got home.
Now, they don’t mention that sort of hitch on those healthy kid posters, do they?