{"id":254,"date":"2006-02-27T09:22:20","date_gmt":"2006-02-27T15:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/?p=254"},"modified":"2006-02-27T12:07:18","modified_gmt":"2006-02-27T18:07:18","slug":"year-of-the-soccer-mom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/27\/year-of-the-soccer-mom\/","title":{"rendered":"Year of the Soccer Mom"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend, I crossed a threshold that I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure I would ever be crossing. I am now a partaker in the weekend, rush-hour life of youth sports<\/a>. My son had his first soccer<\/a> meeting this past Saturday. The only thing that eased the fright of the loud chaotic room of kids running amok was the absolute look of eagerness and exuberance on my son\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face. The parents were a mixed group: half who looked liked this overkill of kid-crazy (imagine a Chuck E. Cheese<\/a> playroom on speed) was something they had gotten accustomed to after several years and then there were the ones that looked more terrified of this strange universe than if they were being charged at by a mad, flame snorting bull . I would fall under the latter category, in case you weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure. I sort of just backed myself up against the wall, wide eyed, and watched and listened and smiled and nodded a lot.<\/p>\n

I like to think of myself as a good parent. I pay attention and listen. I read stories and am an active participant in my kids\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 interests. I balance it with my life, making sure not to exclude my wants and needs. I feel I have found an equilibrium. However, and I am not sure if this is a shortcoming yet, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get into the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spirit\u00e2\u20ac? of the active-child lifestyle. I like that we sit around and read books and eat home-made cinnamon rolls<\/a> on Saturday mornings \u00e2\u20ac\u201c followed by a leisurely walk after our nap. I like that we have time spent sitting around parks and libraries, telling stories and making up games. Not to make it all about me but, I am not quite ready to let that go. But I think I have to. Seeing the look on my little boy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face this past Saturday makes me realize that he is ready to be a bigger part of the world. He is ready to get out there and make a mark \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and in order to do that, he musn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be exclusively sitting about eating cinnamon rolls and taking leisurely walks with his parents. His excitement is, really, all I need to get over the fact that in order for him to find his way that he has to break away from our cozy family time. And him realizing his independence and finding his passions in this world is, ultimately, the highest form of gratification for me. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll sneak the cinnamon rolls in later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend, I crossed a threshold that I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure I would ever be crossing. I am now a partaker in the weekend, rush-hour life of youth sports. My son had his first soccer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,4,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concerns-and-expectations","category-lifestyles","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}