Opinion
Kids’ sport would be so much better without the parents. #prayforrain
Michelle Cazzulino
WriterSeasons of mist? Mellow fruitlessness? Winter sports season must be back.
You spent all of last week commando-crawling your way to knock-off time before basking smugly in the lambent warmth of Friday night. Your reward, my breeder friend, was to find yourself sclerotic and saturnine in the middle of Freezing Park on Saturday morning, contemplating a tepid coffee, making small talk with Some Kid’s Parents and playing chicken with the rain while watching the mighty 9Fs getting the cleaners put through them.
These parents’ secret rain dance on Friday night wasn’t quite up to scratch. Credit: iStock
The final score wasn’t the point though, right? You were imparting life lessons that would stay with your beloved sproglet forever, and while the forecast was diabolical, you were among the chosen few whose local council didn’t bother bowing to the weather gods and close the park. Either way, come half past soporific o’clock next Saturday, you will once again be required on a sideline somewhere. So here is a refresher course on the personalities you might adopt/encounter in the process.
Game On: You’re a frequent flyer on the Weatherzone website from 8pm on Thursday until 6.59am Saturday, and during that time, any change to the forecast prompts either unabashed glee (monsoonal rain) or sinking depression (zero chance of precipitation). You spend every Friday evening chirping things you don’t really mean, like “let’s pray for sunshine”, while secretly performing a rain dance for the fickle pagan god of thunderstorms.
Game for Anything: You’ve always been a morning person, but it was a bit chilly today, so you allowed yourself a five-minute lie-in. Bliss! Then, fully recharged, you leapt up at 3.05am, centred your chakras, smashed out 15 kilometres on the stationary bike and ferried little Ollie to rowing at 4.30am. lululemon, Lucozade and latte. The holy trinity.
“Just don’t tell anyone you’re not actually seven.”Credit: iStock
Ahead of the Game: You emigrated from Glasgow a decade ago, and you still can’t believe how soft these locals are, with their farcical insistence that 8C is cold. And don’t get you started on what they do here if it’s drizzling. Why, you once played a whole tournament on the top of East Antarctic Plateau! A couple of kids copped frostbite and had all their extremities amputated on the field, but there’s no “I” in “mass casualties”! OK, there is. But that’s beside the point!
Game of Thrones: Your kid is practically Cristiano Ronaldo, but there’s a lot of pressure to keep a spot in the 7As. If anyone ever found out that you doctored his birth certificate and that he’s actually 16 and extremely short for his age, your burgeoning dreams would become a smouldering mess. So, you spend every Saturday morning in deep cover, covertly cross-examining other parents by posing subtle questions, like “how did you find the food in the maternity unit in 2017?” whilst asserting that your offspring’s abilities were FedExed to the playing field by God himself.
Skin in the Game: You did your research and calculated the risks. Having ruled out league (concussion), union (concussion), AFL (concussion), soccer (concussion), netball (knee injuries), ballet (gender stereotyping), swimming (it’s winter!), you can happily report that Matilda is really enjoying her inaugural season of mahjong.
Give the Game Away: Your kid, armed with a water bottle and shin pads, was second to arrive today, therefore your work here is done. Now to the real business of Saturday morning: covertly checking emails and footy scores and looking up from the phone at timed intervals to establish plausible deniability in case anyone accuses you of being disinterested. As if!
Wicked Game: The red mist has been building all week, but that’s beside the $#@#@$ point. Which clown taught these %^$%$# four-year-olds to dribble, anyway? Fortunately, you were on hand to momentarily unsee the ball cross the sideline and to intimidate the 12-year-old ref into calling it in. These $#@@$%& preschoolers are lucky to have you. Chokers!
Still in the Game: Your youngest son is 22 and was last seen backpacking in Ecuador, so technically you don’t actually have anyone in the Firsts. But you don’t see why you shouldn’t tug on your own (now slightly snug) leavers’ jersey and stand on the sideline regaling these young Turks about the heady days when you and the boys gave those 15Hs such a hiding that they couldn’t sit down for a week. Everyone loves your war stories.
Game Over: Your kid is nudging age 12 and has been in the same team since kindy. You have, to date, skilfully avoided the coaching and managing gigs by deploying a series of verbal gymnastics that would’ve made you a walk-up start for the Chinese women’s team, if you didn’t happen to be a 120 kg Caucasian man. Arise, Sir Dodge-a-lot, your hour has arrived. BYO oranges and #prayforrain. You’ll need all the help you can get.
Michelle Cazzulino is a Sydney writer.