My daughter called me out on my crappy poolside behaviour

"Oh f**k, this is me," writes mum Shona of the time she realised she'd become THAT parent.

Me before kids: “I will never (lots of things but one in particular) put pressure on my kids to win or be competitive with other parents about how my kids perform.”

Soccer Mum (according to Urban Dictionary): “They have no other role than to drive kids to soccer practice, music lessons, drama class, yoga for kids, summer camp and the mall. They are loud and annoying at games because they think they know more than the coach.”

Me now after having kids and recently after reading the Urban Dictionary ‘Soccer Mum’ definition: “Oh, f*ck, this is me.”

I feel like the sentence, “I will never be a _______ parent (insert anything)” uttered before you have kids almost guarantees that is exactly what you will be, or do, at least once, when you have them.

My insert here phrase was, ‘I will never be a Soccer Mum’ when I am a parent. In other words, I will never put pressure on my kids in a sport, or any other area, or be competitive with other parents (or their kids) when it comes to game day. Except, recently I realised this is exactly what I had become.

It was not on purpose and when I realised, I was mortified but it still happened, and I need to own it.

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I became the dreaded 'I will never... become a soccer mum', mum

You see, my eldest daughter, Addison, swims. She has belonged to a competitive swimming club for a year now. She trains multiple times a week and competes for most months of the year.

Addison absolutely loves everything about swimming – the hundreds of laps they do each training session, early morning starts, but particularly her teammates, many of whom are now her good friends and the club spirit and competition when it comes to race days.

As a mum, there is nothing better than witnessing your daughter love something so much, want to push herself to get better, enjoy even the most challenging and mundane parts of the activity and be motivated to keep going week in and week out, even during the super cold winter months. 

For many of the training sessions and all of the competition days, I am also poolside. While at training I try and multitask and work while she swims, I still often observe many of the drills and hear the coach’s instructions and feedback.

And while no, I am definitely not a coach, or even close to it, I do learn some things along the way, and I will talk about them with my daughter after training or when she is sharing with me about something they’ve done or are learning too.

But at a competition recently, I realised that little bit by little bit, these learnings have become ingrained in my psyche, so deep that as well as being oblivious to them, they, for a brief moment took over my judgement and I became the dreaded, 'I will never…become a soccer mum', mum.

Image: Supplied

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I was projecting my own competitiveness onto her

After Addison miscounted her backstroke count (how many strokes she does between the flags and the wall), losing her two places and two seconds (and a qualifying time) in the process, I put my head in my hands in disbelief. When she came back up to the stands, where I was sitting, clearly frustrated at herself, I shook my head and said to her “You miscounted your strokes.”

Yes, I said what she already knew instead of offering up support when she needed it. And do you know what she did? She (very rightly) asked, "Why do you do that?"

When I asked what she meant she replied, "Make a big deal about beating a time."

And when she said this the realisation hit me like a bag of soccer balls, I am what I promised I’d never be, I am a soccer (or in this case a soccer-swimming) mum.

I have become so caught up with her swimming that I am offering up assessments on her performance when I should be supporting her. I am projecting my own competitiveness onto her and through her too.

I was basing her performance on a time and by what she came in comparison to others, instead of looking at what was truly important, her enjoyment, her effort and whether she learnt from the experience.

And oh my, this realisation was hard to swallow but at the same time my lesson was learnt- my daughter doesn’t want a soccer mum, she just wants her mum, which is all I really want to be too.

Originally published as My daughter called me out on my crappy poolside behaviour