Mothering without a licence

August was marked by much anxiety about sports. I googled, I asked friends online and IRL, I blogged, I tweeted, I wrung my hands in anxiety. To hockey or not to hockey, that was the compelling question.

Do you like how I just turned hockey into a verb? If ‘friend’ can be a verb, so can hockey. And we, as a family, have decided not to hockey. At least, not yet.

When I realized that I was projecting many of my own innermost anxieties about social acceptance and peers onto the situation, I realized I had lost all perspective and sought the opinions of others. (The irony does not escape me that even in this, I seek external approval for my actions and validation of my decisions. Don’t judge me.)

There were many factors that informed our decision to not hockey, and many voices. On the pro-hockey side there were those who shared their own childhood hockey experiences, those who loved being a hockey parent (see, if hockey can be an adjective as well as a noun, surely it can be a verb as well!) and those who saw hockey as a natural right of passage for their sons and daughters. On the con side, there were those who expressed reservations about the cost, the culture and the violence. Annie of PhD in Parenting wrote a post that helped me crystalize my own reservations – read it here, because it’s worth seeing the other side even if you’re a rabid athletic supporter.

I was so torn that I first registered and then a week later de-registered one son from our local minor league team. The money and the time commitment were just too great, and I couldn’t rationalize the benefit against the costs. When I told said boy that we had in the end decided it was best for our family that he not play hockey this year, he looked at me mildly with this thoughtful brown eyes, shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Okay.’ For this I lost hours of sleep.

The absence of hockey gave us room for activities for two boys. One will join Beaver Scouts, something I find endlessly delightful. And, it’s around the corner on Thursday evenings instead of all over the eastern half of the province at wildly unpredictable times. The other was given a choice of activities, and he chose — be still my heart — guitar lessons.

There was more googling, more researching, more consultations. A school was chosen, a guitar was acquired, a teacher was hired, a time slot was secured. In the end, the total cost for the first year of lessons and the guitar may yet exceed the cost of the damn hockeying.

And you know what? I am happy with that. Moreso, I am delighted with this turn of events. We are artsy, musical people. (Well, Beloved and Papa Lou are musical. Me, not so much. Despite seven pathetic years of school band, I remain largely tone deaf and unencumbered by any sense of rhythm whatsoever.)

Here’s five reasons why guitar lessons trump hockey playing:

1. We do not risk growing out of this guitar in mid-season.

2. Guitar lessons do not take place at 6 am on a Saturday, or in damp, dank 12C arenas.

3. There is little to no risk of a concussion in guitar lessons.

4. Other parents do not yell angrily at your child during guitar lessons. (Although the jury is still admittedly out on whether we will yell angrily at our own children in the act of encouraging the practicing of said guitar lessons.)

5. Chicks dig guitar players.

We start our first lessons this week. I can barely wait!

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I‘m thinking maybe I need a new category for the blog: “Notes for future therapy sessions.” That way, the boys’ future therapists will have an instant body of research from which to draw.

You can’t really blame me, though. I mean, I had a COUPON!

Like so many of the misadventures in my life, it started with the best of intentions. I needed child care for the last week of August for the big boys. Late in the spring, I received one of those group buy e-mails offering half-price day camp. I checked the location and it was literally around the corner from where I worked. I checked the ages and they qualified. I checked the description and it said there was a circus theme with juggling and acrobatics. Circus camp? PERFECT! Clickety click, and they’re registered. Oh how I love the Interwebs.

Life is funny, yanno? You register your kids for a summer camp right around the corner from your work, and then six weeks later when the camp week comes up, you’re not working there anymore. You’re actually working way downtown, and what was right around the corner is suddenly a 20-minute detour out of your daily routine. Oops. If only that were the worst of it.

Beloved usually handles the morning routine, and so he was doing drop-off duty the first day of camp. He called me in mid-morning to check in, and reported that there was some apprehension when he pulled up the driveway and the boys noticed the sign for a dance school. A what now? Oh well, they’re probably renting out the space during the summer for extra income. That makes sense.

I should interject here with a little anecdote. Three years ago, one of the boy’s teacher called me to let me know that she had put him in the equivalent of a time-out during gym class. They were doing some sort of dance, and he had dug in his heels and abjectly refused to dance with a girl partner. It was one of the few times I got a call from the school that year, and I was more entertained than concerned. He doesn’t like to dance with girls? Meh, that will change.

Ahem. It took until the end of day two for the reality of our camp crisis to become apparent. It was not Circus Camp at all – it was Dance Camp. *dun dun DUNNNNN* Not only was it dance camp, but the ratio of girls to boys was about 15:1, which will be great odds later in life, but for your average 9 year old is one of Dante’s circles of hell. Even one whose best friend happens to be a girl.

And, true to his earlier self, it seemed my boy was rather, shall we say, resistant to the idea of dancing. I spent most of the drive home that day reassuring him that if it was truly that bad, he only had to tough it out two more days – I was scheduled for a day off that Friday anyway, and he could stay home with me. But he did have to suck it up for two more days, so we talked a bit about the value of trying new things, maintaining a positive attitude and making the best of a bad situation. And the whole way home, I was kicking myself. Dance camp? Really? How did you miss THAT one? Ugh.

(For the record, the other boy was all over the dance camp idea. I’m being vague on purpose here, because they’re getting to the age where their stories are their own and I am making some efforts to protect their privacy while still milking these stories for all they’re worth. If you know my boys IRL, you’ll have little trouble guessing which was which.)

Then a funny thing happened. On day 3, the boys were cheerful and full of stories of the adventure of their day. The boy who wanted to quit the day before said maybe it was not so bad, and he’d tough it out for the week. And oh, by the way Mom? There’s a show on Friday, can you come and watch us? And the day after that, there was question as to whether they could register for another week of camp next summer — or maybe even for the whole summer?

Huh. Turns out when you stop sulking and actually participate, you end up having a much better time of it. Who woulda thunk it?

Which bring us to the Friday show. Lucas and I both attended, and all four of us were surprised when Beloved managed to scootch out early and make it to the show, too. It wasn’t exactly Broadway, but we were well entertained nonetheless.

So that’s the story of how I accidentally registered the boys for dance camp, and how they overcame the adversity and managed to have a good time after all. And now I can take full credit for my actions and say with a certain smugness that I knew it would work out fine, and broadening their horizons was my goal all along. I totally intended this as a life lesson on keeping an open mind and trying new things.

At least, that’s what I’ll tell their future therapists…

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With three boys, it was inevitable that the hockey issue would come up sooner or later. The time I have long dreaded has arrived. One of the boys wants to play hockey.

I am totally torn about this. My Official Canadian Parenting Handbook says that any boy child must endure enjoy at least one season of playing hockey in his lifetime. My Official Lazy Parenting Handbook says that a hockey rink is a hell of a place to spend two perfectly good hours every week. My bank account shudders at the idea of $550 just in registration fees alone, to say nothing of gear. My husband thinks I’m insane for even considering it, and although is opposed in principal, will likely be swayed if I set my mind to it. My barely repressed rejected inner child thinks this is the key to popularity — or at least, of not being marginalized among his peers. My already insanely busy life has no room for up to an hour of traveling to various rinks throughout Eastern Ontario on game day, to say nothing of practices that may run any time from 6 am to 8 pm.

Most importantly, though, my boy asked for it. This is the boy who gamely endured two years of (expensive, lengthy) skating lessons and can still barely stand on the ice. The one who is already reasonably popular among his peers. The one who would rather sit on his hiney and play video games than do just about anything else.

I had no idea this choice — to register for hockey or to not register for hockey — would be so filled with angst. And that’s if you can even find the information you need to register. Thank goodness for this great post for rookie hockey parents from Kids in the Capital and a little handholding from a BTDT friend of mine, because you can’t find ANY other useful information online.

What I’m realizing is that really, it’s not even about the hockey. It’s about being part of the team, and the status that somehow infers on the rest of his life. I come from a place where I was the odd kid out, and still bear the scars today in an almost unreasonable anxiety that the same things may happen to my boys. Six hundred bucks and a couple dozen hours out of my year seem like a small price to pay to mitigate that possibility.

And then, my stubborn side kicks in and voices agreement with Beloved, who is vaguely resentful of the implication that you must join the giant hockey machine and fork out that ridiculous sum of money just to be part of some intangible club. I think of all those hours of lacing skates (OMG how I hate lacing skates) and lord knows I probably won’t escape without getting sucked into some infernal volunteer role with the club.

I wonder if he’s totally forgotten the tears, the cold, aching feet, the crazy rush through dinner to make it to the rink on time. I wonder if he, so like his mother, likes the idea of hockey more than he will enjoy actual hockey. I wonder if we’ll get as far as October and face a twice-weekly battle of wills, where I have to battle both my own inertia and his reluctance to play. I wonder if I’m overplaying the importance of this silly game in his peer culture. I wonder if I’m doing the other brother a disservice by not signing him up while I’m at it, which would be twice as awful all-around, unless I was wrong and it is that important.

I dithered about this for a month, and finally found the right person to ask about registration for our league. To my relief, she promptly replied that the novice level is completely full for the season, so very sorry. I breathed a huge and regretful sigh of relief. The decision was no longer mine to make, it was out of my hands.

Until the e-mail she sent just now, saying they just had some spaces free up. Did I want to register my son now, before they disappeared again?

I honestly don’t know. Do I?

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