Is Suburban Life Only a Contact Sport?
September 16th, 2009
This item was written by Savita Iyer-Ahrestani. She is a freelance financial journalist who guest blogs for Working Parents.
Saturday morning in a town in Central New Jersey, not too far from New York City: I’m walking with my family down the main street, and all around us, we see children kitted out in soccer gear. Even the tiniest ones sport cleats and knee pads.
Later that day, I look out of my window onto the backyard I share with my neighbor. I see her small grandson learning how to score a goal. In the house next door, a couple of older kids are also kicking a ball around.
The first question we have been asked by just about every person we have met since we moved to this place 10 days ago is: “Do your children play soccer?” No one has wanted to know where we came from; what we do in life; why we are here; whether we need some help figuring our way around. Soccer, apparently, is the only thing that counts.
The boys in my son’s class had no interest in the fact that he has completed a rigorous, nationwide swim program in Holland – one that required him to dive fully clothed into a large pool and swim its length 12 times using a variety of different strokes.
“Swimming isn’t a real sport,” one of them sneered.
Hello Michael Phelps, are you reading this?
One mother I meet among the droves planning their childrens’ weekend soccer activities tells me in not so many words that soccer is a passport to social acceptance in this town. Doing it or not doing it will determine whether you meet people or you don’t. Whether you make friends or you don’t. She is elated that after several years of trying very hard for it, her husband has finally been bagged a position as assistant coach for her daughter’s team
Left to myself, I wouldn’t care less about this. But I have children for whom the move from a cosmopolitan European city to a suburban town in the U.S. is proving tough enough. As a parent, I want to do everything I can to make my children feel comfortable and secure in their new environment. To make them feel a part of their surroundings. If contact sport is the key to acceptance in the suburbs, then, my conformist side believes we should make a try.
My five year-old daughter is interested in joining the Saturday soccer training. But my eight year-old son has never really liked the game. In Europe – people are soccer crazy there, but in my experience, whether we played or not had nothing to do with our being part of a community – he enjoyed playing casually with his friends, and many have said he’s a decent player. But he never showed any interest in joining a team. And that was not a big deal: He still had friends.
I personally believe that there is a lot more to a person than their athletic prowess. But this is a new place, though, and he needs to make new friends. Over an ice-cream, I tell him a little bit about how important team sports are in America and their social meaning.
“You’re a pretty good player,” I remind him. “Do you want to join up?”
“No,” he replied firmly. “I don’t. I really don’t”
We talk a bit more, but he is resolute. He will not play soccer.
I am proud of my son. I will support him in his decision to not do soccer but to continue with his swim training and his violin lessons. I will sign him up for the art class he wants to take.
But in not doing what everyone else does, how large is the risk of not being known? Of my son perhaps not getting any birthday party invitations or playdates? Of my husband and I being viewed as reluctant community members?
Suburban parents, should you push your child to do what all the other children do? How great are the consequences if you don’t?
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