Mama Mia Hamm

In Texas, football is king and therefore, cheerleading is queen. Now, while I take issue on their not being a self-imposed age, not to mention gender, limit on cheerleading, I have no problem with children cheerleading. My daughter doesn’t cheerlead because we’ve decided our family functions best when each child is in no more than one extra-curricular activity at any one time. And since football season directly overlaps with fall soccer season, my daughter has chosen soccer. Now, I’m happy about this choice for lots of reasons: soccer is very inexpensive compared to cheerleading, the gear required is a lot less complicated and there is no requirement for me to fix her hair prior to games. Had she chosen cheerleading, I would have sucked it up... but alas, I’m not disappointed. Plus there is the added bonus that she is really good at soccer and would probably be just an average cheerleader. I don’t know this for sure, but I have my suspicions. (I’ve seen her donkey kick.)

Now, I try to keep my biases to myself as much as I can when dealing with my children. They are not me and are entitled to their own interests and opinions (please God, don’t make me sorry about this by allowing them to grow up to be Republicans.) There are moments, however, when you just know you’ve rubbed off on them... either through nature or nurture. Last Saturday’s game was one of these times. There is a teammate of my daughter’s who also cheerleads. It’s actually really cute when she does cheers for her own soccer team from the sidelines. However, last week my daughter’s team was in the middle of tight game and my daughter and the cheerleader were on the field at the same time. Well, the cheerleader decided to go ahead and cheer while ON the field—in the middle of the game. Apparently this was the equivalent of sacrilege to my daughter, who turns around and yells at the top of her lungs while doing her best zig-zagging finger snap, snap, snap, “HEY!!!!! HEY, HEY, HEY... IF YOU WANT TO BE CHEERED FOR YOU CAN STAY ON THE FIELD!!! IF YOU WANT TO CHEER, GET TO THE SIDE LINES ‘CAUSE THE FIELD IS FOR PLAYERS!!!”