‘I’ve become an ordinary line screamer’

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Lizzy herself is not such a pushover, but when it comes to her son’s achievements, she cannot vouch for herself. Especially now that Mason (10) turns out to be a football talent, she frankly admits that she has become an ordinary line screamer.

I can’t sleep the night before the announcement of the football selection. After several trial training sessions at prestigious football clubs in the city, we hear the next day whether Mason has been accepted into the team of his choice. While my child and friend sleep soundly, I am grinding. I pray he’s there. Not because his future depends on it. We are talking about a seriously well-playing amateur club, but not about Ajax or PSV, nor about an expensive contract. Far from. The child has yet to turn eleven, for the time being all that is needed is money.

No, the reason why I’m so nervous is because I know that Mason’s biggest dream is to be a professional football player. And okay, also because I like it so much that my son shines at a high level. I really enjoy the atmosphere around competitions, cheering with the other parents, the exciting duels and the battle during championships. And then seeing my own son score the winning goal is absolutely amazing. Better than the very best orgasm.

Selection teams

Mason has been playing in higher selection teams since the age of seven, because his coaches consider it good for his development. Trainers praise his two-leggedness and his speed and he has been top scorer in every team.

“I have seen myself go from a silent spectator to an insane fanatic”

In those years I have seen myself transform from a silent spectator into a frenzied fanatic. I have acted as a material woman, assistant coach, lemonade inhaler and supervisor, but above all I am an ardent supporter of my son. And that is quite remarkable. I’ve never been very competitive. This is also because I was never a sports prodigy myself and won the poodle prize more often than the main prize in my life. I could only laugh about it.

Defeat

I can also lose at games over and over without getting cranky. With Mason and my friend Mark, the plate regularly flies across the room or someone walks away from the table in frustration. Mark definitely won’t let Mason win either. Not even when he was three and we played simple Miffy-Memory. Would it make him hard, Mark claimed.

I secretly suspected that he just didn’t want to be beaten. Not even a toddler. Losing is seen as a defeat by the gentlemen of the house, no matter how often I try to appease them with relativistic clinchers like ‘it’s just a game’. I used to dismiss this constant wanting to win from my men as childish and nonsense. Until my child started playing soccer and not only was Mason not to be enjoyed when they lost, but so was his mother.

Everything is a competition

With Mason, stubbornness is simply in his DNA. With him, everything is a competition. When we cycle to football practice, he starts a sprint for the last part. “I was really there much earlier, mom.” He likes to get dressed in thirty seconds. But often he competes with Mark: “I ate six pancakes and Dad only five”, or: “I can pee much further”.

“When it comes to football, I suddenly no longer appear neutral”

Usually I skip between them like a kind of Switzerland: “Wow, you both have a very strong pee jet.” But when it comes to his football, I suddenly appear to be no longer neutral. After a tournament I am completely in a bag in ashes because they came second. Or because Mason’s team conceded a goal in the last minute or was completely overrun by eight other boys and girls.

Mark finally laughs at me. He occasionally comes to watch a game, but doesn’t necessarily like it. Mark is of course proud of our son and thinks it’s great when Mason scores, but misses the supporter gene.

Read also – Messi in the making: if your child is Ajax material >

performance compulsion

Where does this urge to perform suddenly come from in me? No idea. When Mason was in kindergarten judo, I was also able to attend his games quite relaxed. I was surprised at the parents who yelled at the mat that their son should ‘kill’ and ‘take down’ mine. Most of the time I stood there watching with a mix of dismay and amazement. This was about a pennant, not a gold medal. Leave the damned now! If only they were having fun, right? But now that Mason is suddenly involved in the crème de la crème of amateur football, everything has changed.

“Gone is the Olympic ‘participation is the most important’ idea. ‘If we participate, then also like to win’ is now my credo”

Gone is the Olympic ‘participation is the most important’ philosophy. ‘If we participate, then also like to win’ is now my credo. I’m jumping, screaming and cheering along the side. I only try to encourage positively, because those are KNVB regulations and they are rightly very strict, but sometimes that only works with difficulty. Then I yell at the keeper to clamp the ball and not just shoot it away – or, in the short version: “Max! Hands!”

If the referee is way too partial in my opinion, I bite my cheek, but keep my lips together. But when my supporters along the side go crazy on the referee, I do talk to them: “What a dirty foul”, or: “He is a home whistler! This was a perfectly legal tackle on the ball!”

Ordinary line screamer

Actually to embarrass you to death that I have become such a common line yeller. Strangely enough, I am absolutely not fanatical in terms of my own achievements, but when it comes to my child I turn into a lioness. I just don’t like to see him fail. His annual Cito advice also releases something animalistic in me.

“His annual Cito advice also releases something animalistic in me”

I still believe that Mason should mainly follow the level that suits his ability. I myself have climbed from mavo to havo to mbo and hbo and our society needs more practically educated people than bright minds.

Still, I was a little peeved when my seven-year-old son’s spelling was only slightly above the national average. How is that possible? Mason was already speaking full sentences at the age of two and loves to read. He has become a veritable language Nazi, correcting anyone who says “my mother” or mixes up “if” and “then.” I wallow in pride when relatives say they think he’s crazy good at grammar and can tell he’s the son of a journalist.

Unfortunately, his report is not jubilant. I know how bloody irritating it is when parents go to teachers and master to complain and I really trust their judgment. But I have to swallow.

Tutoring

Friend Julia (38) recognizes that. Her daughter Fleur (10) suffers from a combination of dyscalculia and performance anxiety and starts to shiver as soon as her teacher announces that a test week is coming. She scored a 2 on her first math test. Her grades remained low for the rest of that trimester and she headed for doubling. A no-go for Julia, officially because of Fleurs height. She’s already the tallest in the class, staying down would mean she’d be a giant all over.

There was something else secretly playing with it: she didn’t want to have to admit to those around her that her daughter couldn’t keep up with school. Julia used to be someone who went through her education whistling. That is why she hired a working student who spent a few afternoons a week doing sums with Fleur for 35 euros per hour. With a positive effect. Julia was draining financially on the student, but Fleur got her grades up and moved on to 7th grade with fives and sixes.

Read also – Miss Merle: ‘Kes’s parents only want one thing: that he performs at school’ >

Competition and performance drive

Fortunately, when I ask other girlfriends about their competitive and performance drive, I quickly get support. I’m not the only one who likes to see his blood succeed.

Girlfriend Jasmijn confesses that she did everything she could to get her daughter Roos (11) to join a popular hockey club. She volunteered as a team coach and her husband’s company sponsored a fair share of the clubhouse renovation. Not because her daughter would become the new Naomi van As, but because this was a very desirable and major league playing club. Roos first played hockey at a local club, but there it was more about the fries afterwards than about the game. The girls lost every week and played hockey in the lowest class. Not something to brag about.

“The girls lost every week and played hockey in the lowest league. Not something to brag about”

With colleague Marieke, her performance orientation was proportional to the behavior of the parents of the opponent of her soccer-playing son Lars (7). If they weren’t chilling, she let herself go too and audibly encouraged Lars’ team. And that time when her son’s team beat the opponent 8-0, she was extremely happy, especially because of the other team’s arrogance. They showed up with three supervisors, a coach and an assistant trainer for a team of six boys. In addition, they brought a tactics board with them, including magnets and arrows. Marieke couldn’t resist subtly remarking afterwards that it had all helped very little.

Crying after the game

Although Marieke enjoyed her role as ‘soccer mom’, she has nevertheless unsubscribed Lars from the football club for this season. The mental state of her seven-year-old son was weighed down by the performance orientation of the trainer. She constantly had a crying child at home after a game and drew the line when she once heard the man bellow at practice and call the kids losers. That went way too far.

“The trainer called the children losers, that was going too far”

I totally agree with her. Football is still his greatest passion for Mason, especially now that he has been selected – to the great joy of mother and son – in the team that will play division. But if the pressure gets too much for Mason or if he decides to take up tennis or kickboxing or ballet tomorrow, I’ll support him in that as well. Although I’m afraid that as far as cheering is concerned I’m ruined forever and then I’ll be just as fanatical.

This article appears in Kek Mama 11-2022.

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