Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
A Response to My Last Post
I put up my post, chronicling my worry and fear about whether I'm being a good enough Mom for Grace right now, and received this response from a friend via my Facebook page. I got all weepy as I read it at the rink while I watched Grace skate. She had a fantastic lesson today with Jason. When she's on, she's just breathtaking! And so is this response to my post. I have permission to share it with you! Thanks, Erica!
Hi Frankie,
As a fellow blogger, I just wanted to send you a private response to your blog about Grace and the upcoming competition.
Reading through your blog as a mom-person ... it seems to me you and Grace have a parallel experience going on. So I thought I would, as Chris Gallagher says, "risk complexity" and offer you some unsolicited advice ...
She hasn't been able to find the joy this week, but then, it seems neither have you ... so I'm just wondering if the "lesson" this week is about modeling joy in the face of disappointment or difficulty. The transition into a new skating class, with a higher calibre of girls, will require Grace to work through some stuff, and part of that may mean she needs the new hair and dress to embody the performance of a self she'll become (but may not be just yet). I know it's difficult in a sport, because there is an emphasis on outcomes (whereas in writing we can focus on the process), so here's my unsolicited advice:
Make time to discuss how beautiful her struggle is, how her passion is an embodied thing (the shaking), and how fortunate you are to witness that. (This will help you, too). Her name is, after all, Grace. Sometimes, we moms focus on protecting our kids from pain, forgetting that the pain of birthing a new self (in this case, a new skater) really is like labor. She might need you to be the "midwife of her ideas" (I knew I could work Socrates in here somehow), to model the love and language of love within the struggle (bell hooks).
Praise the difficulty, be thankful for it (in a karmic sort of way) because it means Grace is being prepared, honed, challenged in order to gain tools that will serve her well later, in ways you can't possibly imagine.
But most of all, don't forget you too are learning to be a new kind of skater mom. And I'm willing to bet this process is beautiful, Grace-ful, and affirming in the end.
There. I know I don't know you very well, but I wanted to send this to you because I have to watch my kid take it in the chops every time she competes in culinary competitions. My mom alarm always sounds, the "should have" or "should I?" voices start, and I forget to witness her beautiful struggle as only another woman and mother can.
Have a great day!
Erica
Hi Frankie,
As a fellow blogger, I just wanted to send you a private response to your blog about Grace and the upcoming competition.
Reading through your blog as a mom-person ... it seems to me you and Grace have a parallel experience going on. So I thought I would, as Chris Gallagher says, "risk complexity" and offer you some unsolicited advice ...
She hasn't been able to find the joy this week, but then, it seems neither have you ... so I'm just wondering if the "lesson" this week is about modeling joy in the face of disappointment or difficulty. The transition into a new skating class, with a higher calibre of girls, will require Grace to work through some stuff, and part of that may mean she needs the new hair and dress to embody the performance of a self she'll become (but may not be just yet). I know it's difficult in a sport, because there is an emphasis on outcomes (whereas in writing we can focus on the process), so here's my unsolicited advice:
Make time to discuss how beautiful her struggle is, how her passion is an embodied thing (the shaking), and how fortunate you are to witness that. (This will help you, too). Her name is, after all, Grace. Sometimes, we moms focus on protecting our kids from pain, forgetting that the pain of birthing a new self (in this case, a new skater) really is like labor. She might need you to be the "midwife of her ideas" (I knew I could work Socrates in here somehow), to model the love and language of love within the struggle (bell hooks).
Praise the difficulty, be thankful for it (in a karmic sort of way) because it means Grace is being prepared, honed, challenged in order to gain tools that will serve her well later, in ways you can't possibly imagine.
But most of all, don't forget you too are learning to be a new kind of skater mom. And I'm willing to bet this process is beautiful, Grace-ful, and affirming in the end.
There. I know I don't know you very well, but I wanted to send this to you because I have to watch my kid take it in the chops every time she competes in culinary competitions. My mom alarm always sounds, the "should have" or "should I?" voices start, and I forget to witness her beautiful struggle as only another woman and mother can.
Have a great day!
Erica
Preparing for Competition (A Mom’s Insecurity Rant)
Winterfest is fast approaching and with it stress and anxiety for both Grace and me. I woke up this morning thinking about all the things I’ve done wrong as the parent of a figure skater.
I bought Grace a beautiful new dress for her compulsory program. But what if the new dress elevates the importance of competition, increasing her sense of the pressure around Winterfest? Yesterday, Grace got highlights in her hair to show off the blue of her eyes that match the blue of her Free Skate dress. What if she starts to think that she always has to change how she looks to be good enough for skating?
Week before last, Grace seemed to be skating beautifully, with joy. She was coming off the ice vibrating with pleasure at what she can do. This past week, she has struggled. She’s been tired and slow, struggling with program elements that seemed to come easily the week before. What if I’ve emphasized the competition too much so that Grace’s attention has gotten locked on the possibility of failure instead of on the joy of skating her best in the moment in which she finds herself?
Grace has been skating a lot. She skated fourteen days in a row, had one day off, and is now in the middle of an eleven-day stretch that ends with the competition. In the moment, she wants to skate, but what if I’ve given in to desires that aren’t really good for her? Maybe I should have said “No. You have to take three days off before you can skate again.”
Grace likes to win. But this time I really don’t expect her to medal. She’s skating at a new level against girls her own age who are great skaters as well as against older skaters who’ve been at this level for a while. What if I’ve not done a good enough job of preparing her for skating for herself, to discover what she can do on that day instead of skating to win? What if she peaked too soon so that she can’t successfully skate for herself with joy?
On Fridays, Grace typically gets to the rink after school at about 4:30. She skates with Coach James, takes a little break, and then helps out with the Moylan Learn to Skate program. She helps the adult coaches corral the youngest kids, plays with them, and helps them accomplish skills their coaches are teaching. This past Friday, James couldn’t be at the rink. Coach Jason had a cancellation so Grace had a lesson with him instead.
Grace admires and respects Jason like no other adult in her life. When she makes Jason smile or accomplishes something on the ice that elicits his praise, she is in seventh heaven. When he criticizes her work, she takes it in and works incredibly hard to apply what he’s teaching to her skating. Grace wants to be the skater Jason is always proud of and when she has a rough day, when he calls her out for being sloppy or slow on the ice, she is devastated.
On Friday, Grace’s skating was loose and sloppy as it has been all week. Jason told her so in no uncertain terms. She came off the ice vibrating, but not with joy. She was trying to hold in her disappointment and her tears. She wanted nothing more than to leave the rink. We talked about how she was feeling until she had words to say what she wanted and needed. We decided together that the right thing for her at that moment was to go home and regroup. She went back out on the ice to talk with the LTS director about not staying to coach. Jason called her over and she tried to tell him why she was leaving, but got tongue-tied. I took her home, stopping for pizza on the way, and let her watch movies till bedtime.
Saturday, we got up early and drove to Fremont for her power skating class. She did okay. Not great, but okay. She practiced after class for an hour. I got frustrated because she was repeating elements badly over and over that I know she is capable of completing beautifully. She was skating in front of other skaters and just generally in lala land. So I chided her. By the end of the practice, she had run through her program once without falling on her sit spin and her compulsory program with some speed. She wasn’t great, but she was better. We drove home, stopping at the car dealership to pick up the used car Mike and I have purchased. We traded in Mike’s old Jaguar, which he loved, for a Honda Civic that gets 38 MPG. We need the car so I can drive Grace to Omaha for lessons without spending $200 a week on gas in addition to ice fees and coaching costs. It’s a worthwhile sacrifice, but a sacrifice nonetheless (for Mike, at least: I hated that Jag). Then I took Grace and Lucy to see the Lightning Thief and then to the salon for Grace’s highlights. Last night we lazed around and Grace enjoyed her new hairdo.
For me, Dan and Lucy’s hockey is easy. They are on teams. When their teams lose games, they lose with their team. They may be disappointed, but they never bear the responsibility alone. They play games nearly every week not once every six months. My greatest worries with hockey have to do with Dan and Lu getting enough ice time for practice and with Lucy being treated fairly as a girl playing with boys. But Mike is one of the highest rated hockey coaches in Nebraska and he played hockey as a kid. He knows how to watch out for our kids. Figure skating is a whole different ball of wax. When Grace is thriving, I’m elated with and for her; when she struggles, she’s a wreck and so am I. I have no idea how to be a good Mom to her in either moment and, again, the lists of do’s and don’ts for figure skating parents don’t help too much. Maybe I worry too much, but the reality is that Grace’s coaches have lots of other skaters. They care about Grace, but not any more than they care about any other skater. I’m Grace’s go-to adult and I need to figure this out so my daughter can continue to love her sport, to grow and thrive as a skater and as a person, secure in the certainty that there are no conditions, no caveats, no small print attached to my love for her.
I bought Grace a beautiful new dress for her compulsory program. But what if the new dress elevates the importance of competition, increasing her sense of the pressure around Winterfest? Yesterday, Grace got highlights in her hair to show off the blue of her eyes that match the blue of her Free Skate dress. What if she starts to think that she always has to change how she looks to be good enough for skating?
Week before last, Grace seemed to be skating beautifully, with joy. She was coming off the ice vibrating with pleasure at what she can do. This past week, she has struggled. She’s been tired and slow, struggling with program elements that seemed to come easily the week before. What if I’ve emphasized the competition too much so that Grace’s attention has gotten locked on the possibility of failure instead of on the joy of skating her best in the moment in which she finds herself?
Grace has been skating a lot. She skated fourteen days in a row, had one day off, and is now in the middle of an eleven-day stretch that ends with the competition. In the moment, she wants to skate, but what if I’ve given in to desires that aren’t really good for her? Maybe I should have said “No. You have to take three days off before you can skate again.”
Grace likes to win. But this time I really don’t expect her to medal. She’s skating at a new level against girls her own age who are great skaters as well as against older skaters who’ve been at this level for a while. What if I’ve not done a good enough job of preparing her for skating for herself, to discover what she can do on that day instead of skating to win? What if she peaked too soon so that she can’t successfully skate for herself with joy?
On Fridays, Grace typically gets to the rink after school at about 4:30. She skates with Coach James, takes a little break, and then helps out with the Moylan Learn to Skate program. She helps the adult coaches corral the youngest kids, plays with them, and helps them accomplish skills their coaches are teaching. This past Friday, James couldn’t be at the rink. Coach Jason had a cancellation so Grace had a lesson with him instead.
Grace admires and respects Jason like no other adult in her life. When she makes Jason smile or accomplishes something on the ice that elicits his praise, she is in seventh heaven. When he criticizes her work, she takes it in and works incredibly hard to apply what he’s teaching to her skating. Grace wants to be the skater Jason is always proud of and when she has a rough day, when he calls her out for being sloppy or slow on the ice, she is devastated.
On Friday, Grace’s skating was loose and sloppy as it has been all week. Jason told her so in no uncertain terms. She came off the ice vibrating, but not with joy. She was trying to hold in her disappointment and her tears. She wanted nothing more than to leave the rink. We talked about how she was feeling until she had words to say what she wanted and needed. We decided together that the right thing for her at that moment was to go home and regroup. She went back out on the ice to talk with the LTS director about not staying to coach. Jason called her over and she tried to tell him why she was leaving, but got tongue-tied. I took her home, stopping for pizza on the way, and let her watch movies till bedtime.
Saturday, we got up early and drove to Fremont for her power skating class. She did okay. Not great, but okay. She practiced after class for an hour. I got frustrated because she was repeating elements badly over and over that I know she is capable of completing beautifully. She was skating in front of other skaters and just generally in lala land. So I chided her. By the end of the practice, she had run through her program once without falling on her sit spin and her compulsory program with some speed. She wasn’t great, but she was better. We drove home, stopping at the car dealership to pick up the used car Mike and I have purchased. We traded in Mike’s old Jaguar, which he loved, for a Honda Civic that gets 38 MPG. We need the car so I can drive Grace to Omaha for lessons without spending $200 a week on gas in addition to ice fees and coaching costs. It’s a worthwhile sacrifice, but a sacrifice nonetheless (for Mike, at least: I hated that Jag). Then I took Grace and Lucy to see the Lightning Thief and then to the salon for Grace’s highlights. Last night we lazed around and Grace enjoyed her new hairdo.
For me, Dan and Lucy’s hockey is easy. They are on teams. When their teams lose games, they lose with their team. They may be disappointed, but they never bear the responsibility alone. They play games nearly every week not once every six months. My greatest worries with hockey have to do with Dan and Lu getting enough ice time for practice and with Lucy being treated fairly as a girl playing with boys. But Mike is one of the highest rated hockey coaches in Nebraska and he played hockey as a kid. He knows how to watch out for our kids. Figure skating is a whole different ball of wax. When Grace is thriving, I’m elated with and for her; when she struggles, she’s a wreck and so am I. I have no idea how to be a good Mom to her in either moment and, again, the lists of do’s and don’ts for figure skating parents don’t help too much. Maybe I worry too much, but the reality is that Grace’s coaches have lots of other skaters. They care about Grace, but not any more than they care about any other skater. I’m Grace’s go-to adult and I need to figure this out so my daughter can continue to love her sport, to grow and thrive as a skater and as a person, secure in the certainty that there are no conditions, no caveats, no small print attached to my love for her.
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