The best mother’s day gift ever!

So it’s been a long hard two years as a cheer mom…cheerleading that is. Tori proclaimed to me at the beginning of the two years that this was her dream - her ambition - to be a competitive cheerleader!

I remember thinking…huh? Since when is cheerleading a sport? I now know the answer - obviously since I was one! It’s tumbling, stunting, conditioning, hip hop dance….it’s quite an ordeal. My friends and I were all cheerleaders and dang, it wasn’t much more than putting on a skirt, showing up looking cute and cheering with some pom poms! Boy have things changed.

So since that first conversation it’s been…driving the 20 miles back and forth 2-3 times a week - right in the heart of traffic, giving up most weekends during the 9 month competition season to last minute practices, getting up at 6am on Saturdays before a competition to do hair and makeup for my daughter and my friend’s daughter (it takes TWO hours!!!) and giving up two vacations to Mexico to accommodate rule changes that the girls can’t miss a practice two weeks before a competition. Ok, so I’m venting….I would do just about anything to support my daughter’s dreams and ambition to be what she wants to be.

What was terribly painful was to support my daughter’s involvement in a club that seemed to care more about winning than about the fragile preteen egos placed in their care for many hours a week. In some cases I’m sure the cheerleaders spent more time with their coaches at the club than with their own families.  They had to show up if they were sick, they were not allowed to miss practice for any school events that were not absolutely mandatory, they had to be completely totally devoted to the place.  I started to think, how odd, I’m so all about girl’s self esteem and making them believe they can do anything - and yet my own daughter was being drawn into the opposite thought patterns.

After venting to my mom and dad, my boyfriend, fellow moms…I realized I needed to let it play out and let Tori do her thing. I also acknowledged that the club made it clear if we didn’t like the rules we could leave.

A few weeks after I did that, on mother’s day to be exact, my daughter shocked all of us at the dinner table by announcing she was taking a break from cheerleading.  I beamed with pride - Tori had figured it out all on her own.  The self esteem and pride I had worked so hard to instill in her came shining thru as she took a huge step by walking away from an unhealthy situation.  What a great gift for me!