After the first two years of having my daughter in school and in completive gymnastics, I began feeling a lot like a pimp, or some kind of wrapping paper and pie pusher. …really I did. I started feeling like all of my friends and “family” were avoiding me and my latest super-duper fundraising order form. And who could blame them, who needs a $20 pie or a $15 roll of wrapping paper anyway?
And honestly what does the school or organization get for all of that pushiness anyway? 5-10 percent?
(Now Little Caesars Pizza-kits that is a different story, altogether….we love those…if you are selling I am buying…well, I would be buying if I had any money)
I quit. When a fund raiser comes around I try to give a few dollars (which is highly confusing to the organizers who have no idea what to do with THAT) and I call it a day. Personally, I call it a win – win situation. They get their money and I get to look my friends in the eye. All good.
Which all brings us to today – I pushed my daughter to go back to the second day of High School Pom-Pom tryouts. She refused to go to the first set of tryouts. When her friends made the squad, she was disappointed that she hadn’t even tried.
Anyway miracle of miracle, they had an odd number or something and opened another Pom tryout for the incoming freshmen. So she put her hair in a pony and gave it a shot…. She came hope sobbing…. “I suck, I have no idea what they are doing. I don’t get it, the kick line is so complicated…I will never get it”…and on and on she went.
Being the stellar mom that I am, I said “honey you can’t be that bad. You have good dance experience from gymnastics. You have your momma’s rhythm, thank goodness, it is a wonder I married your dad anyway. …Poor CoCo…. You just have to go tomorrow and try again. I am sure everyone else is feels exactly the way you are tonight. Auntie D said that CanCan was even feeling a lot like you are, and she made it.”
“But MOM, it is expensive. Remember I had to quit gymnastics because we couldn’t afford it anymore?”
“It’s MUCH cheaper than gymnastics.”
“But it is EXPENSIVE!”
[Here then comes the part where mommy should really read the stuff they send home from school and not just sign it]
“I think I can come up with $150 for pay to play, for a school sport. We are not THAT poor”
“No, mom! It is a school club not a sport! You don’t understand!”
[Well of course I don’t, I’m a mom, and therefore I don’t understand anything , and this is me rolling my eyes and dismissing what she is saying.]
“You just go back and try again tomorrow, after that if you don’t want to do it, I won’t make you. But I think it would be good for you to be doing something. This year you have been out of the gym has been so tough on you I think you need something that you enjoy and that you can feel good about. You do your part and I’ll do mine…that always has been and always be the deal.”
She went back the second day and made it.
She was absolutely right. Pompom is not a school sport. Our districts one hundred and fifty dollar pay to play does not apply. It is $725.00 and $375.00 of it for camp is due yesterday and another $150 for camp uniforms is due in a couple of weeks.
I DO NOT FREAKING HAVE IT!
And I have no more rabbits left in my hat.
Can we all say, “Mommy should have let her give up? I should have let her flounder around in her fear of failure or successes or whatever?” I am never really sure which one it is with her. But no, I am just not built like that.
So if any of you happen to have a couple dollars you would like to donate to the cause of getting my oldest back off my computer, interested in …anything and into an activity where smiling is a requirement, she and I would be truly grateful. And I promise, I will not send you any wrapping paper.
