Esther McCarthy: The three kinds of parents you meet at kids' sports events
Esther McCarthy. Picture: Emily Quinn
Do you, like me, find yourself at the sidelines of some pitch on your evenings and weekends?
Remember when spare time used to be flittered away by meeting a friend, or reading a book, or trying on all your earrings and arranging them according to where they’d land on a rainbow?
Now, I find myself shivering next to other people with vested interests in whatever match is going on and entertaining myself by making outlandish assertions about them based on their behaviours.
Here are my top three sideline stooges.
I feel there’s a little bit of us all here, me included. We’re all just trying to do our best, remember that, darling children, when you’re telling your therapists in later years.
This parent is fairly vocal, the way Sabrina Carpenter is fairly sexy.
They will spend the entire match stalking the sideline, like a demented and less charismatic José Mourinho, shouting in an angry/exasperated tone.
“James, James, JAMESSSSS! Move up, will ya? Get in over there. Move, James, JAMES, James, MOVE.” Followed by a string of expletives that would make a Goodfella blush.
Their child will keep glancing nervously over at their dad, the person they admire most in their world, and will try to follow the roared instructions, even when it’s in direct opposition to what their coach is saying.
When little James eventually storms off crying, the parent will start on the other players, the opposing team, the referee and finally, God.
I yearn to tap them on the shoulder and tell them all they are achieving is destroying their connection with their beautiful child, increasing their own chances of a coronary episode and letting everyone know they’re a bit of a knob.
I did suggest to an irate dad a few years ago that he cop himself on a small bit when he started bellowing at a referee, but now his wife doesn’t speak to me, so I figure it’s not worth it.
I just imagine what the poor kid has to put up with on the drive home, internalising that negative voice, sucking out all the fun out of the game. It makes me sad.
Head down, neck that will put a chiropractor’s kids through college, this parent is furiously scrolling, typing, listening, talking on the phone.
They might glance up and murmur a half-hearted “Good job” as their kid jumps up and down, desperate for attention.
The parent will lift their head but not take their eyes off the screen as they say the requisite words and their kid slinks back to the game.
They’ll roll their eyes and say something like, “no rest for the wicked”, or “it’s the only time I get to catch up on my emails”, and we’ll both have to pretend we can’t hear the Candy Crush jingle or see the Whatsapp thread entitled Coffee Catch Up.
Hey, I get it, we’re all desperately attached to our phones in order to get through the day, from Revoluting the fiver for the bus, to checking the calendar to see what day it is, to texting home to turn the oven off.
By all means have a quick check-in, but to spend the entire time buried in your screen is ludicrous. Look up, ya moron, you’re missing the best bits.
You’ll be blind by then from too much blue light and you’ll need them more than they’ll need you.
This is usually a mom. They’ll be jittery, possibly with a couple of smaller kids around their legs, dressed in karate whites over a leotard, practicing the tin whistle.
She is so over-scheduled she has to say everything out loud to remind herself of where to go next. She will have notifications pinging from every app for every activity imaginable.
Her kids, she’ll tell you, “ARE ALL GO” with gymnastics, rugby, tennis, violin, GAA, soccer, swimming, chess, basketball, speech and drama, art class, keyboards, jujitsu, and Japanese.
She will have a fixed grin on her face and a slight eye twitch. She is possibly on cocaine, or very strong coffee.
When she was growing up, she never got to do anything, so she’s determined her kids will reap the benefits of extracurriculars.
Meanwhile, she is killing herself trying to keep all those expensive balls in the air, and those schedules from overlapping and the only time she actually gets to hang out with her beloved offspring is in the car, which also acts as their changing room, dining room, and on that really bad Saturday, their toilet.
She will look back and tsk over the insanity of it all, whilst getting a shout out from one of her darlings on RTÉ’s coverage of Olympics 2028.
See you on the sidelines, gang.
