Why I stopped overthinking and threw my 12-year-old into club volleyball
Last spring, after my daughter’s final rec league volleyball game, we stood in the Walmart parking lot staring at the car, my melting pint of mint chocolate chip dripping down my wrist because I forgot to grab a freezer bag on the way in. She kicked a loose chunk of asphalt across the asphalt and moped that half her team was quitting to do club, and next year she’d be stuck playing with 8-year-olds who still don’t know you can’t catch the ball and run with it.
I’d been hearing about club volleyball from other moms at school for a year by that point, and I’d always side-eyed it hard. I pictured crazy parents yelling at 13-year-old refs, $300 custom knee pads, people treating a weekend tournament like it’s the Olympic finals. I’m the mom who lets my kids eat cereal for dinner twice a week and forgets to sign permission slips half the time. Hyper-competitive extra curriculars weren’t my vibe.
But she kept asking. Bugged me for three weeks straight, left the tryout flyer her rec coach gave her taped to the bathroom mirror. So I signed her up, didn’t even tell my sister because I knew she’d call me crazy for wasting the money. Tryouts were weirder than I expected. I sat in the bleachers with all the other parents, everyone whispering about which coach was better for college recruiting, and I had no clue what that even meant for a 12-year-old. I brought a novel, couldn’t read a single page because I was nervous she’d embarrass herself. She did, actually, tripped over her own feet going for a low pass, landed in a heap in the corner by the bleachers. I wanted to jump up and grab her and leave, but she just got up, brushed the dust off her shorts, and kept going. Made the B team, whatever that means, and came running out of the gym grinning like she’d won the lottery.
First parent meeting, I showed up 10 minutes late because I had to pick my son up from soccer practice first, and I was wearing my old stained college running leggings. Everyone else had matching team hoodies and giant rolling duffels that I later googled and found out cost more than my weekly grocery budget. I accidentally stood by the A team group for five minutes before someone gently told me I was in the wrong spot. My face got so hot I thought I’d pass out. That’s when I thought, okay, I made a mistake. This fancy competitive stuff isn’t for us.
But we went anyway. Practice is 45 minutes from our house, every Tuesday and Thursday, 6 to 8 pm. Half the time she forgets her knee pads, I have to get off the highway and turn around, and we yell at each other the whole way back, then she apologizes and buys me a fountain Coke at the gas station to make up for it. We sit in traffic on the way home most nights, and she tells me all the stupid team drama: who’s fighting with who, who got a new golden retriever puppy, how the coach chews gum so loud you can hear it over the whistle. I used to think all this driving would be a huge waste of my time, that I could be home getting laundry done or answering work emails. But lately I’ve started liking it. It’s the only time she doesn’t have her phone glued to her face half the time, actually talks to me like a real person instead of grunting one-word answers.
Last month we had a tournament two hours away, on a Saturday I was supposed to meet a deadline for work. I rescheduled it anyway. She sat the entire first round, sat the entire second round, didn’t get in for a single point. I watched her on the bench swinging her legs, smiling and cheering for her teammates, but when we got to the car after, she broke down crying. Said she thought she was terrible, that she didn’t belong there. I was furious. Pulled out my phone to text the coach, was gonna say we’re quitting, this is bullshit, my kid comes to play not sit on the bench all day. Then she stopped crying, wiped her nose on her sleeve, and said “But Lila saved me a slice of pepperoni pizza after the game, and we’re getting matching team necklaces next week. Can we stay for one more month?” So I deleted the text.
It’s not all great, obviously. It’s not cheap. I canceled my monthly massage I’ve gotten for 10 years to pay the fees. We skip going out to dinner most weekends now. My back aches for two days after every tournament from sitting on those cold metal bleachers for six hours straight. Last weekend I forgot to pack snacks, ended up paying $7 for a warm granola bar from the vending machine that was so stale it broke my tooth a little. I once accidentally cheered for the other team when they got a really good block, because I was scrolling Facebook and wasn’t paying attention, and the mom sitting next to me gave me a look that could’ve melted ice. I still don’t know all the rules, half the time I clap at the wrong time.
I still don’t know if this is the right long-term thing. Some weeks I’m sitting on those bleachers eating my stale overpriced snack, and I think why am I doing this? I could be at home gardening, or napping, or getting that massage. If she decides next month she’d rather quit and do art club instead, that’s fine with me. I’m not raising a professional volleyball player, I’m just raising a kid who wanted to try something new.
I know a lot of parents are like I was, scared it’s too much, too competitive, too fancy for regular people like us. It’s not all that crazy, honestly. Yeah, there are a few crazy parents, but most of them are just sitting there like me, sore backs and all, just glad their kid is off their phone doing something that isn’t scrolling TikTok. If your kid is bugging you about it, you don’t have to overthink it like I did. You don’t need the fancy gear, you don’t need to have dreams of a scholarship. It’s okay to just let them try. And if they hate it, you quit. No harm done. I still haven’t bought her that rolling duffel, she uses my old gym bag from college, and no one’s said anything about it. Well, except me, but she doesn’t care. So that’s that.
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