Why I’m Low-Key Glad I Caved And Let My 12-Year-Old Join Club Volleyball
I was the mom rolling her eyes at club volleyball for years. I saw the chaos at the local YMCA rec tournaments, the mom screaming so hard she turned purple after a bad line call, the $500 entry fees posted on bulletin boards, all the talk about getting a scholarship before kids even hit high school. I swore my kid would just stick to rec, have fun, no stress, no crazy time suck. Lila played rec for two years, kept coming home talking about how half her team was joining this club out in the next town, how her rec coach said she should try out. I kept saying “maybe next year” for six months straight.
She wore me down. Left the tryout flyer taped to the coffee maker so I saw it first thing every morning. Saved up $180 from birthday checks from her grandma and walking the neighbor’s golden retriever every day after school, handed me the cash in a ziploc bag with a lopsided volleyball drawn on it in purple marker. I couldn’t say no after that. First tryout was a disaster, at least for me. I forgot the water bottle she begged me to pack, ran to the vending machine in the lobby, the root beer I bought fizzed all over my light wash jeans the second I opened it. I stood there wiping sticky soda off my legs with a crumpled receipt, staring at all the other parents who already had matching team bags and $50 hydro flasks, and I thought “what am I doing here?” I almost called her over and bailed right then. At the first parent meeting a week later, I mixed up the head coach’s name—called him Jake instead of Josh—and I was so flustered I hid in the women’s room for five minutes just to get my head straight. No one cared ten minutes later, but I still think about how awkward it was.
Lila came out of tryout glowing. Said she had the best time, got three kills, whatever that means. Got accepted a few days later, and we jumped in. It’s not what I expected, honestly. I went in expecting every parent to be that crazy screaming lady I saw three years ago, but most of them are just like me. Half the time we’re all standing around in the lobby complaining about gas prices for the travel tournaments, swapping leftover granola bars, laughing when someone forgets their kid’s knee pads. There is that one dad, yeah, the one who yells at every ref call so loud his voice goes hoarse by the end of the first game. His daughter is the starting setter, and last month after he yelled at a 16-year-old referee for a close line call, she walked over to the bleachers between points and stared him down until he sat down and shut up. I almost clapped.
I’m not going to sugar coat it, it’s not all good. It’s expensive. I canceled my monthly book subscription and cut back my wine run from twice a week to once to afford the fees and the hotel for the out of town tournament next month. Last month we had practice three nights a week, I was grabbing take out four nights in a row because I didn’t have time to cook, my grocery bill went through the roof. Once I showed up to a tournament with Lila’s jersey inside out, and didn’t notice until the third set when another mom pointed it out. Lila just rolled her eyes and fixed it in the bathroom, but I was mortified for an hour. We left at 6 a.m. for a tournament back in March, I forgot to pack breakfast, we ate gas station donuts that made both of us carsick halfway there. I had to pull over on the side of the highway and let her get out to get fresh air, covered in donut crumbs.
But there’s the small good stuff that no one tells you about, the stuff that doesn’t make it to the cheesy sports recruitment ads. Lila used to cry for half an hour if she lost a rec game, would lock herself in her room and blame herself for every bad play. Last month we lost a tournament in the third set, 15-13, and she was the one who missed the final hit. She walked off the court, high fived all the other team, got in the car, and the first thing she said was “can we get fries? I’m starving.” She complained for like three minutes that her setter didn’t see she was open, then moved on to talking about the new TikTok her best friend made. That’s a change I never would have seen coming, just from playing with kids who care about it as much as she does. She doesn’t even want to play college volleyball, by the way. When I asked her what she thought about that whole recruiting stuff people won’t stop talking about, she said “why would I care about that? I just like getting ice cream with the girls after practice.”
People make it sound like you need all this fancy gear, right? New knee pads, custom shoes, the whole nine yards. Lila wears knee pads my cousin’s daughter outgrew three years ago, they have a big blue Gatorade stain on the left one, and she refuses to get new ones. Says they fit perfect. No one has said a word. Most kids are wearing hand-me-down stuff anyway, half the time I see moms swapping gear in the lobby because their kid grew three inches in a month.
This weekend we have a full day of tournament play starting at 8 a.m., it’s supposed to be 90 degrees and the gym doesn’t have AC, I have a work deadline Monday that I haven’t even started on. I’m already stressing about packing enough snacks, finding a good parking spot, sitting on those hard metal bleachers for eight hours. I still roll my eyes when parents start talking about getting their 12 year old on the “elite” team for recruiting. It’s messy, it’s too expensive, it takes up every free minute we have. Maybe she’ll quit next season and want to do art club instead, that’s fine by me. But I’m glad I stopped saying “maybe next year” and caved. It’s not the perfect fancy high-pressure experience I was scared of. It’s just sticky soda on jeans, donut crumbs in the car, stained knee pads, and seven loud 12-year-old girls cramming into my minivan screaming the latest Taylor Swift song on the way home from practice. That’s more than enough.
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