Mompetition. All moms (and dads) have seen it, felt it, been burned by it, annoyed by it, or, worst of all, engaged in it. Urban Dictionary sums it up well:
The one-up rivalry that moms play making their child seem better, smarter, and/ or more advanced than yours. May involve two or more moms and any number of children, even full-grown.
But how much is this costing us as parents, and how is this affecting our children?
I am the parent to three children who figure skate. If there is any sport out there that wins the prize for top bitchiness, figure skating would be a strong candidate. Women can be downright mean to each other and I have seen this sport bring out the worst in moms and girls. After all, it's primarily an individual sport, where the athletes are directly compared and ranked, often with friends competing against each other. Things can get messy. And if you’re not ready for it, it can get downright ugly.
This is how it typically starts for the unwitting figure skating mom: Your kid is about five years old and you’re looking for activities for them to participate in and skating comes up. “Sounds great! Would be good not to rely on crashing into the boards to stop!” You get a helmet and plastic skates from Canadian Tire and off you go.
Now you’re in the stands and you’re sitting next to the same moms, week after week, often for the entire season. And if your child decides they love to figure skate, then it evolves to multiple seasons, over many years. You chat weekly and develop what you think are friendships. Eventually the conversation turns to the skating tests the kids take and the competitions they attend. Kids develop their skills at different rates so it is not uncommon for there to be an ebb and flow of improvement, or periods where kids plateau, or even regress.
Once you get to this place you are entering the danger zone. There are the normal figure skating moms and then you have the moms that practice mompetition full-on.
Don’t get me wrong - there are lots of normal figure skating moms out there. I have had many lovely conversations with women who are smart, compassionate people who have intelligent opinions on many topics.
But then we have the mompetition figure skating moms and these women will yank you into their vortex faster than you can say “triple flip”. These women are often also very intelligent but are cunning at the same time, turning passive aggression into an art form. Here are a few things that have been said directly to me:
Your daughter is more of a “skills” skater. Translation: Your daughter is a worthless skater because she’s not getting her double jumps (but mine is - so well rounded!).
Why is your daughter is trying that test? I mean, you want her to do well, not just scrape by. Translation: How did this little one catch up to my kid?
If your child passed her test, then mine must have as well. Translation: Your child is a terrible skater and if she can do it, then mine must be able to as well, because she’s much better. Obviously.
I’m not worried that my child is moving to the next level quickly. She’s was big fish in a little pond, and now she’ll be a little fish in a big pond. But she’ll get back to the top soon enough. Translation: My child is obviously the best skater at this club. So proud!
You’re jealous of my daughter because yours is not doing well. Translation: Ok, I have no translation for this one. This is just self-centered and mean. As an aside my response was something to the effect of “Wtf?”
The question remains then, why is it necessary for these moms to even think these things, never mind actually verbalize them?
To answer this question, let’s take a look at the background of these ladies. Typically they were skaters themselves and while they love the sport, but weren’t all that great back in their day. (Let's get real - if they were really good, they wouldn't be sitting next to you at the community rink.) Others are just competitive by nature. On top of this, figure skating is expensive and these moms have the funds to support it and are used to getting what they want, when they want it. The unfortunate common thread is that this type of mom is using their children and any success they have as a reflection of their own success. When their children receive a medal at a competition, it’s not just the child’s success, it’s the mom’s success. And sadly, if the child has an off day and performs badly, by extension that is the mom’s failure… which doesn’t go over well. This is when you see a mom berating their child for “not trying”, or a child huddled in a corner because she is “hiding from her mom”. (Sad, true stories.)
The vortex that the mompetition figure skating moms spin in consists mainly of conversations about skating and various children’s achievements: who is landing what jumps, who is passing what tests, who is medaling at competitions. It’s exhausting. One time I had to listen to couple dissect at length how their daughter, who was nine at the time, didn’t medal at a competition she participated in. They eventually surmised that the judges must have gotten the results mixed up between the skaters because that’s the only thing that made sense to them. I suffered through this for three hours and I was ready to stab myself in the eye at the end of the day.
Given my kids have been skating for almost 10 years now, I’m getting pretty good at spotting the moms I want to avoid. It’s fairly easy once you know what you’re looking for, and it’s transferable to any sport out there. Here are some clues:
- She always wants to talk about the sport in question and is often asking questions about your own child’s progress.
- She talks to you but doesn’t look at you because she’s too absorbed in watching her child.
- She often complains that the coach isn’t paying enough attention to her child.
- She will use phrases like “provide opportunities to thrive” to justify over-programming.
There are a few very key points that I’ve learned to survive the vortex. First and most important: Do not let yourself enter the stressful state of comparison. Be happy for someone else’s success because there is plenty to go around. It really doesn’t matter how well someone else’s child is doing in comparison to yours. Be happy for how your child is doing, just the way they are.
Secondly: Be supportive no matter the results. Once that gate is closed a skater is on their own and it’s up to them to perform. If they love the sport they will want to do well and they will own that responsibility. Be equally supportive for them not only when they do well but also if they do not. Kids are smart and pick up on subtleties and nuances. If you are disappointed when they have a bad performance, they will know. It is important to be authentically happy for them - no matter what. It is not uncommon for a child to verbalize “My mom doesn’t really care how I’m doing, she just wants to brag to her friends about me.” Do you want to be that person?
Finally: Don’t force your kids to talk about their sport. Yes, difficult! What’s the harm, right? You’re spending a lot of time and money on this sport, you’re personally invested, why not talk about it? Trust me. Everyone will be happier if you don’t talk about it. When I pick up the kids from the rink I ask “How was your session?” and if something great happened, they tell me. If it wasn’t a great session, they don’t want to talk about it and that’s totally fair. Do you always want to talk about a bad day?
So why the hell are we still doing this with all this bad stuff? Well, the truth of the matter is figure skating is an awesome sport. It combines music and rhythm with strength, agility and beauty. It teaches you to work hard. It teaches you that even if you fail, you have to to get up and work some more. In an age where everyone gets a medal and is a winner, figure skating humbles you. It is extremely difficult and takes many hours of practice to even be mediocre. But when I ask the kids why they like it so much they tell me that they feel like they are flying. How amazing is that? So I grab a coffee and sit with the normal moms and try to avoid the nonsense. It’s all worth it.
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