T A B L E_ T A L K

Breastfeeding: Discuss how long you should do it and other related issues in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Time For One Thing: Fly-Fishing
By Karen Laws
Rollin' on the river with Dad
(09/21/98)

Who needs experts?
By Beth Kephart
"The Nurture Assumption": A controversial book makes headlines, not sense
(09/18/98)

In defense of parenthood
By Katie Allison Granju
Nature? Nurture? Whatever
(09/17/98)

Drama Queen
Cast your vote for the worst meal a mother ever served
(09/16/98)

I want your sex
By Lisa Moskowitz
Forays into sex selection could result in a nation of girls
(09/15/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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BY CAROL SNOW | We would line up in the stale, drafty gym, our squeaky Keds nudging a stretch of red tape that marked the boundaries of the elementary school basketball court. A few feet across from us, team captains took turns calling names: Tory, then Wanda, Lois, Karen. They were the chosen ones, the First Picks. They swaggered over to their squads and faced us. Hands on hips, eyes narrowed at the remaining pool, they whispered friends' names in the captain's ear. The line thinned until the last kids shuffled off to one team or the other. Outwardly, it was simple gym class bureaucracy: Before we could play team games, we had to pick teams. It went much deeper, of course. We were making the class hierarchy official. We were anointing the winners. We were identifying the losers.

The system was brutal, but in the early '70s, "self-esteem" had yet to become an educational buzzword. "Survival of the fittest" was very, very in. In the gym class food chain, I was plankton. I was small and bookish, with a morbid fear of bodily injury. Technically, I wasn't even picked last: I wasn't picked at all. When the rest of the class had been chosen, I was assigned to whichever team was unlucky enough to have last pick.

For the next 45 minutes, I would guard my easily bruised shins from field hockey sticks. Or I would foul out in kickball. When I mustered up the courage to hit the volleyball (which threatened to shatter my glasses), it just flopped into the net. But nothing was worse than dodge ball: 45 minutes of front-line combat. The balls stung, and they left marks. I'd stay far away from the line that divided the teams, my back practically plastered against the gym wall. I was safe behind my teammates -- until they got tagged out, leaving me in the open field, helpless in a red rubber hurricane. My mother tried to help. She sent my sixth grade teacher a note excusing me from all dodge ball games. That, of course, sealed my fate as a pariah. But I was too relieved to care.

With one exception, I come from a family of Last Picks. My brother may be the only man in America who doesn't fully understand the rules of football. To avoid high school volleyball, my oldest sister took driver's ed three times (now 40 years old, she has never had so much as a fender bender). My other sister once hit a gym teacher with a wayward golf ball. She swears it was an accident.

My mother didn't mind our aversion to sports. She considers sweat unnatural and views an elevated heart rate as a sure sign of an impending stroke. That left my father, a former track star, to search among us for the slightest spark of athletic promise. As the youngest, I was his last hope. When I joined a softball league in the fifth grade, he'd arrive at games early to secure a good seat in the bleachers. From there, if he squinted really hard, he could see me far in the outfield. That's where the coaches banished me after the first practice, figuring that most 10-year-old girls couldn't hit that far.

Despite my athletic inadequacies, I kept trying to find "my" sport. The shortest kid in the fourth grade, I let optimism prevail over reality: I signed up for Saturday afternoon basketball. I'd hoist the ball from between my legs, only to have it rebound against the rim right smack into my head. I was no better at skiing. As the rope tow dragged me face-first up the mountain, I considered which was worse: the humiliation of holding up the line or the aching brain freeze from having snow jammed up my nose. Finally, like every other short girl in the country, I took to the balance beam, envisioning my head on Nadia Comaneci's body. Here my lack of height came in handy and I was so thrilled to be not-awful at a sport that it took me a couple of years to realize that a perfect cartwheel was never going to get me to the Olympics.

Time takes care of a lot. As puberty loomed, athletics mattered less and less and, finally, not at all. I formed friendships with other gawky, giggly girls. We saw gym class as a sweaty inconvenience -- but a perfect opportunity to reapply our blue eyeliner. Besides, by high school, gym class had become positively benign. We were allowed to choose our activities; noncompetitive electives included aerobics, running and sex ed. At last, my mother could stop writing embarrassing notes.

My father, ever the optimist, gave the sports thing one last try. He took me to the golf course and handed me a club. I swung once and missed. I swung again and watched the ball wobble down the hill. "Maybe you should just walk with me," he said.

Once I reached high school, I didn't have time for sports. I was too busy singing in the choir, playing violin in the orchestra and starring in the school play. My parents bought countless trays of bake sale muffins and never missed an event. My mother's approval was unconditional, and I knew my father was proud of me, even though I wasn't the sports star he had hoped for. Following a "Beatles medley" evening, my father, who is tone-deaf, happily hummed "Yesterday" during the car ride home. When I played Pauline, the cantankerous maid, in "No, No, Nanette," he said, "You got more laughs than anyone!" And his eyes shone in a funny way, like he didn't really understand where this ability came from, but he knew it was a good thing.

Without any conscious effort at genetic engineering, I married a man who is, at least physically, quite unlike myself. My husband is 6-foot-3, strong and lean. Put us together, and our daughter should be average. She is not. At 3, Lucy towers over her peers. Her legs are long and strong, her shoulders are square. When she was barely walking, she'd swing like a jungle monkey from the lowest hanging bar in her closet and fling herself down the tallest slide at the playground. Now she's working on her golf stroke.

Things have changed since my childhood. I'm glad my daughter will grow up when girls' sports are finally getting some attention. But after all those years spent convincing myself that athletics don't matter, can I really morph myself into a soccer mom?

The other day, Lucy and I visited a playground that, a prominent sign informed me, assumed no responsibility for accident or injury. Lucy scrambled up a metal ladder that curved over sun-heated gravel. I envisioned head trauma and spinal cord injury and wondered how we would pay her medical bills. Behind her, a curly haired boy about her age made it to the second step of the ladder and began to whimper. "You can DO it," his mother urged. He clawed the next bar and froze. Above him, Lucy hoisted herself onto the top platform, stood up and surveyed the various slides. The boy's mother tried to push his foot to the next step. He remained rigid. "Come on," she hissed. "That GIRL did it!"

I felt a moment's kinship with that little boy (his mother had better start working on those excuse notes right now). Mostly, though, I felt proud of my brave, nimble toddler. So, yes: I will go to all those swim meets and soccer matches and field hockey games. I almost look forward to them. Then again, who knows? Maybe Lucy will find sports dull, messy -- a waste of her time. I've signed her up for a preschool music class, just in case.
SALON | Sept. 22, 1998

Carol Snow lives and writes in Park City, Utah, home of the U.S. Ski Team and site of the 2002 Winter Olympics.