A picture of mine by me. And of The Me, coincidentally

That's my baby. She has the longest, most beautiful name I could think of at the time of her birth. No, I'm not going to d0xx her and tell you, don't be ridiculous. That's not even the point. The point is, I gifted her with this long, beautiful name and she renamed herself 'Me-me'. NOT 'Mi-mi'... she's not some French whore, Stephen. Me-me or The Me, thankyouverymuch. When she was little(er), whenever there was a question poised such as, 'who wants to go to the store with me?' she would respond, 'ME! ME! ME-ME WANTS TO COME!!' she decided 'Me' was her name and so here we are.

Anyway! Her big brother loves soccer and The Me turned seven this year and when the question was 'who wants to play soccer' I'll bet you can guess the answer. What's been surprising to me is that she's kinda good. She's probably the smartest of all my kids (don't tell the others), she's always had that ability to figure shit out. For instance, during the games while the other seven-year-old soccer-playing girls are self-arranged in a tight circle, surrounding the ball and gently kicking at it (they don't want to hurt each other when they're seven, you see. oh that we could all be seven forever), The Me circles the pack and figures out where the ball is going to pop out. When it does, she has pretty damn good ball control and she's fast as fuck, so off she goes. Don't worry, I'm not calling college scouts just yet, but it is fun to watch.

People with children who want to play soccer in my area have a few different options.

Club Soccer

Club Soccer is for the parents who WOULD have called the scouts by now to check out The Me. They 'play' soccer fifty million times a week and have crazy schedules on the weekends; they travel, y'all. Yes, you read that right. Club Soccer Families with kids as young as 8 will travel out of town for tournaments. A tournament is something like 2 - 4 different games in a weekend, depending on how good the team is.

I try not to judge, and if you played like this as a kid or have your children in a competitive environment like this, I'm sure you (or your parents) have done the due diligence necessary and checked the developmental appropriateness of such intense focus on one activity. Further, I'm certain you've listened to anecdotes from professional athletes who didn't focus on (football, soccer, baseball) until their late teens and yet managed to have fulfilling professional careers. #nojudgement

YMCA

On the other end of the spectrum is the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association). I love the Y. I played at the Y when I was a kid and I worked at different Y's as a teenager and later as an adult. At the Y, the focus is entirely on Teamwork! and Being In Shape! but mostly; Fun! I'm down for all of that, however there's a bit too much of the 'everyone gets a trophy' mentality. Which I'm not ready to get into and discuss, that'll be another post.

AYSO

Then there's the AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization). It's a nice blend of the two. You can find coaches who are REALLY VERY MUCH MORE SERIOUS than others, but even those can be reasoned with for the most part. Kids are taught how to play, and then they play. There's not a ton of time spent on drills at this age which is smart; seven year old kids would quickly get bored and start looking for rollie pollies if you tried that. This is the soccer situation we've chosen and we're enjoying it. The Me is crushing, her brother loves the game to the point of obsession, so he's totally stoked, and we adults get to spend hours of our days driving them to and from practice and sitting in the blistering heat watching them run their little hearts out. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday, no matter how much I complain.

Do you have kids? Do they play soccer? If so, where have you chosen to take them?

Thanks for reading, I look forward to hearing your stories!

Love, bethalea

Soccer / youth sports

"La Masia" Youth Academy Is Still Alive

"La Masia" Youth Academy Is Still Alive

"La Masia" Youth Academy Is Still Alive

Kids Sports; Soccer

Kids Sports; Soccer

Kids Sports; Soccer