THE RULES HAVE CHANGED. The Sisters on the Sidelines have been given our orders and they are not pretty. We’re pretty, thank you very much. The orders are not. We sisters on the sidelines sit through game after game, slowly developing a bond, getting know one another, identifying each other at first by the child we come to cheer on the field, track, court, or in the pools. But soon we identify one another by who we really are, as is defined by the length of the leash on which our children place us.
A’s mother has been told that she may not ever again wear a ponytail. T’s mother was interrupted from talking the other day during softball when her daughter actually left the bench to run over to us to declare, “You laugh so loud that we can hear you in the outfield.” We howled over that. J’s mother is not allowed to cheer, and so we have the designated mother rule for her, cheering for her when her first-base daughter makes one of her spectacular plays.
How about you? Who’s holding your leash, and what do you have to say about it?
I covered some of this back in the winter, when the game was basketball. Let me cover this again. To the players we have only this to say: This is what love looks like.
Get over it, kids. We’re the Sisterhood on the Sidelines, and we are screaming, shouting, leaping from our chairs, hugging one another, sometimes crying right down onto our shirts because oh, we love how you play the game.
No related posts.
First time here? Here's the idea: 
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh, that was so well written and so very true. Cheer on Sisters! Cheer on!~~Dee
Yo, Dee. Thank so much. I guess you know, too. It’s the wildest sisterhood yet, I think. And I’m a proud, folding-chair-carrying member.
Oh how I love this. I am Tweeting and Facebooking this to all my sisters on the sidelines. We’ve been given withering looks from our boys on the gridiron and wrestling mats. We’ve taken to burying our heads in each others’ shoulders to stifle it. It is such an effort to keep a cork on our emotions, good and bad on the sidelines. But at least we aren’t alone.
Hey. Rebecca: Welcome. And thanks for sending out the sisterhood on the sidelines love. As parents, we are all about how we define love, aren’t we? Even in the face of the scorn of our offspring. So please feel free to do what we do, sister: When they shoot you those nasty looks from the field, shout out, “This is what loves looks like.” That really irks them. Please keep visiting.
12 year old pulled away from 10 second-too long neck sniffs this morning before boarding the bus. She won’t know until she’s a mother that the scent of your child lingers longer than any other. It’s what I miss most when she’s off to camp for two weeks.
Oh, Elissa: She blew the whistle on you. Prolonged neck-sniffing: a penalty in her eyes, and just what love looks like from this side of the playing field. Play on, sister. We’re on the same team.
The leashes evolve as children grow.
While watching “What Not to Wear” with my daughter in her early twenties she declared it was time for me to “stop dressing like a 2nd grade teacher” (sorry 2nd grade teachers everywhere).
She staged a WNTW closet intervention and accompanied me to Victoria’s Secret where I bought my first ever push up bra. A very interesting glimpse into how I look through somebody else’s eyes.
Annoyingly I got all sorts of compliments in the weeks after she’d culled and helped me revamp my wardrobe. It was funny if not entirely fun.
Hiya, Deb: Ah, the leashes evolve. Good to know. I love this story. It’s wonderful. The WNTW intervention is priceless, and now I know how this evolution of the leash unfolds. Thanks, sister. Come back soon.