The trouble with cheerleading
For the past three years, Laura has bugged me about being a cheerleader. Back in the day—I said in my most crochety tone—we didn’t have cheerleading in elementary school, I expect because we also didn’t have football. And while I don’t have really serious problems with either cheerleading or football on general principle, I hate so much the way it’s handled at Orange Elementary that I have to restrain myself from running over the parents in their handy folding chairs all watching the practices as they block the driveway with their giant SUVs when I’m trying to pick my daughter up from her after-school program.
I know, I know. I’m probably just jealous that even with my supposedly flexible job I can’t take off afternoons to sit and watch my kids do sports. Maybe I’m jealous about their SUVs because I’m driving this virtual antique of a car, literally as old as my fifth-grader (although not when it’s time to fill up—gas was $3.09 in Rolling Hills today!! My God!). I’m also a notorious athletic spoil sport, admitting freely that I have never understood the attraction of organized team sports, much to the dismay of everyone around me. I really do watch the Super Bowl to see the commercials. But that’s not my real problem.
The real problem is the shaking-your-booty thing. I would prefer my ten-year old not shake hers in front of people. Maybe if there were one or two boy cheerleaders, or one or two girl football players I might not have such an issue with it. But I have no intention of allowing my daughter to participate in an activity that means not only does our entire family have to give up any semblance of life four weeknights plus Saturday mornings each week, but also means she is a sexual object at the ripe old age of ten—and plenty of these girls are younger.
If this cheerleading was athletic, physical exercise, a real sport—if that were it, it’d be fine. We’d still have a scheduling nightmare, but we might be able to work around that. But the bumping and grinding! The choreographed routines! Here cheerleading is more of a short skirt pom-pom waving erotic dance routine, complete with glamour shots to accompany the season. I hesitate to define this globally as a southern phenomenon, since for all I know, it could just be specific to Orange—maybe it’s just the one cheerleading coach here in town?
Either way, though, I can hear them right now, all the angry parents—how dismissive I am of sports! How girls who participate in sporting events are less likely to be anorexic and more likely to be confident! How my snobby reverse class jealousy is the real problem here! I know all too well the counterarguments. A year or two ago I expressed some of these sentiments in a very much more understated way to Kristina’s mother, and I’m afraid I may have hurt her feelings—this was before I knew she was so vested in cheerleading that not only was her daughter on the squad every year, but she actually offered to take Laura along with her to every single practice and game, without me needing to do one lick of transportation—because she felt it so important that my daughter cheerlead. I don’t mean to judge Kristina’s mother, or anyone else. But I simply cannot get past that booty shaking.
So my problem is the cheerleading, and that’s fine. But there’s also this other person involved, my daughter, who has different problems and different ideas. At what point does my enforcing my ideas about her life get a little out of hand? Why, if she wants to cheerlead, won’t I just let her? Imagine the difficulty, explaining to a person you are raising to be independent, that you cannot permit something important to them. Well, I’ve tried, at the beginning of every year. Every August I lay out the schedule arguments—which I’m afraid are dreadfully insurmountable. I really cannot be a carpool mom with my job. But it got much harder the year Kristina’s mom trashed that rationale with her offer. Finally I did what I probably should’ve done before—just explained to Laura my objections, my desire that she be valued for her mind and not her body, that even though it’s only elementary school cheerleading, it has a cultural message behind it that disturbs me. She doesn’t entirely buy this argument, I think, but maybe she respects it—because this is the first year she hasn’t nagged me about being a cheerleader.
Today I waited in the school driveway behind yet another Hummer-sized SUV, watching one mom try to hold onto her younger child while keeping an eye on practice and talking quickly with the car’s driver. Will wondered why all the boys kept falling down, and I explained about stretching, and still we waited. When the discussion broke up and the car pulled ahead so I could pass, I could see the girls getting water out of the back of another SUV, a gaggle of slim blonde girls, cute as buttons, clearly the popular kids. I couldn’t help but wonder again if my difficulty is less with my feminist principles and more with my own memories of an isolated and unpopular girlhood, which thankfully, my daughter seems well on the way to avoiding. Maybe in middle school the cheerleading changes tone. Maybe it gets more about the athletics and less about sex, as the coaches and the kids themselves become more conscious of themselves as sexual beings, before they embrace that sexuality (please God let that be in high school. or maybe college?). All I can say is the terrible mixed message I keep giving Laura, trying to offer both hope and realism: “We’ll see, honey. I really doubt it. Maybe, if things change, maybe next year.”
I know, I know. I’m probably just jealous that even with my supposedly flexible job I can’t take off afternoons to sit and watch my kids do sports. Maybe I’m jealous about their SUVs because I’m driving this virtual antique of a car, literally as old as my fifth-grader (although not when it’s time to fill up—gas was $3.09 in Rolling Hills today!! My God!). I’m also a notorious athletic spoil sport, admitting freely that I have never understood the attraction of organized team sports, much to the dismay of everyone around me. I really do watch the Super Bowl to see the commercials. But that’s not my real problem.
The real problem is the shaking-your-booty thing. I would prefer my ten-year old not shake hers in front of people. Maybe if there were one or two boy cheerleaders, or one or two girl football players I might not have such an issue with it. But I have no intention of allowing my daughter to participate in an activity that means not only does our entire family have to give up any semblance of life four weeknights plus Saturday mornings each week, but also means she is a sexual object at the ripe old age of ten—and plenty of these girls are younger.
If this cheerleading was athletic, physical exercise, a real sport—if that were it, it’d be fine. We’d still have a scheduling nightmare, but we might be able to work around that. But the bumping and grinding! The choreographed routines! Here cheerleading is more of a short skirt pom-pom waving erotic dance routine, complete with glamour shots to accompany the season. I hesitate to define this globally as a southern phenomenon, since for all I know, it could just be specific to Orange—maybe it’s just the one cheerleading coach here in town?
Either way, though, I can hear them right now, all the angry parents—how dismissive I am of sports! How girls who participate in sporting events are less likely to be anorexic and more likely to be confident! How my snobby reverse class jealousy is the real problem here! I know all too well the counterarguments. A year or two ago I expressed some of these sentiments in a very much more understated way to Kristina’s mother, and I’m afraid I may have hurt her feelings—this was before I knew she was so vested in cheerleading that not only was her daughter on the squad every year, but she actually offered to take Laura along with her to every single practice and game, without me needing to do one lick of transportation—because she felt it so important that my daughter cheerlead. I don’t mean to judge Kristina’s mother, or anyone else. But I simply cannot get past that booty shaking.
So my problem is the cheerleading, and that’s fine. But there’s also this other person involved, my daughter, who has different problems and different ideas. At what point does my enforcing my ideas about her life get a little out of hand? Why, if she wants to cheerlead, won’t I just let her? Imagine the difficulty, explaining to a person you are raising to be independent, that you cannot permit something important to them. Well, I’ve tried, at the beginning of every year. Every August I lay out the schedule arguments—which I’m afraid are dreadfully insurmountable. I really cannot be a carpool mom with my job. But it got much harder the year Kristina’s mom trashed that rationale with her offer. Finally I did what I probably should’ve done before—just explained to Laura my objections, my desire that she be valued for her mind and not her body, that even though it’s only elementary school cheerleading, it has a cultural message behind it that disturbs me. She doesn’t entirely buy this argument, I think, but maybe she respects it—because this is the first year she hasn’t nagged me about being a cheerleader.
Today I waited in the school driveway behind yet another Hummer-sized SUV, watching one mom try to hold onto her younger child while keeping an eye on practice and talking quickly with the car’s driver. Will wondered why all the boys kept falling down, and I explained about stretching, and still we waited. When the discussion broke up and the car pulled ahead so I could pass, I could see the girls getting water out of the back of another SUV, a gaggle of slim blonde girls, cute as buttons, clearly the popular kids. I couldn’t help but wonder again if my difficulty is less with my feminist principles and more with my own memories of an isolated and unpopular girlhood, which thankfully, my daughter seems well on the way to avoiding. Maybe in middle school the cheerleading changes tone. Maybe it gets more about the athletics and less about sex, as the coaches and the kids themselves become more conscious of themselves as sexual beings, before they embrace that sexuality (please God let that be in high school. or maybe college?). All I can say is the terrible mixed message I keep giving Laura, trying to offer both hope and realism: “We’ll see, honey. I really doubt it. Maybe, if things change, maybe next year.”
posted by Lisa at 8/30/2005 09:47:00 PM
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