My own daughter has been in "mommy and me" gymnastics with me from two to four years old. Mine was the child who broke from the circle of toddlers and made a mad dash for the big girl beams where real gymnasts in shiny leotards and bedazzled scrunchies were double twisting into piles of synthetic blocks. Mine was the three year old who insisted on wearing a black leo instead of pink, because "pink was for babies."
We took a break from age six to age eight because driving over an hour in heavy traffic, in the DC area, to get to a gym seemed ludicrous. Something crazy moms would do. So she became a Stafford Performing Star (singing and dancing) and a little league soccer player who infuriated her Marine Captain coach (we lived a stone's throw from Quantico by then) by picking daisies and singing in mid-field while the ball sailed by.
We hit Texas, land of budding gymnasts, and found a recreational gym where she took a class for an hour a week before honing her Tae Kwan Do skills, but the gymnastics bug was kicking in and soon she was asking for a "real" gym.
That is when I became a "gymnast mother." My daughter hadn't been there a week when she was selected for team and I was introduced to the world of competition, USGA card fees, team leotard costs, team warm up costs, team bag costs, and above all, tuition costs. All this I swallowed like a giant, ugly pill because my daughter was dancing up and down and literally swinging from equipment in joy.
Soon we were introduced to level three hours, and shortly after that, level four hours, and I found myself living at the gym in the observation deck. It really is pretty much like dance Moms, and the people there really are that catty. Since I was there so much and since this was costing our family several car payments to indulge in, I began to work at the gym, first in the afterschool program, and then trained as a pre-team coach for the younger gymnasts. Went to be certified and everything. All the hours my daughter trained (four hours a day, four days a week) I worked, and on the day she did not train, I worked four hours anyway and she helped coach.
Circumstances (the owner of the gym was a raving bitch) required us to move to a different gym, and this one was an hour away from our house. So gymnastics became a six hour a day experience. Two hours in the car, four hours training, me working at the new gym, and us returning at 9 p.m for my daughter to begin her homework. Four days a week.
Did I ever say that driving an hour to a gym was ludicrous?
Yep, that was me. But she was competing, doing great, up to level five, had a body of steel (also shin splints, severs in her heels, lower back pain, two dislocated elbows, hands that looked like a fifty year old construction worker, and a broken finger), but she could run for miles, flip, tumble, dance, vault, cartwheel on a beam, and swing her body around a high bar. She insisted this was the way she wanted her life to be and begged me not to change it. We were both living on the edge of sanity and somewhere in my mind I knew that I was going to have to stop the madness.
It was an injury, not to my daughter, but to me, that brought things to an abrupt halt. I was in hospital for a neck injury, couldn't drive, and my husband (who had been living apart from me anyway) was stationed in Korea. Suddenly Gymnastics simply couldn't be a priority. Ordering groceries to be delivered to the house became important. Finding out if I needed surgery became prime conversation. Getting rides to my doctor appointments and finding a neurologist became hugely important. Having a friend drive my daughter to a local gym to give her something to do and a place to temporarily work out was lower on the list but we did it.
My recovery was rather slow. My daughter and I were both shocked by the sudden end to four days a week of intense training and weekly competition, but sad as it was, and guilty as I felt, I think we both breathed a sigh of relief as time went by and we were both able to say that it would never have worked long term.
It would never have worked with a high school schedule, it would never have worked with all that homework, the late nights were catching up with both of us, and my son was alone way too much. Plus, does anyone who does not have an Olympic dream really need to live in a gym?????
For one summer after that, I tried the role of "volleyball mom," but that was short lived and I was "volleyball manager Mom" instead. Now I am quietly, and happily enjoying the role of "Master Singers Mom." The hours are shorter, the shows are delightful, and it doesn't cost me a thing. wait, I lied, I paid fifty bucks to alter the dress for her concert!! That's like one bejeweled arm of a competition leotard, so I'll take it!
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