Gold Medal Moms

Watching an Olympic athlete standing proudly on the highest podium at the awards ceremony, the country’s flag raising slowly above the victor’s head, and the national anthem playing throughout the venue is always heartwarming and inspiring.

While it’s an emotional moment for any viewer, it must be absolutely overwhelming for the athlete’s mom. 

Let’s face it.  She deserves a medal, too.

As the team mom for my son’s many baseball teams, I can vouch for the effort involved in making it through the rungs of athletic achievement.

Everyone talks about the swimmer waking up at 4am each morning to hit the pool and train.  It’s grueling.  It’s tough. Kudos to all the kids doing that.  Hooray for them!

What’s even harder is waking up at 3:30am to get a head start on prying said athlete out of bed.  That can be an Olympic event in and of itself. Typically, it’s a battle of wills.  If it were up to the athlete, they’d sleep past noon. 

Who is there to fight the inclination to snooze a little longer?  Who is there to keep the dream alive?

Mom, that’s who.

And let’s face it.  Most families don’t have Olympic sized swimming pools in their backyard or gymnastic equipment in the basement.   That means that up until a certain age, someone must drive the athlete to practice, meets, and games.  That person is usually, you guessed it . . . Mom.

As the future Gold Medalist sits in the backseat listening to the latest Taylor Swift album or Snapchatting friends, Mom is fighting traffic to get to the next event in time.

She’s often there for the entirety of practice inhaling the smell of chlorine coming from the pool or dust blowing off the field.  She’s usually fighting the boredom that comes from spending hours doing nothing more than watching.

Mom washes the dirty uniforms even though there are times when the stench could knock her out, stands up to the coach when she deems it warranted (which a lot of times it isn’t—but hey—that’s being a mom), and argues bad calls with the umpire at the risk of being sent out to sit in the car. (For the record, that never happened to me, but there are a few of our fellow team parents back in the day who made that walk of shame).

Mom is there for the trophies and awards and the losses and the injuries that inevitably come along with being an athlete.  She plays ambulance driver through bleeding, concussions, and broken bones.  She encourages her child back to health and ultimately back onto the field or into the pool.

So the next time you see that Gold Medal placed ceremoniously over the head of an Olympic athlete, imagine for a moment Mom standing right up there, too, because in so many ways she’s also earned it.

Truly, there should be a Gold Medal for Mom.