Why youth sports drive parents crazy and 10 more lessons from a mom who's been through it

This column is the second installment in a series on parenting children in the final years of high school, "Emptying the Nest."

A while back, I sat in the aggressive discomfort of the bleachers at my youngest daughter's high school basketball game and vibrated with rage. After nearly 20 years of watching my children play youth sports, I thought I had tamed the "What game are you looking at, ref?" beast that lurks within us all, but no. There it was, roaring to life as my daughter, for reasons clear only to the men with whistles, fouled out in the third quarter.

I didn't yell or suggest that the officials were in cahoots with the other team, as some people to whom I am married did. But I did exacerbate my TMJ. Of course my daughter commits fouls. Everyone commits fouls. But most of these calls appeared ridiculous.

Though not, perhaps, as ridiculous as me. There I sat, a full-grown woman, aware that I was watching the next-to-last season of a decade's worth of high school sports, and ruining it by quietly coming out of my skin over what I considered a few bad calls.

So instead of grinding my teeth into nubs, I finally embraced my ref rage and tried to explore its contours.

What was I furious about, really? That we had paid $24 to watch our daughter sit on the bench? That she comes out of games with bruises all over her midsection and four-inch scratch marks down her arms, but at 5'10" seems to be regularly penalized for playing while tall? That the refs did appear quite chummy with the other team's coach?

No, I was angry because two other adults had been granted temporary but quite specific control over my daughter's life and I did not think they were administering it fairly.

And there was not a damn thing I could do about it.

As I fast approach the final year of my last round of hands-on parenting, I realized that this is the best, and the worst, part about being the parent of a young athlete: We get a taste of what the future holds long before our direct participation in our child's life necessarily comes to an end.

Years before we send them into a world where parents have little or no role — with college professors, bosses, colleagues, landlords, whatever — youth athletics prepare us for a time when our job, as parents, is to sit, watch and cheer (or grind our teeth) when appropriate.

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