For many months I have had the Sør Cup marked on the calendar. Friday to Tuesday. Since my husband has not started the holiday yet, I was the one to travel with the kids.
Air mattresses were borrowed, and we got an extra sleeping bag. Football clothes, calfskin, towels, T-shirts, pants, sweater, rain jacket. The packing list was long.
Four kids, crammed luggage compartment and the music at full blast. Off to Sørlandet. I had been so lucky to spend the night at the cabin of a friend with the two children who were not to participate in the cup. Holidays for everyone. Without it costing the shirt.
A few hours later I was at a school with a whole bunch of kids and parents. An entire army of parents. Someone inflated mattresses. Others searched for bags. The kids were ready for the festival and the joy of football. One mattress was bigger than the other. The pumps went hot.
It was there and when it dawned on me. What in the world was I doing? I felt my own pump turn.
I rewinded my life to the 90s, to the time I myself went on a handball trip to Kristiansand. It was usually by train, with the coaches and a few parents. Alone with the sleeping pad and sleeping bag. Responsibility for keeping things in order, filling the water bottle and sticking to the rules.
We forgot everyday that weekend. A taste of freedom. And responsibility. The love and joy of sports vibrated in the air. There were many short and intense romances during a weekend. Countless matches over a weekend. So many own teams we had to cheer on.
And the songs we heard and the memories we created! On Sunday we went home to mom and dad and could live a long time on one weekend.
Suddenly I was back in the present. In a dormitory at a school in 2022. Mother of four. I checked Spond and various message groups. The goal was to see as many matches as possible, and not least to learn where the different courses were. Some of the teams should have one match per day. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.
Around the dinner table at the cabin, tomorrow was to be planned. One team had had its first match at. 10 in the morning, they should have the next day after kl. eight. It’s early morning for you, I commented. No then, it’s tomorrow night at 20.00!
Good day man ax handle. What happened to logistics and respect for other people’s time? A tournament that runs from Friday afternoon to Tuesday morning consumes both children, parents and the wallet. Here I give a black camel to the organizers. Which for the most part had a great setup for the kids. Most went on rails.
But it must be possible to arrange a tournament without thinking that the kids will have time for the Zoo, water park, beach life and whatever one may want. It becomes both expensive and monotonous to live on tournament food for days. Especially when the matches are played so rarely.
Fortunately, the sun usually shines in Sørlandet.
The kids and we parents are enjoying ourselves to death. Heia Frøyland, heia Frøyland! An enormous joy when the boys succeed on the field. Disappointment that lies behind us when it does not go the way.
Next year we have to make a real cheerleading gang, I think. We can really make the most of this trip. The train of thought is interrupted by the coach of one of the boys coming to meet me and asking me where the pod has gone. The heating has lasted for 10 minutes already.
I run perplexed around the area to find him. Loses the 7-year-old in a drawing tent on the road. Luckily found her again.
Ah! Festivallivet!
What would the team have done without me, I think, where I have happily found my son. The fight is on. Heia Frøyland, heia Frøyland. The whole neighborhood from the home village is present. It’s almost like going to the local store.
At the time of writing, I get a phone call from my friend. Neither her son nor mine answer the phone. The warm-up is about to start. I’m calling around. No answer. Message ticks in; now they came. The crisis averted.
Heia Frøyland, Heia Frøyland!
Slightly sun-blown, I am now sitting in the cabin with two of the kids. Tomorrow awaits the last match, before the car is packed and Rogaland waits. I’ve been thoughtful this weekend. The brood on this post. What will happen to the next generation?
I’ve been worried for a long time for us to wrap the kids in cotton. Grease food packages for them, drive them around and make sure that the dope paper for the work day is sold.
Now the madness must have reached the summer cups as well. We adults have officially taken over all the arenas our kids have. Presumably terrified that they will not master life. A flat mattress. The water bottle that was left at home. The idea that they do not meet prepared.
Who will take care of us when we end up in the old people’s home, asks a friend I meet between the matches. We sew pillows under the kids’ arms, she says. Before we both rush off on each of our fights.
We are both painfully aware that we are fighting a common battle. The struggle for parenthood and parenting. The need to let go. At the same time a feeling of being in control. The desire to be a responsible parent. Present.
The kids should go more for lye and cold water.
For kids who have never taken responsibility for own life will have a brutal encounter with adulthood. Maybe someone will take responsibility for us when that time comes, I comfort myself.
But perhaps the best thing would have been that we let our kids go free before that time. Because they need to experience life. Without us parents hanging around them as slightly neurotic and euphoric festival participants.
We’ve had our time at tournaments. Now it’s the kids’ turn.
Cheers to us parents! Can we do it, I wonder ?!
PS: I am happy to be an extra parent contact and team leader at the next tournament.
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